Stable exploration industry would draw students to mining

Over the past five years, there has been a steady and disturbing drop in the numbers of students entering (and graduating from) earth science programs in most Canadian universities. The Council of Chairmen of Canadian Earth Science Departments (CCCES) has been compiling statistics on behalf of the Canadian Geoscience Council to monitor this trend. Professor John Dixon, head of the department of geological sciences at Queen’s University and a member of CCCES, recently talked about the low enrolment of undergraduates in geological sciences programs and the implications for the mineral industry at a seminar organized by the Centre for Resource Studies.

Professor Dixon cited two major reasons for the declining enrolments. First, the mineral industry’s sporadic recruiting of graduates has created the general perception among students it has limited employment opportunities. Students starting university careers or making career decisions today tend to choose programs of study that will lead to job offers when they graduate.

Students often prefer a position that will launch them on to a stable career path and that offers opportunities for advancement in the future. Graduates entering the mineral industry do not have this assurance. Field geologists recruited by an exploration company are more likely to be employed on a contract basis for three or six months, if they are lucky. This pattern of contract employment is likely to extend way beyond their first job.

The declining enrolments are creating tough times for geological science university departments and community colleges, and has made them vulnerable to budget cuts, staff attrition, and shrinking numbers of teaching hours in the classroom. One community college reports that budget cuts over the past two years have caused a reduction in student training of about 250 hours of in-class training over a 3-year college stay.

Professor Dixon notes that this is the second chief reason for the decline. Some universities are finding it difficult to attract students into programs with outdated reading material, old equipment, and few resources for interesting and appropriate field trips. Furthermore, cuts, once made, are hard to win back.

The mineral industry must be concerned about this trend, particularly if there are to be concerted exploration efforts made to locate new reserves of base metals in Canada. By the time this effort is under way, there simply will not be enough adequately trained and experienced geologists coming on stream to meet the human resource requirements.

To reverse the trend, Professor Dixon suggests the industry should adopt measures that allow for long-term employee prospects and growth, and perhaps provide donations to university and college departments to help them weather the slump.

These solutions may work if the mineral industry were not so plagued with the peaks and troughs that it has experienced over the past decade or so.

The Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada believes that one way of achieving this stability is to encourage long-term and adequate levels of investment in the industry. This is one reason why the association continues to urge the federal government to adopt real cost base as a means of taxing flow-through shares equitably.

No doubt, there will be other remedies to consider. We encourage readers to write in and express their views and ideas on this most important issue. Saley Lawton is information and research librarian for the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada.