Captain Victor Kwesi Amoah, Chairman of Kilo Alpha Aviation Holdings (KAAH), has urged the youth to acquire the requisite knowledge in the aviation industry in order to exploit the potentials in the sector as the nation’s oil and gas industry grows.
He said the industry required high level of professional competence and qualification hence the need for the youth to improve themselves to be able to take full advantage of the numerous ancillary job opportunities, which would be generated by the emerging industry.
Captain Amoah was speaking at the opening of a two-day free orientation seminar organized by Kilo Alpha Aviation Holdings, an Accra based aviation management consortium for youth in the three Northern Regions in Tamale.
The forum dubbed: “Global Aviation Career Opportunities”, seeks to serve as an “eye-opener” for the many unemployed youth on the need to be strategically prepared to exploit the prospects in the sector.
It was also to enable participating youth to table their concerns with regards to how job opportunities in the aviation industry could
be achieved.
The seminar which targeted Senior High School and Tertiary graduates, aviation stakeholders, entrepreneurs as well as the media
was organized in three sessions.
Captain Amoah noted that statistics from the World Travel and Tourism Council indicated that various work in the sector was expected to employ about 84 million people globally by 2014 hence the need for the youth to be up and doing.
“Sadly, awareness of the aviation industry, its economic viability and enormous newsworthiness is minimal in many African countries particularly in Ghana. The continent’s youth are hardest hit in this regard as their choice of career remains limited to only few
saturated ‘know industries’, resulting in high unemployment”, he said.
Captan Amoah hinted that as part of efforts to help reduce unemployment in the North, KAAH would organized a range of diploma awarding courses in aviation including Airline Marketing, Customer Service, Ground Operation, with which participants would be able to take up many positions as 21st Century employer.
“We will also prepare such students to also register and sit for the International Air Transport Association examination. All these
efforts are to help bridge the gap between the North and the Southern Ghana “, he said.
He said the Northern Region has the potential of hosting an international airport in the near future and called on the Ghana Civil
Aviation to fast-track efforts to upgrade the Tamale airport.
Latifa Salifu, a participant, expressed her desire to take a course in customer service.
“I have always wanted to take up such a course to be a customer service person but I could not find any in Tamale”, she said.