In a first for the Queensland Minerals and Energy Academy (QMEA), 16 top trade students will go ‘tool to tool’ in the inaugural QMEA Central Queensland Skills Competition supported by CIVEO.
The one-day event, at Moranbah State High School, gives students from Moranbah, Blackwater, Dysart, Emerald and Middlemount the opportunity to showcase their hand skills while working in a team to solve a trade-based problem. The teams will only receive the problem on the day and have approximately three hours to develop a plan and construct their project.
Representatives from BMA, Coronado Coal, Glencore, Downer and Central Queensland University will act as judges to assess team solutions and select the competition champions.
‘In a rapidly changing skills landscape, this competition will provide an opportunity for students to showcase skills that are in high demand in our sector,’ said Katrina Lee Jones Queensland Resources Council’s Director Skills, Education & Diversity.
‘Good hand skills will have a strong place in industry for the foreseeable future while skills in design thinking, collaboration and problem solving are needed almost across the board,’ she said.
‘The companies here today have been long-time supporters of QMEA and it is through a competition such as this that they have a real opportunity to observe the skill level of the local, talented young men and women who could one day be working in their businesses.’
Queensland Resources Council (QRC) is the peak representative body for Queensland ‘s resource sector. The Queensland resources sector provides one in every fve dollars in the Queensland economy, sustains one in eight Queensland jobs all from 0.1 percent of Queensland’s land mass.
The QMEA is a partnership between the QRC and the Queensland Government under its Gateway to Industry Schools program. It has 60 schools throughout Queensland and is supported by QRC members and 24 industry sponsors.
