Gadchiroli's Gondwana University to tie up with Australian varsity for new mining courses
Gondwana University
(GU) will sign a MoU with Australia's
Curtin University
on May 7, to start various three-year diploma courses in mining from this July session. As
Gadchiroli
takes strides towards becoming the next steel city of India, GU is laying the foundation to provide qualified manpower for the mining industry.
With a promised Rs25 crore donation from Lloyds Metal and Energy Ltd, work has already started on the residential facility which will have an annual intake of total 90 students for three diploma courses.
Dr Prashant Bokare, vice-chancellor of Gondwana University said, "We will have an intake of 30 students each for
diploma in mining technology
, steel technology and computer science (related to mining). Approval for the courses has been received from Maharashtra State Board of Technical Education (MSBTE) and the curriculum will be prepared with academia-industry partnership."
The curriculum will be jointly designed by Lloyds Metal, Gondwana University and Curtin University. Curtin University runs Western Australia School of Mines (WASM) which offers 17 courses and graduation and post-graduation level specialisations in mining, apart from opportunity to do advanced research in this niche field.
"All our enrolled students will spend six months at WASM. We will then train them for six months at Lloyds Metals. The remaining two years will be in-classroom learning. So, the three years diploma will be a comprehensive academic and experience-oriented course," Bokare said.
The entire project's cost is around Rs200 crore, of which the state govt will fund half. "For the share from the private sector, Lloyds Metal has already committed Rs25 crore. The company's MD B Prabhakaran immediately gave the green signal after hearing about the initiative," Bokare said.
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