EC Transport recruiting learners for Air Traffic Controllers Training programme

The Eastern Cape Department of Transport in partnership with Air Traffic and Navigation Services (ATNS) Company of South Africa have recently embarked on an intensive Air Traffic Control Officers (ATCO) recruitment drive in the province.

The aim of this project is to screen suitable candidates for Air Traffic Controllers Training Programme and those learners who are successful will be recipients of the ATNS ATCO Trainee Bursary Programme.

The recruitment process started a month ago and learners who met the requirements that included a Grade 12 pass with Mathematics (not maths literacy) Level 4/ D (HG)/ C (SG) and English level 4/ D (HG)/ C (SG), were urged through various communication mediums to apply at their nearest Department of Transport offices.

In order to identify suitable candidates, ATNS screens the learners by way of a compulsory Occupational Personality (OP) Assessment, a questionnaire that provides an indication of the candidate’s preferred behavioural style in a work situation and it also looks at how a candidate will fit within certain work environments and how he/she will cope with different job requirements.

This initiative is in line with the department’s “Transport Sector Skills Revolution Campaign”, which seeks to ensure that we produce the scarce skills required by this critical sector of our economy.

It also augurs well with its commitment to the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s 2011/12 Campaign that seeks to take civil aviation to more disadvantaged areas of our society, as South Africa continues to place priority on the need to have regional integration with the intention of ensuring the safety of African skies through developing and retaining highly skilled personnel.

Presently, there are more than 300 young people of the Eastern Cape, who have benefitted from the department’s bursaries and they include 285 Africans, 134 females and 115 students who are doing their National Diploma in Civil Engineering.