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Mining boom cheers UNZA geology lecturer

Mining boom cheers UNZA geology lecturer
By Mwila Chansa
Monday June 16, 2008 [04:00]

THE current boom in mining activities will turn the tables in as far as the shortage of geologists in the country is concerned, a University of Zambia (UNZA) lecturer has said. In an interview, School of Mines assistant dean Professor Imasiku Nyambe said Zambian geologists were not enough due to the slump in mining activities that the country experienced in the past years. He said the slump saw very few Zambians studying geology or any geo-science such as mining engineering or metallurgy and mineral processing.

“So we saw a decline in enrolment at the University of Zambia in particular in the geology department such that over the past four years or so, we have been graduating around two geologists,” Prof Nyambe said. “If you graduate two but the numbers that are needed in the industry are over fifteen, then there is definitely that shortage and as a result to fill up that gap, people or companies have to employ geologists from outside the country.”

And Prof Nyambe said the enrolment pattern in the School of Mines was that geology always had the least number of students.
However, he said things had begun to change as a result of the huge investments in the mining industry as well as the high metal prices on the world market.
He said the department had this year enrolled 26 students against last year’s 24 and that things were improving.

Prof Nyambe said the department still faced the challenge of attracting females to enrol as geologists.

He said most parents created an impression in their daughters’ minds that geology was an underground career and yet it was a field career where one could work underground, on the surface or anywhere.

Prof Nyambe said the department was trying to reverse that trend by creating geo-sciences in schools focusing on the girl child.

Labels: GEOLOGY, MINING

posted by MrK @ 12:11 AM