INCREASING BLACK REPRESENTATION IN MINING ENGINEERING - THE NEED FOR A NEW APPROACH

The need to reemit locally produced engineers by the South African Min ing Industry led to the Engineering Faculty at the University of the W itwatersrand developing a number of academic bridging initiatives for educationally disadvantaged students, The graduation rate achieved dur ing the initial five years of operation by the most successful of thes e programmes has been on a par with that of all other students but the performance of subsequent intakes has declined to such an extent that the continuance of this scheme could now be at risk. One reason for t his reduction in throughput is that many of the applicants for the inc reasing number of mining bursaries have been more interested in the bu rsary than the profession and have either failed or dropped out due to a lack of application and motivation, This will have serious conseque nces for both Wits and the Industry if it continues and some method of identifying unsuitable or suspect applicants needs to be introduced a s a matter of urgency. It is recommended that an introductory course b e set up at a working mine that would be run under the auspices of Wit s, as a joint venture with industry, and include a level of academic i nput that would provide both bridging needs and certain first year cre dits. The final form of this course will require extensive consultatio n with all parties but needs to be completed before the end of 1996, I t is further recommended that the advertising and promotion of mining careers be expanded and much improved.