Aeronautical Engineering School expands capacity as demand grows for more aviation professionals

The Art Williams and Harry Wendt Aeronautical Engineering School has expanded its capacity to facilitate the training of a larger number of students – a critical move in supporting the growth of the aviation industry in Guyana as well as the technical needs of other sectors.
On Wednesday, the school commissioned new premises at its Eugene F Correia International Airport, Ogle, location on the East Coast of Demerara.
Delivering the feature remarks at the commissioning ceremony, Education Minister Sonia Parag said the expanded facility represents an investment in improving the quality of aeronautical training.

“It provides more modern, convenient and first-class facilities in which aviation engineers and other professionals can acquire the knowledge and technical skills required for a demanding and highly specialised industry,” she noted.
According to Parag, this is an investment in the future of Guyana’s aviation ecosystem, which is critical to national development. In fact, she noted that aviation is not merely a sector of economic activity but a lifeline, especially those living and working in the hinterland regions across the country.
“In many parts of our hinterland, aviation is the only reliable bridge connecting citizens to the wider national community, and especially in Guyana, where we have a really unique geography. This is why aviation plays such a crucial role in national integration,” the Minister stated.
She went on to add, “When an aircraft takes off from the coast and lands in a remote hinterland community, it is doing far more than transporting passengers or cargo. It is delivering opportunity. It is carrying medical supplies, teachers, technicians, miners, foresters and entrepreneurs. It is connecting families. It is knitting together the many regions of Guyana into a single national fabric.”
To this end, Minister Parag underscored the importance of Guyana building its local capacity, especially in the aviation sector.
“Aircraft do not maintain themselves… Behind every safe landing and every successful flight is a network of skilled professionals like yourselves. Pilots, engineers, technicians and safety specialists whose training and discipline ensure that the entire system works with precision. This is why institutions such as the Art Williams and Harry Wendt Aeronautical Engineering School are so important.”
“We must ensure that our aircraft are piloted and maintained by certified and highly competent professionals… And so here we are with an expansion of the existing facility being open here to accommodate not just more persons but also to be able to expand the access and the quality of what you’re going to be getting as trainees. So, that is the big success story here,” the Minister stated.
Meanwhile, the expansion of the Aeronautical Engineering School comes at a time when the demand for technical professionals continues to grow amidst Guyana’s rapid economic development, driven largely by its burgeoning oil and gas industry.
In fact, the oil sector has been draining the local aviation industry of its skilled professionals – something which the school’s General Manager Nalini Chanderban said they had already been preparing for.
“We’ve been doing it right. We’ve been changing and adapting as fast as all the sectors demand, including oil and gas,” she stated.
In the same breath, however, Chanderban said the oil companies operating in Guyana were lining up to scoop up the students graduating from the Aeronautical Engineering School. “I had to step back and tell the board, we need to stop. Aviation is crying [because all the] people are moving to oil and gas,” she noted.
Only last year, the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCCA) had bemoaned the situation whereby the aviation industry was losing workers to the oil and gas sector, which was paying higher salaries.
Moreover, the University of Guyana (UG) had similarly stated that its engineer students are being absorbed by oil and gas companies even before they graduate.
Nevertheless, the Art Williams and Harry Wendt Aeronautical Engineering School has now been expanded to facilitate more students. According to Chanderban, the training school has even expanded its curriculum to produce more skilled technical personnel.

“The CVQ (Caribbean Vocational Qualification) that focuses now on those students who don’t have five CXC [subjects] or didn’t finish high school but could work in the fuel farms, or stores or other departments. So, we want to spread it out [across the country]. We’re at ETI (Essequibo Technical Institute), running foundations for Regions One and Two, but we wish to go to Berbice and Linden,” the school’s general manager stated.
Similarly, Minister Parag underscored the importance of building out technical capacity in the country.
She noted that technical and vocational skills are very important. “Why? Because not everyone is an academic. Not everything requires you to be an academic. So, we have to prepare a part of our population for those or to meet those skills requirements. So, you form a very important part of that component of training that we need for our country.”
The Art Williams and Harry Wendt Aeronautical Engineering School was founded 33 years ago with the objective of producing highly competent aircraft maintenance engineers to serve the local aviation sector. It offers modular certificate courses, diploma courses, associate degree and degree programmes that are accredited by civil aviation authorities in Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, Suriname and the Eastern Caribbean nations.