Mackay industry partnership to help shake skills shortage
Published on 22 January, 2009
It's a strategic pairing that symbolises much more than hard hats, steel capped boots and engineering students.
Rio Tinto Coal Australia's Hail Creek Mine has this week (Jan 22) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with CQUniversity, designed to help shake the skills shortage across multiple disciplines in the Mackay region.
Areas including health and safety, environmental science, business and communications, human resources, engineering, surveying and geology are all designed to benefit from the three year partnership programme.
Hail Creek Mine General Manager Operations, Andrew Woodley, said the program aims to provide enhanced work and education opportunities for CQUniversity Mackay campus students.
"We already fund 7 scholarships each year for students at CQUniversity, but we wanted to take that support much further and create a fully fledged package that provides opportunities for hundreds of young adults in Mackay over this three year timeframe," Mr Woodley said.
"What we hope this MOU will do is increase the attractiveness of studying at CQUniversity and help keep people not just studying here, but progressing their careers and remaining in the region."
"The MOU will act to enhance learning opportunities for CQUniversity Mackay campus students, provide opportunities for them to gain diversified skills through access to real life work environments, participate in work experience programmes, benefit from a corporate mentor programme, and take part in a special projects programme in which they'll work on real-life problems and solutions."
Mr Woodley said the flipside to the partnership was enormous opportunities for Hail Creek employees also.
"Our employees will be able to contribute to the education of local students, and increase the mine's access to quality, degree classified students seeking a career in mining," Mr Woodley said.
CQUniversity Mackay Head of Campus, Dr Trevor Davison, said the innovative partnership will enhance the availability of educational pathways in the Mackay region and increase the pool of qualified specialists who are locally trained and qualified.
"By working together Hail Creek Mine and CQUniversity can assist the next generation of industry professionals; people who will drive our region's success in the future," Dr Davison said.
"This region is undergoing huge growth at the moment and we see this strategic partnership as a way to help keep pace with this growth."
Future opportunities for the partnership will be examined after the 3-year MOU, including university capability building projects and activities, research and development, and course design and content.