The In Business website has announced that a $2.3 million training facility for mining, building and construction, welding, automotive, engineering and carpentry has opened at Thebarton Senior College in Torrensville, South Australia.

The new trade training centre at Thebarton Senior College forms part of the Australian Government’s Trade Training Centres in Schools Program. In the new facility, students will be able to use a wide range of hand and power tools for courses in metal machining, welding and metal fabrication, general construction, mining and infrastructure, general woodwork and furniture making, energy and automotive and electricity and electronics.

The Australian federal government has announced a new skills investment fund and a skills migration plan for major projects in the resources sector, the Australian Journal of Mining reports.

[The National Resource Sector Taskforce] predicted the number of jobs in mining and gas operations may grow by 65,000 taking the sector’s direct employment to around 250,000 people by 2015. The WA Council of Minerals and Energy backs this up, predicting the State’s resource industry’s direct workforce will grow 58% by the end of 2012. The Taskforce’s solution to this bourgeoning demand for skill and labour is hardly surprising. It said, in essence: drop some serious cash into vocational training. The Taskforce made 31 recommendations, urging more initiatives and money to provide more skills training.

The NWT Mine Training Society, Aurora College and the local mines in the north of Canada are looking to fill positions in a wide variety of fields with local talent. The Up Here Business Magazine reports: Vice-president of operations for Avalon Rare Metals, with a mine near Yellowknife in the pre-construction phase, is estimating his mine alone will need more than 200 workers in a variety of fields. John Kearney, president of Canadian Zinc Corporation, says that the Prairie Creek Mine in Deh Cho will directly employ 340 workers as it hits startup.

Both men would like their needs to be met locally, if possible. But their demands for a sophisticated and high tech workforce have created an urgent need for basic and higher-level education. While the industry can provide some basic skills and in-house, on-the-job training, its need for a more skilled workforce requires collaborations.

The Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration (SME) has launched its first online course: Ethics in the Mining Industry by Lee Saperstein. This online course defines ethics, its concepts, its history, and its impact on professional practice. Learn more from the course description on the SME website.

Thoroughtec has announced that the Rio Tinto Limited project in Mongolia - Oyu Tolgoi - will be using their Cybermine mining simulators to enhance operator skill and safety. The full press release is as follows; for more information see the Thoroughtec website at http://www.thoroughtec.com.

Local and state officials in Jenner Township, Pennsylvania, have declared a recently-finished acid mine drainage treatment site to be used for public education, Daily American reports.

The new passive treatment system will take discharge from the former Lion Mining Co. Grove No. 1 deep mine closed in 1998 and combine it with a public pavilion, additional wetlands and tree plantings, according to state Department of Environmental Protection officials. “That’s part of the plan. You want to get the public involved and let them know, educate them about these issues,” Greg Shustrick, a watershed specialist for the Somerset County Conservation District said.

Martin Engineering and Stahura Conveyor Products (SCP) co-hosted a seminar on conveyor safety to raise safety education and standardize maintenance practices to reduce the risk of injury to individuals working around conveyors. The event featured key speakers from prominent coal industry media, along with engineering experts and top executives, who highlighted the significant progress made in reducing injuries, while introducing new ways to take conveyor safety to the next level. "We are trying to change the way the industry thinks about conveyors," observed Martin Engineering chief technology director and CEMA director, Todd Swinderman. "The equipment has become much more robust and reliable, but basic designs haven’t changed that much."

Rusal has announced a scholarship program that will provide 100 young Guineans places in Russian universities, for the purpose of studying mining, railroad operations, economics, building and construction, agriculture, water supply, medicine and human resources.

The “RUSAL Scholarship-2011” program aims to educate highly-qualified staff for the Republic of Guinea and to strengthen the ties of friendship between the Russian Federation and Guinea. After graduation, there is the opportunity for many of the students to work for RUSAL in their subsidiaries in Guinea.

Commission on Higher Education chief Secretary Patricia Licuanan is offering students scholarships to take courses towards the 'most employable' careers in the Philippines, which include mining, aeronautics, geology and software engineering, reports the Philippine Information Agency.

"(These) are jobs but they are very hard to fill so if you go into these areas you are guaranteed to find employment," Licuanan said. She said these courses are among the agency's "priorities" in its list of scholarship beneficiaries, adding that CHED has also removed all the "oversubscribed" courses from the same list. "Overscubscribed" courses are business administration, nursing, teaching, IT, Hotel and Restaurant Management and maritime.

Australian Mining: At 15 years of age, Nigeria-born Bukayo Taiwo has become the youngest ever student to enrol at Curtin University’s West Australian School of Mines (WASM).

Taiwo enrolled at Murdoch college and graduated at 15, paving the way for her to enrol to study for a Bachelor of Engineering/Commerce at WASM.

She says she is excited to begin studying for her long-term goal of working as an engineer in the mining industry.

Dr. Blade Nzimande, South African Minister of Higher Education and Training gave a budget speech on May 26th outlining changes to higher education, specifically in mining.

The over-arching vision we are developing is that of an expanded, effective, coherent, integrated, differentiated, but highly articulated post-school system and responsive, comprising all the institutional types falling under our department: universities, colleges, adult education centres and the levy-grant institutions (the SETAs and the NSF) as well as the various regulatory and advisory institutions.

The Underground Miner Training program, provided under the Matachewan Aboriginal Access to Mine Jobs Training Strategy (MAATS), has produced its second group of graduates, ready to start work in the mining sector.

The six new graduates will now move on to employment positions under Northgate Minerals Corp. and Dumas Contracting at the Young Davidson mine site in Matachewan. "On behalf of myself and my fellow graduates I would like to thank Matachewan First Nation, Northgate and Dumas for the valuable training and employment opportunities we have received," said graduate David Batisse.