Six new students will be welcomed into AIM Altitude’s apprenticeship scheme in the UK this month, where they will be given hands-on experience and skills. At the end of their apprenticeship and accompanying college course, the young men and women will be fully-skilled, and NVQ3-qualified, engineers.
Terry Bennett, training manager at AIM Altitude, is a great advocate of apprenticeships and has helped to shape the college course itself at Bournemouth and Poole College, where many of the company’s apprentices are studying. “The college now offers Megatronics. This course is half electrical and half engineering, where previously, one or other skill was learned. This caused issues with process flow on the shop floor, with engineers having to wait for electricians to become available, and vice versa. Merging engineering and electrical seemed to me a clear opportunity for improvement and the college was very happy to adapt the training syllabus accordingly.”
AIM Altitude’s apprenticeships have proved popular, with the company taking on around six apprentices each year. 135 students applied for six places in the cabin interiors division in Bournemouth alone.
“This is a qualification and set of skills that a person will carry with them for life, opening endless opportunities. To learn a trade is very important, and engineering is the key to everything. It is the hands-on experience that is vital and highly valued by businesses, said Bennett. “Someone with a qualification alone will not have the same expertise as someone who has the skills learned during an apprenticeship.”
And Bennett should know, as he was an apprentice himself with the Royal Navy and has since worked with AIM Altitude for over 24 years.
Richard Bower, Group Commercial Director, commented: “The benefits of our apprentice training scheme are threefold: Talented individuals are given support and training to enable them to reach their potential; AIM Altitude gains highly-skilled members of staff; and the aviation industry is supplied with fresh thinking and proficiency.”
