Mining Education Australia (MEA) is celebrating the inaugural graduation of their final year mining engineering students from the University of Queensland. This is a milestone in mining education, with the groundbreaking national education joint venture providing its first graduates ready to enter into the mining industry educated through MEA.
In recent years there have been many changes to mining education, one of which is the collaboration of four of Australia’s top universities, University of Queensland, University of New South Wales, Curtin University and most recently University of Adelaide to form MEA, a leader in world class mining engineering undergraduate education, which was launched in 2007. MEA is a critical response to ensure that industry has access to adequate numbers of high quality graduates.
An initiative of the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) through their tertiary education council the joint venture provides a common curriculum for third and fourth year mining engineering students and has already been acknowledged as an industry leader by receiving the Best Education & Training Collaboration award at a recent ceremony hosted by the Business/Higher Education Round Table.
MEA Executive Director, Professor Bruce Hebblewhite spoke about the first 45 students to graduate from Mining Education Australia’s program. “These students are the first to graduate from this world first national undergraduate mining education, and are the first graduates from any undergraduate mining course to have had access to the comprehensive education of innovative delivery and learning methods that MEA delivers”.
“The students graduating from this program are the first to ever enter the workforce with a Mining Education Australia certificate which is industry endorsed.” “This is a true win for industry, education and students”.
A further 90 students from the inaugural MEA program, from both University of New South Wales and Curtin University will graduate in early 2009.
The graduations were held at the St Lucia Campus of the University of Queensland on the 10th December 2008.
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April 24th, 2009 at 3:47 pm
Dear Saravanamoorthy,
As part of the flexible structure of MEA, students who have completed two years of a suitable engineering degree and meet entry requirements, can transfer into an MEA course and graduate as a Mining Engineer after just two years of study in Australia. This provides the opportunity for civil or mechanical engineering students to specialise in mining and take advantage of a booming industry that is short on engineers and excellent starting salaries.
If you have further or more especific enquiries, please contact the Students Centre at each University member to get more information about it; ie UNSW Students Centre is Tel 02 9385 8500.
Regards
MEA
May 8th, 2009 at 9:36 am
Dear Vincent,
Thank you for your recent enquiry regarding studying Mining Engineering. Essentially there are two degree options – undergraduate and postgraduate.
All the MEA partner universities offer the undergraduate program based on a full-time, on-campus study. While part-time study is possible, external study is not an option at the undergraduate level.
Several MEA universities also offer postgraduate programs some of which can be undertaken on an external basis.
I suggest you contact each partner university for more information. Links each MEA partner university where you can obtain further information on degree options and how to apply are:
· Curtin University of Technology (Perth/Kalgoorlie): http://wasm.curtin.edu.au/index.cfm
· University of Adelaide (Adelaide): http://www.ecms.adelaide.edu.au/civeng/
· University of New South Wales (Sydney): http://www.mining.unsw.edu.au/Whatis/faq.htm
· University of Queensland (Brisbane): http://mining.eng.uq.edu.au/typo3/?id=321
Regards
MEA