Editor in chief, Times of India, India DARK SECRET OF AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE ENGINEERS Respected Sir,
16/05/2013
Aircraft Maintenance Engineering is a licensed 3 years course approved by DGCA (Director General of Civil Aviation), which includes 6 months of mandatory ON Job Training. There are two streams: Mechanical and Avionics. Students must first enrol in DGCA approved AME institutes and complete 5 semesters with passing marks in each subject being 70%. In addition to completing the 5 semesters, students have to clear DGCA AME Licence Examinations i.e, Paper-1, Paper-2 and Paper-3 to obtain their Basic Aircraft Maintenance Engineers Certificate (BAMEC), passing marks being 70%. Each year has three sessions of examinations conducted in February, June and October. This course is neither a degree nor a diploma (unlike the other countries where it is equivalent to degree) due to which students cant apply for a job outside aviation and neither can they pursue their Masters. There are 70 DGCA AME training institutes in India but half of them are still functional despite of lapsed approval. An AME schools approval lasts for one calendar year following which approval is renewed after a DGCA audit which involves inspection of infrastructure and student records. But this process his fully rigged as the DGCA officials like to do the work under the table and so the audit is just a formality. They are paid hefty sums of money, to keep quiet while these colleges keep on looting the hard earned money of the innocent students. During a new admission, when there are new students who would want to consult the seniors about the college, a huge gap is created by allocating holidays, due to which the newcomers are ignorant about the quality of the college and ultimately fall into a huge trap. Students are lured into this course with false promises of placements and huge salary packages on completion of the course which is far away from the truth. Students are forced to sign an affidavit which also involves a non-refundable deposit clause, due to which students cant leave the college even if they are not satisfied. And the worst part is, even some print media publish stating that AME is a course with a job guarantee, due to which thousands of students are motivated to take this course. And yes, there are around 60,000 AME students qualified, but jobless. Newspapers should stop doing that. The quality of the AME training schools is highly substandard. The same equipment and infrastructure required for the audit is taken into different colleges. Everything about most of the training colleges is fake, but there is no authority to look into this grave matter, wherein thousands of students are put into a grave danger of a dark future. The officials of the regulatory body DGCA, know the fact but dont care as they get their part of the share. It is not only the AME training schools and the DGCA that are corrupt, even the airlines where the aircraft maintenance engineers are employed, are equally corrupt. The airlines never publish the
vacancy in the newspapers or website and students are not aware. Even if they are aware, they dont get job because you either have to pay a huge amount to get a job or somebody in the inside should recommend, which we would like to call as JACK. Even for the On Job Training, students have to pay money. As of now, Air India takes INR 30,000 for training of 6 months, whereas the other airlines charge as high as INR 80,000. The sad part is students are bound to go for it, as experience matters a lot in this field. Airlines demand experienced engineers but deny providing training. How are the students supposed to be experienced if none of the airlines is willing to employ them? This is a field of engineering where people would be proud to say GOD MADE AIRCAFT ENGINEERS SO THAT PILOT CAN HAVE HEROES TOO, but is hollow and pathetic from inside. Thousands of students get enrolled in the course without being aware about what future holds for them, dreaming about being a professional and respected engineer one day who would sign off huge aircrafts, not knowing that it would be shattered into pieces. It is so hard to imagine the situation of students like me who take lakhs of rupees of loan to take up the course, which has nothing to offer. The training institutes sell the dreams of huge salary like hot cakes. The DGCA, which is the sole authority, is to blame for this MESS. Dear Sir/Madam, I am a student of this course myself. This is just the tip of the iceberg as there are many other dirty secrets in this field. If I am not being able to convince you, you yourself can investigate the matter with your own methods. The quality of the education in this field is filthy low, due to which other nations would not want to recognise Indian AMEs. If this mess is brought into light, we could save thousands of innocent students from falling into these traps and also improve the quality of the training of the AME institutes. This is what I can do from my end. A small vibe from your end would be of great help. I request you to bring this matter into limelight. I would be ever ready to answer all your queries.
Regards, Rohit Rizal
