Resources Skills Organisation Pilot

The MCA has been recognised as an industry leader in skills, education and training by being appointed to establish a Resources Skills Organisation Pilot as part of the Australian Government’s substantial $525 million reform of the vocational education and training system.

The Resources Skills Organisation Pilot will provide an opportunity for our world-leading minerals industry to trial new ways of working within the current national training system, while looking for new opportunities to make sure training is able to meet employers and the economy’s needs.

The MCA commends the Prime Minister and Ministers Cash and Canavan for this initiative. Minister Cash has been a champion for this pilot and creating the pathway for obtaining relevant skills for the modern mining sector.

Through the pilot the MCA will seek to secure greater national-level consistency and clarity across the system to realise the significant benefits for the VET sector, industry and learners.

With demand for skilled workers growing across Australia as the mining production boom continues, the MCA has long advocated for more flexible, higher quality and responsive training and workforce development to build the minerals workforce of the future.

The future minerals workforce will be more diverse, geographically distributed and digitally connected. As the nature of work changes and evolves, workers will need skills and capabilities that are adaptable, transferable and relevant to the needs of the future economy.

The MCA is in the process of securing education partners that will develop new learning pathways to the modern mining sector for delivery in 2020. These include curricula pilots, a micro-credentials package and experiential program as well as defining a mining 101 program for apprentices and trainees.

Over the past 20 years, MCA members have invested nearly $65 million into minerals-related tertiary programs on a national collaborative basis across Australia with some 5,000 Australian graduates in minerals-related disciplines benefitting from industry funding which ensured a high quality of industry-ready professionals.

The MCA looks forward to working with the interim National Skills Commissioner and other stakeholders across industry, government and academia over the coming months.

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