Pretoria, South Africa, 16 June 2021. Paramount Aerospace Systems, subsidiary to aerospace and technology company Paramount Group, has announced that its Technical Aviation Academy has strategically re-located to Wonderboom National Airport, adjacent to the company’s advanced aircraft manufacturing facility.
For the next generation of young Africans looking for a career in aviation, prospective students of the Academy are encouraged to register and join for the July 1, 2021 intake.
Paramount Group originally launched its Technical Aviation Academy in Polokwane, and has from its inception offered internationally-recognized aviation courses to train Africa’s future aircraft technicians, as demand for these professionals continues to scale across the continent and around the world.
The three year aviation technician course offered by Paramount’s Technical Academy encapsulates training across the Mechanical Technician and Avionics Technician trades, respectively. Mechanical training is conducted upon all aspects of the aircraft, from the airframe, hydraulics, piston engines, turbine engines, undercarriage, pneumatic systems, to the fuel systems. Avionics training certification equally covers all aspects of the aircraft avionics sector; namely, aircraft instruments, electrical systems, radios and navigation systems, as but examples.
Throughout the program, students are taught contemporary and comprehensive thought theoretical subjects followed by on-site, practical exercises to apply each specific module.
A forecast recently published by Boeing reports that over 27,000 new technicians will be needed in Africa alone by 2038. Moreover, newer aircraft will require different skills to maintain as compared to legacy aircraft, however both are still in widespread use on the continent and around the world. This demand has been exacerbated by the outbreak of COVID-19, wherein numerous internationally-certified aviation maintenance technician schools suspended operations entirely.
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, aviation contributed $63 billion to the GDP of African economies and supported 7.7 million jobs. Paramount Aerospace Systems’ CEO Brian Greyling suggests that in the wake of a potential global economic upturn, these findings create a sense of urgency for the aviation industry.
“From our decades of experience in training aircraft technicians for air forces on the continent and around the world to our Academy hosting modules that are tried and tested, practical and designed for direct application in meeting real world demand with accredited supply, Paramount will continue to offer Africa globally-recognized and highly qualified training personnel,” Greyling stated.
“There have long been deficits of home-grown talent from within South Africa’s aviation technician and MRO industries, largely due to insufficient training capacities in-country, which then resulted in a ‘brain drain’ of our brightest and best. As we return to the skies at the precipice of COVID-19 recovery, we at Paramount look forward to the opportunity to serve as a hub of high-skills learning and achievement from Pretoria, to provide hands-on instruction in educating the next great aircraft technicians of Africa. African aviation needs 2021-industry oriented technicians with the latest training, and needs them now”.
