Skills for the mining industry

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Created: Wednesday, 01 February 2017 10:55

The minerals industry in Southern Africa continuously raises the shortage of appropriately skilled staff as a constraint.

This is despite the fact that mining related and engineering courses are presented by a number of tertiary institutions in the region. Another concern raised by industry representatives is that the number of institutions involved, resulted in the inefficient application of the limited available resources required to provide these courses.

An area that has received little attention so far is the training of artisans and technicians.

MIASA still strives for a workforce that has the highest appropriate standard of education and training. The key elements for the achievement of this goal can be summarised as:

• Sufficient numbers of appropriately skilled employees capable of absorbing additional training for further advancement.
• Sufficient numbers of graduates at the higher education level.
• High-quality, tertiary education departments in the fields of mining, metallurgy and the earth sciences.
• Further education and training delivery systems that are responsive to needs and are cost-effective.
• Standards and qualifications controlled by local mining industry qualifications authorities.
• Skills training at mines through Adult Basic Education and Training initiatives that eliminate functional illiteracy.
• A well-articulated partnership on local and regional levels between the mining industry and education institutions focused funding intervention, a common understanding of industry competency needs and development of curricula relevant to the mining sector.