The federally funded AJ Parker Cooperative Research Centre for Hydrometallurgy in Perth holds science teacher enrichment days as part of an Australia-wide effort by the mining fraternity and the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy to enhance the image of mining in the community generally, and particularly in the eyes of primary, secondary and first-year-university students. The centre runs on Commonwealth funding of $18.5 million over a seven-year cycle which is spent on research, education and general administration. The days are designed to “get the teachers interested and informed and their students motivated”, according to deputy CEO Jim Avraamides.
“The centre chose highschool science teachers as its target because of the leverage inherent in their ongoing contact with potential science students. We communicate to teachers -- and hopefully through them to students -- that there are excellent career opportunities in metallurgy that are going begging because there is no one to fill the job vacancies.”
One of the most significant findings in the MTEC report, and perhaps hardest to swallow for mining industry people, is that students are no longer attracted to a mining life. As Tuckwell puts it: “It’s just not sexy enough”
Professional interest areas such as bio-medicine, medicine and information technology streams are attracting the interest of young people over mining careers.
“Today’s younger generation want careers that offer excitement and enough challenges, but overridingly, a lifestyle that matches their high expectations,” said a former University of Queensland student now working in the mining industry.
“They want a city life, by the coast, with all the amenities. Governments aren’t helping. They’re pulling out of the bush, closing banks, reducing subsidies and taking away any concept of a community hub.”
Industry must realise there is competition for talent and lifestyle, and dangling attractive pay packets in front of students’ faces is simply not enough any more, says a Western Australian-based mining company. “The mining industry is less attractive to young people these days, especially families with primary school children. There are also factors such as the isolated location of workplaces, the competition with WA’s oil and gas industries and strong competition between mining companies for the available graduates. There are a lot of other softer career options to attract the high school leaver.”
Tuckwell conceded the industry needed to go back to high school, where the origins of the predicament lay. Fewer students were choosing to study maths and science subjects, he said, which was translating into a dwindling group of potential candidates to draw from. “We would like to see within the school system higher science literacy, and the implication there is that we need more science teachers,” he said. “But we need the kids to be encouraged to take the science subjects. We also have to make certain there are some exciting career opportunities for them when they get out. And at the moment that is where MTEC and organisations like us and the state chambers (of Minerals and Energy) are going to have to help industry market careers to the university students better than we have in the past.”
At the undergraduate level, science-based double degrees seem to be the main avenue of attracting students into the field, where they discover the possibilities of a career in the minerals industry. But as the industry watches the decline of students opting for the prerequisite science and maths subjects at school and its corresponding fall in available candidates, it’s enough to cause a wave of panic.
“There will always be a percentage of students that want to do mining engineering, want to do geology, but that’s fairly small,” said Tuckwell. “Many of the people actually stumble into these courses because they get exposed to them at university. There needs to be a national network of institutions to allow students access to minerals industry relevant courses. MTEC is attempting to network these universities so that a student who enrols at one of the MTEC partner universities can access the best that all the universities in the network can offer.”
MTEC has realised that university courses must come to the students as most are averse to travelling across the country to study. They are inclined to choose an institution, usually close to home, then decide on a career of choice, which is often influenced by their tertiary entrance score. “To get into mining engineering or any engineering or science degree these days you don’t need a particularly high score at most universities in Australia,” Tuckwell said. “But if you were to offer a double degree that captures a basic science or engineering degree with something else you can offer with a higher entrance score and people think, yeah, I want to go for that.”
MTEC has set the foundations for an accelerated rate of change.
“I sense that universities no longer feel so threatened by the concept of collaborating as opposed to competing,” Galvin said. “It is taken for granted in industry that information exchange occurs between various operations and companies through attendance at conferences and the like. Prior to the formation of MTEC, such a forum did not exist among tertiary minerals education providers. The MCA involvement in minerals tertiary education has raised the level of awareness amongst education providers of industry’s needs and is leading to a more innovative and global approach on their part to satisfying their needs.”
A view shared by a number of industry people is that the time is ripe to raise the bar and cut the under-performers. A streamlined Australia-wide system would direct available funding to fewer institutions and put the emphasis on quality not quantity. This would also ensure that certain mining professions, such as geotechnical engineering, which are increasingly losing focus in general mining engineering courses, are included in institutions running niche mining courses. This has already been put into practice at UNSW with the recent establishment of the National Centre for Mine Ventilation. MTEC is also negotiating with the academic community and industry bodies in WA to support a National Centre for Geomechanics.
Putting more substance into this national education plan is MTEC’s next challenge. Tuckwell estimates a formal structure may be in place late next year, but time is running short. “This year will see a small graduating cohort of mining engineers, geologists and metallurgists,” he said. “As commodity prices seem to be increasing, the industry is likely to expand and will require more graduates. We are getting very close to crunch time.”
There is no doubt that progress has been made and the wheels of change are in motion. But the accelerator must be kept firmly on the ground to make sure Australia retains its competitive edge in the global mining and mineral supply business. It must have a strong education base, and face existing challenges before it is too late. Australia's Mining Monthly
