At a time when there is a mad scramble for mineral resources worldwide, there is a bit of despondency setting in the corridors of the institutes offering mining education. At a time when the resources are becoming difficult to mine, quality going down, manpower crisis in the industries becoming more acute by the day-challenges increasing daily-, the mining academics seem to have given up. At a time when the research and development funds are all for asking, there are few takers and most of those who are in the queue are above fifty years of age. It seems the research and manpower challenges have diminished; on the contrary, it is now more than what used to be in the known past. If one sees the websites of the mining schools worldwide, one cannot help yawning at seeing all fifty and sixty plus professors trying to bring out all the good smiles only to put brave face in the precarious situations they are in. Most of the mining departments are clinging on to the past- equipment and set-up- either blaming the young people for not having interest , or counting their pensions. Where have all the young people gone from the mining academies!
By showing it raies a question-“Is the mining industry on the way to become the proverbial Dodo” . Just the opposite. With all the hoopla and hype of recycling and renewables , there is no stopping of the minerals still reigning supreme in the energy and materials sector of the world. Is that all for sure? Absolutely yes- why otherwise the shrewd hedge fund specialists are putting more and more money in oil and minerals today. Why all the large steel makers and the automobile makers are making backward integration into mining of coal , oil and minerals. After all, who would have the fancy of losing big money in bad investments? Frankly enough, the world has more or less failed to find suitable alternatives to the basic minerals. There may be some upstart specialists to deny all these but those who know, would agree to the fact and also agree that there is not going to be any radical changes in the short term future in terms of minerals consumption and demand. It is quite paradoxical: minerals demands pointing to the crying need of new and young professionals but the academics are looking for clues to make the programmes interesting.
If you can count me as someone dependable, after my service as a teacher of mining for more than twenty two years, let me give my thoughts as to tackle the problem, to make the progrrammes more attractive to the students:
•Mining students suffer due to lack of avenues and more particularly due to industrial downturns. Broadbasing the mining curricula to include environment protection, minerals processing and petroleum technology can reduce the typical woes.
•A mining curriculum should have competitive components of software and hardware subjects. It should be competitive to the other branches of engineering like civil, metallurgical, chemical and mechanical.
•The departments should now open to foreign teachers and consultants to build capacity wherever the expertise is not locally available. Orthodox barriers like having a degree from the home country etc , are no longer paths for solutions but problems.
•Do not put constraints to demarcate what is mining and what is not mining. Mining is no salient engineering.
•Get out of the mental block that mining engineers are for the mines only. Even in your mind and practice de-link education and career. It will improve performance.
•Remove prejudices from the Masters and PhD programmes. Encourage the students of basic sciences and economics to pursue degrees in mining engineering .Try to make their lives comfortable yet competitive in the campus. Allow them to join as faculty when they are prepared.
•Do not encourage much superannuated teachers to continue as stop-gap arrangements .Try hard and harder to motivate the young people to take up positions even if they are greenhorns and currently not up-to the mark but have promise. The current situation demands it.
•Laboratories are strength of engineering. Build more and more laboratories, so that the professional knowledge gets enhanced. Laboratories empower people with confidence to venture into various extramural areas of research and hence to different industries.
There can be many more. But, today I shall stop here. I await your comments. ■
Jayanta Bhattacharya,PhD FNAE Professor and Head, Department of Mining Engineering and Center for Educational Technology. Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur-721302,India. Also email: jayantab@mining.iitkgp.ernet.in
Mining Education
An Appeal to All Mining Academics
Jayanta Bhattacharya,PhD
FNAE
Professor and Head,
Department of Mining Engineering and Center for Educational Technology.
Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur-721302,India.
Email: jayantaism@gmail.com ,
jayantab@mining.iitkgp.ernet.in
Home page and personal profile :http://jayantaism.googlepages.com/home
Know about Jayanta Bhattacharya's new books :http://jayantaism.tripod.com
A new book on coal quality :http://jayantaism.tripod.com/coal-quality/
Have not seen my blog yet ! Here it is:http://mines-mining-minerals.blogspot.com/
At a time when there is a mad scramble for mineral resources worldwide, there is a bit of despondency setting in the corridors of the institutes offering mining education. At a time when the resources are becoming difficult to mine, quality going down, manpower crisis in the industries becoming more acute by the day-challenges increasing daily-, the mining academics seem to have given up. At a time when the research and development funds are all for asking, there are few takers and most of those who are in the queue are above fifty years of age. It seems the research and manpower challenges have diminished; on the contrary, it is now more than what used to be in the known past. If one sees the websites of the mining schools worldwide, one cannot help yawning at seeing all fifty and sixty plus professors trying to bring out all the good smiles only to put brave face in the precarious situations they are in. Most of the mining departments are clinging on to the past- equipment and set-up- either blaming the young people for not having interest , or counting their pensions. Where have all the young people gone from the mining academies!
By showing it raies a question-“Is the mining industry on the way to become the proverbial Dodo” . Just the opposite. With all the hoopla and hype of recycling and renewables , there is no stopping of the minerals still reigning supreme in the energy and materials sector of the world. Is that all for sure? Absolutely yes- why otherwise the shrewd hedge fund specialists are putting more and more money in oil and minerals today. Why all the large steel makers and the automobile makers are making backward integration into mining of coal , oil and minerals. After all, who would have the fancy of losing big money in bad investments? Frankly enough, the world has more or less failed to find suitable alternatives to the basic minerals. There may be some upstart specialists to deny all these but those who know, would agree to the fact and also agree that there is not going to be any radical changes in the short term future in terms of minerals consumption and demand. It is quite paradoxical: minerals demands pointing to the crying need of new and young professionals but the academics are looking for clues to make the programmes interesting.
If you can count me as someone dependable, after my service as a teacher of mining for more than twenty two years, let me give my thoughts as to tackle the problem, to make the progrrammes more attractive to the students:
•Mining students suffer due to lack of avenues and more particularly due to industrial downturns. Broadbasing the mining curricula to include environment protection, minerals processing and petroleum technology can reduce the typical woes.
•A mining curriculum should have competitive components of software and hardware subjects. It should be competitive to the other branches of engineering like civil, metallurgical, chemical and mechanical.
•The departments should now open to foreign teachers and consultants to build capacity wherever the expertise is not locally available. Orthodox barriers like having a degree from the home country etc , are no longer paths for solutions but problems.
•Do not put constraints to demarcate what is mining and what is not mining. Mining is no salient engineering.
•Get out of the mental block that mining engineers are for the mines only. Even in your mind and practice de-link education and career. It will improve performance.
•Remove prejudices from the Masters and PhD programmes. Encourage the students of basic sciences and economics to pursue degrees in mining engineering .Try to make their lives comfortable yet competitive in the campus. Allow them to join as faculty when they are prepared.
•Do not encourage much superannuated teachers to continue as stop-gap arrangements .Try hard and harder to motivate the young people to take up positions even if they are greenhorns and currently not up-to the mark but have promise. The current situation demands it.
•Laboratories are strength of engineering. Build more and more laboratories, so that the professional knowledge gets enhanced. Laboratories empower people with confidence to venture into various extramural areas of research and hence to different industries.
There can be many more. But, today I shall stop here. I await your comments. ■