The University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) School of Mining Engineering has retained its accreditation from the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) for another five-year cycle to 2017, which is a reflection of the school’s high standards.

Says Cuthbert Musingwini, an associate professor at the school: “Maintaining our ESCA accreditation provides continued assur-ance of the quality of teaching . . . that is delivered by the school,” he says.

Musingwini explains that all programmes must be regularly examined to ensure they provide graduates with a range of attributes, such as the ability to recognise and solve engineering problems, apply the engineering sciences they have learnt to design solutions and assess the impact of engineering on the environment.

As the field incorporates many disciplines, a candidate in mining engineering needs to show that he or she can interact professionally within an interdisciplinary environment.

“To receive ECSA accreditation, the staff of the school also had to demonstrate their ability to deliver this high quality of teaching and the capacity to sustain this delivery into the future,” says Musingwini.

Head of the Wits School of Mining Engineer- ing Professor Fred Cawood adds: “The renewal of the accreditation is an important goal of the school’s ten-goal strategic plan. The accreditation is a non-negotiable goal for the school and, having achieved that, we are well on track.”

The ten-goal strategic plan also deals with, among other issues, increasing student throughput rates, reducing the student-to-staff ratio, increasing research output and regularly reviewing undergraduate, postgraduate and certificate programmes so that the school remains relevant to the dynamic industry that it serves.

“Wits Mining is a student-centred school and programme relevance is important to ensure that our graduates qualify for good employ-ment. “Accreditation encourages regular pro-gramme review and curricula development in a complex, exciting and challenging eco-nomic sector,” says Cawood.

He further states: “There is a growing interest in mining engineering as a career of choice in the country. “There have been significant increases in the applications year-on-year over the past five years; for example, we received more than 1 000 applications in 2010, compared with about 2 500 applications in 2012.”

This mining engineering programme is the largest programme for which English is the medium of instruction at undergraduate and postgraduate levels and it continually produces high-quality graduates.

“We are proud of the school’s growth over the past five years – we have expanded from 16 to 22 academics and reduced the staff-to-student ratio from 1:50 to 1:35,” says Cawood.
A mine-design laboratory has been devel-oped, with sponsorships from mining company Anglo American and precious metals producer Goldfields, further expanding the school’s capacity to graduate more mining engineers. While about 30 used to complete the programme each year, the number likely to graduate in 2014 could reach 100.
Musingwini also highlights the importance of the Washington Accord, which makes it possible for Wits engineering graduates to have their academic qualifications recognised worldwide – including big mining countries like Australia and the US.
Through its ECSA accreditation, Wits graduates can now be accredited by any of the other signatory bodies as having met the academic requirements for entry into the practice of engineering.
“This allows our graduates to be more geographically mobile and makes it easier for them to share their skills in several countries worldwide,” concludes Musingwini.