Odwyn Jones: cutting mining and other trades-based education in regional universities is a mistake
Australian universities are cutting mining and other trades-based programs in their regional campuses, and this is a bad choice for the country, argues Odwyn Jones of The West Australian. He specifically targets Curtin University, which is cutting mining and agricultural programs at Kalgoorlie and Northam.
These decisions indicate that Curtin has no long-term commitment to consolidating or enhancing its regional campuses. Curtin's actions disregard the value of educating mining undergraduates in the centre of a major mineral province, where students can appreciate the relevance of their studies on site visits while developing cultural affinity with those that make the industry what it is. The considerable success of past WASM graduates is attributable as much to their experiences of living in a mining community as to the quality of their academic tuition.
