THE MINERALS EDUCATION TRUST-Ensuring a supply of South African graduates/diplomats to the mining and minerals industry

摘要

Attracting and retaining high level technical and management skills has always been a challenge for the South African mining and minerals industry. This has been aggravated by the closure or downsizing of many of the overseas based mining schools and departments as well as by the growth in the IT and high tech sectors which have attracted many of the technically inclined into their ranks. Fortunately the South African tertiary mining and minerals departments have shown healthy growth figures over the past few years with increasing numbers of previously disadvantaged students enrolling for Mining, Metallurgical/Minerals Processing as well as Geology courses. However, at the same time that these increases have taken place, tertiary institutions have been faced with cutbacks in government subsidies and are finding it increasingly difficult to offer competitive salaries to staff and provide adequate and updated teaching equipment.