To date, the Educational Research Institute has developed eight sectoral qualifications frameworks for tourism, banking, telecommunications, construction, sports, fashion, development and IT services. Mining is the next sector for which a sectoral qualifications framework will be prepared.
“On behalf of the JSW Management Board, let me declare that, for us, the issue of utmost significance in respect of the miners’ work is to ensure safety. Efficiency and economic principles are obvious aspects, but the safety of miners is our deepest concern. Our main objective is to improve qualifications and create increasingly better working conditions for our miners. We want it with all our hearts and we believe it is one of the most significant things we need to achieve,” said Włodzimierz Hereźniak, President of the JSW Management Board, in his opening speech at the seminar.
Then, Professor Marek Cała, Dean of the Faculty of Mining and Geoengineering at the AGH University of Science and Technology, took the floor and said that voices have been heard recently saying that “this whole mining industry must be shut down.”
"The question is: since we are shutting down this evil and inconvenient mining industry, why do we need a sectoral qualifications framework for it? Well, everybody in this room knows that we are actually not shutting down the mining industry. We are only limiting it partly, but mining is going to stay with us forever, until the end of human civilization on planet Earth, or perhaps even longer. Why the sectoral qualifications framework for the mining industry? For the following three principal reasons. Firstly, a mining technician or a mining engineer must be an extremely highly educated employee fully aware of the risks involved in this profession. This individual must have all requisite knowledge to work safely. Secondly, this sectoral qualifications framework will serve as our protective shield during the deregulation process in the mining industry, which various spheres are already getting ready for. We will be equipped with our own shield against it. Thirdly, in the coming decade, the mining technician or mining engineer will belong to the category of the most elite professions in Poland,” said Professor Cała.
Under the project, consultations are underway among representatives of the mining industry. Among the research methods applied are questionnaires, in-depth interviews and workshops. The project will end on 30 September 2020 and its expected outcome will be the creation of the Sectoral Qualifications Framework for the Mining Industry.
At the end of the seminar, a panel discussion was held, attended by: Adam Mirek, President of WUG, Artur Dyczko, Vice-President of JSW, Professor Marek Borowski of AGH, Antoni Augustyn, Vice-President of JSW SiG, Andrzej Żurawski and Aleksandra Wojciechowska of the Educational Research Institute, Andrzej Sączek of Polska Grupa Górnicza and Piotr Tokarz of the Technical School Complex in Rybnik.
All panelists agreed that the establishment of the Sectoral Qualifications Framework for the Mining Industry is necessary. “I would like Poland to become a major educational center for the global mining industry. We must remember that we will not find today’s mining industry anywhere else in Europe. This is why the experience of people who currently work in our mines is a value in itself. Accordingly, the framework that we have been establishing here should also take advantage of this potential,” said Artur Dyczko, Vice-President of the JSW Management Board for Technical and Operational Matters.
Among the experts involved in the execution of the project are representatives of the AGH University of Science and Technology in Kraków, KGHM Polska Miedź, Polskie Górnictwo Naftowe i Gazownictwo, LW Bogdanka, Jastrzębska Spółka Węglowa, PGE, JSW Innowacje, GIPH, WUG and GIG.
