Modern Mining October 2016

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MINING News
To allow more cooperation and informa-
tion-sharing, the heads of South Africa’s
four university mining schools have
launched Mining Engineering Education
South Africa (MEESA).
Established last year as the Mining
Heads of School Forum and recently re-
branded, MEESA is currently chaired by
Professor Ronny Webber-Youngman of
Pretoria University’s Department of Mining
Engineering and includes his counter-
parts Professor Cuthbert Musingwini of
Wits University, Dr Hennie Grobler of the
University of Johannesburg, and Israel
Dikgwatlhe of the University of South
Africa.
Emphasising the need for closer collab-
oration between mining schools, Professor
Webber-Youngman highlighted research,
funding and work experience as key issues
for MEESA.
“Since mining research capacity has
decreased over the last few years, research
collaboration is imperative in addressing
Mining schools form collaborative body
the challenges the South African min-
ing industry is currently facing,” he said.
“The country just does not have enough
researchers to be competitive in this
regard. Our four schools look forward to
collaborating more mean-
ingfully in the near future
in our research activities.”
Since its inception,
MEESA has already been
able to interact more
effectively with the Mining
Qualifications Authority to
collectively resolve chal-
lenges encountered by
each of the schools.
MEESA has also been
able to collectively secure
a number of vacation-
work placements for their
undergraduate students.
“Key to this collabora-
tion is that there is more
i n f o r ma t i o n - s h a r i n g
across all four schools,” said Professor
Webber-Youngman. “Unlike in the past –
when each school had relationships with
other mining schools internationally – we
will now be able to strengthen local collab-
oration and leverage this to ensure more
sustainable collaborations globally.” 
Seen here (from left) are Dr Hennie Grobler (University of Johan-
nesburg), Professor Cuthbert Musingwini (Wits University), Israel
Dikgwatlhe (University of South Africa) and Professor Ronny
Webber-Youngman (University of Pretoria).