Degrees of change as mining sector backs on-the-job qualifications

The mining industry is backing a new qualification that will challenge universities’ stronghold on bachelor degrees.

Tradies could upskill to a vocational degree qualification while working on the job.

Mining companies are planning to break the university monopoly on engineering qualifications by upskilling workers with freshly-forged “vocational degrees’’.

The Albanese government recently added vocational degrees to the Australian Qualifications Framework as an AQF7 qualification – on par with traditional university bachelor degrees.

The top-level collaboration between industry and TAFE will pile pressure on universities to become more responsive to industry needs, and to build better work placements into their traditional academic degrees.

The Australian Mining and Automotive Skills Alliance – a federally funded Jobs and Skills Council – has a two-year target to roll out the nation’s first vocational degrees for mining and metallurgy engineers.

It plans for mining companies to deliver competency-based on-the-job training, combined with a theory-based curriculum delivered through TAFE.

AUSMASA chief executive Gavin Lind said the vocational degrees would be a “viable alternative’’ to bachelor degrees.

“Until now, qualifications offered under VET (vocational education and training) included certificates, diplomas and advanced diplomas,’’ he said.

“The vocational degree gives students another option … and industry will gain access to highly qualified graduates with a blend of applied knowledge and skills.

“It really is elevating that whole idea of vocational training, which was seen as a bit of a dead-end where you stop at a trade or certificate or maybe a diploma.

“Now they can just go all the way and get the same qualification as a university student.’’

Dr Gavin Lind, Chief Executive Officer, Mining and Automotive Skills Alliance (AUSMASA). Picture: Supplied

Jobs and Skills Australia Commissioner Barney Glover said new hybrid qualifications were being forged “across the VET and higher education interface’’, supported by industry.

“(This) is an important approach to harmonisation, meeting national priorities in areas of skill shortage, and supporting access and participation by prospective students broadly across society,’’ he said.

Dr Lind said a major mining company in Western Australia, which he would not name, was keen to upskill its existing workforce with the new vocational degrees. “I think the beauty of the vocational degree is to anchor it in an actual job and actual occupation,’’ he said.

“In the critical minerals industry, why wouldn’t you take a fixed plant operator – someone who works the plant, who understands the technology – and get them skilled to be the professional person who runs the plant?

“Currently metallurgists and chemical engineers are brought in to do these roles, but I think there’s a far better opportunity in the VET system to increase someone’s knowledge base to achieve that bachelor qualification AQF7, a vocational degree.

“The mining sector struggles with professional skill shortages, such as those university-trained mining engineers, metallurgists and geoscientists.’’

Dr Lind said many university engineering students were not work-ready when they graduated from university degrees.

“A mechanical engineer, a metallurgist or mining engineer, often they aren’t industry-ready by the time they graduate,’’ he said. “It often takes two or three years on rotation through actual jobs to get the skills they require to perform the role.’’

Dr Lind said that “for me the dream is to build these amazing career pathways for someone who missed out on uni’’, especially First Nations students.

“It’s about learning the skills and knowledge on the job, and then getting a classroom component to reinforce it,’’ he said.

He said the newly minted qualification might be called a vocational degree, a higher apprenticeship or an industry appren-ticeship. But it had not yet been decided how students would be paid for the work component of their degree, or whether they would need to borrow to pay for the formal study component through the Higher Education Loans Program scheme used by university students.

“Part of the challenge is to map out that it is equivalent to a bachelor’s degree, and that in leading to an attainment of any statutory certification, equivalent consideration is given to those who took a university pathway or those who took the vocational degree pathway,’’ he said.

Universities Australia declined to comment.