Cracking the code for resources careers
23 November
Students at St Margaret’s Anglican Girls School in Brisbane have swapped their standard classroom curriculum for virtual mine site coding today to tackle one of the most important issues in the resources sector.
The Queensland Minerals and Energy Academy (QMEA), the education arm of the Queensland Resources Council (QRC), visited the school at Ascot today with a coding challenge for students to ensure a safe working environment at a hypothetical mine site.
“Careers in the Queensland resources sector are both high viz and high tech,” said QRC’s Director of Skills, Education and Diversity, Katrina-Lee Jones.
“Most Queenslanders are familiar with the importance of mining to our state. But there’s so much that goes on behind the scenes at each site to support the heavy equipment and high viz workers that immediately spring to mind.
“Each site has detailed planning and technical work to ensure the miners on the ground are working under the highest safety and environmental standards.
“Students at St Margaret’s have swapped their books for coding tools today, in a scenario to demonstrate how a range of environmental factors can impact the operations at a mining project. The students have used their coding skills to develop safety solutions for the hypothetical site.
“These high-tech skills are essential to the future of our state’s resources sector. The resources sector depends equally upon the skilled onsite operators and the skilled control room technicians behind the scenes.
“The resources sector has a target for 30 per cent of the workforce to be female by 2026. At the moment about 20 per cent of resources sector employees are women.”
“We welcome the opportunities QMEA workshops create for our students to apply their skills to real-world scenarios,” St Margaret’s Anglican Girls School Principal Ros Curtis said today.
“We encourage our students to consider the range of career options available across the diverse range of STEM-related subjects.” Ms Curtis said.
“Given the creative solutions our students have worked on today, some of our students may be among the growing number of women who pursue a career in the resources sector.”
As Australia’s largest and most successful industry-led education and skills training initiative, the QMEA seeks to broaden student and teacher knowledge of career opportunities in resources.
The academy encourages a talent pipeline of employees into VET and STEM-related careers, with a focus on female and Indigenous participation. The QMEA currently engages with 80 schools and is a partnership between the QRC and the Queensland Government under its Gateway to Industry Schools program.