Upskilling local students to drive a local workforce, with NSW Mining

NSW Mining partnered with The Careers Department to build a stronger pipeline of students entering the industry; across a wide range of disciplines including technology, engineering, environmental science, and business.

The goal: to break down misconceptions by giving students a genuine, interactive experience of what it actually means to work in mining.

PARTNERSHIP INCLUSIONS

The Careers Department built six mining-specific Virtual Work Experience modules; each placing students inside a different professional role within the industry.

In the Mining Engineer module, students are tasked with assessing whether the mine's existing truck fleet can keep pace with a newly purchased excavator; working through concepts like average bucket weight, loading time, automated truck speed, and processing rates to reach a recommendation.

In the Geologist module, students first learn the basics of geology and identify critical minerals mined across Australia via a gamified memory match card game; before assessing mineral deposits from a newly discovered site to determine whether the land is economically worth mining.

In the Business Development Consultant module, students are presented with an energy efficiency challenge; analysing visualised data sets from across different mining shifts and identifying where the operations team can reduce consumption.

All six modules have been aligned with the Australian Curriculum and NESA frameworks; making them easy to integrate directly into existing classroom programs across maths, science, geography, and business.

Thirty schools across NSW received a NSW Mining-funded two-period session; giving students dedicated time to engage with the tailored, scenario-based modules during school hours.

RESULTS

The campaign reached students in the blended face-to-face and online program. Students came away having practised genuine industry skills; from business modelling and geological assessment to data interpretation and AI application; skills that are directly transferable to a career in the sector.

Dubbo College, Delroy Campus commented, “While the mining industry is a huge employer in our region, our students don’t often understand the breadth of jobs available in the sector. They [stereotypically] consider list job titles like driver, driller, or mechanic when they think about the mines; but there is so much more.”

LEARNINGS

NSW Mining understood that the most effective form of career education is experiential. When a student spends an hour working as a geologist or an engineer; solving a real problem with real data; the career stops being abstract. It becomes something they can picture themselves doing.