AAAU Urged to Remain Specialised as FG Seeks Expansion of Aviation Programmes
Oru Leonard
The Federal Government has directed the African Aviation and Aerospace University (AAAU), Abuja, to remain focused on its specialised mandate as it expands its academic offerings to meet the growing demand for skilled aviation professionals across Africa.
Speaking at the university’s third matriculation ceremony on Thursday, the Minister of Aviation and Aerospace Development, Festus Keyamo, represented by the Permanent Secretary, Mahmud Adam Kambari, said the institution was established as a strategic investment to address the continent’s shortage of aviation manpower and must not lose sight of its core mission.
He said global projections point to a demand for more than 600,000 pilots, over 700,000 aircraft maintenance engineers and technicians, as well as hundreds of thousands of other aviation professionals in the coming years, with Africa expected to record one of the fastest growth rates in air passenger traffic.
According to the minister, AAAU has a critical responsibility to produce graduates who will serve as innovators, researchers, regulators, entrepreneurs and global leaders within the aviation industry.
He urged the university to broaden its academic programmes by introducing courses in aircraft engineering, aerospace engineering, aviation management, airport operations, unmanned aircraft systems, aviation law, aviation finance, aviation medicine, logistics and supply chain management, meteorology and other aviation-related disciplines.
The minister, however, warned against allowing the institution to drift into becoming a conventional university.
“We have seen situations where specialised universities gradually abandoned their mandates and introduced programmes that barely reflected their core purpose. That will not happen here. AAAU was created as a specialised aviation and aerospace university, and as far as this administration is concerned, that is exactly what it shall remain,” he said.
Earlier, the Acting Vice-Chancellor, Mustapha Abdullahi, described the university’s third matriculation ceremony as another milestone in its development, noting that the institution had grown from an initial undergraduate enrolment of 29 students in 2023 to a current population of 311 students.
He disclosed that 52 undergraduate and 75 postgraduate students were matriculated this year, while more than 50 postgraduate students had already defended their master’s projects.
Abdullahi also said the university had trained over 500 aviation professionals through its Professional Training Directorate and reaffirmed its commitment to producing competent professionals capable of advancing Africa’s aviation and aerospace sector.
He advised the newly admitted students to uphold discipline and academic integrity, stressing that there was no room for mediocrity in the aviation profession because mistakes in the industry could have fatal consequences.
