CAAC Southwest ATMB, New Zealand Air Traffic Management organize OJTI

The Southwest Air Traffic Management Bureau (ATMB) of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), in cooperation with the New Zealand Air Traffic Management Company, organized a training program for instructors. The On-The-Job Training Instructor (OJTI) course is a specialized three-week training for Air Traffic Control (ATC) instructors, held in New Zealand from January to February 2008. Participants, coming from the Yunnan Branch ATMB, were sent to New Zealand to learn foreign advanced training systems, improve their ATC instructors’ teaching skills, and develop their full potential as ATC instructors. The OJTI course was divided into two parts. The first part included two weeks of ATC instructor training and the second part consisted of one week of follow-up practice. The theory on training incorporates academic methods with actual practice. The training was divided into regular class instruction and simulator practice. The simulation training focused mainly on developing the teaching skills of the participating ATC instructors. The training syllabus also covered relevant subjects on psychology, teaching methods, the establishment of a training plan, and synthetic evaluation of training results. These practices are being carried out in New Zealand’s local air traffic control centers. The participating ATC instructors from the Southwest ATMB of the CAAC learned foreign advanced control processes and management methods throughout the duration of the training exercise. These provided the trainees with excellent references for future control training work. The ATC instructors who underwent the training achieved a fresh outlook on several advanced methods of training. They realized the need to enhance several areas of their own training methods and learned that their teaching styles can still be improved and developed. Throughout the OJTI program, the participants also learned to recognize imperfect training systems, identify substandard training hardware and software, enhance their own training and examination systems, and develop important materials to be used for their own individual instructions. After the training, the Yunnan Branch ATMB under the direction of Southwest ATMB of the CAAC are now working on these defects, and hope to attain international standards. It is expected that the training work in China will be more systematic and institutionalized in the coming years. This will further help the ATMB in achieving a safe and effective air traffic management for the country’s ever-growing air transport industry.