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MINERALS INDUSTRY EDUCATION AND TRAINING II

women on the council is 5.6%. While this might seem low, does it represent
reasonably the gender diversity of the industry?

Another source of data on gender from what could be described as a
position of esteem within the industry is the stream and symposia chairs
of the recent IMPC in Quebec City. There are many such conferences
that could be used as an example, however since the IMPC is promoted
as the biggest gathering of mineral processors worldwide, then it is a
suitable benchmark. In the conference proceedings, there are listed 36
people involved as technical and symposia chairs, of which 3 are women
(Proceedings of the XXVIII International Mineral Processing Congress
(2016)). This makes the proportion of women involved 8.3%. This is clearly
higher than the 5.6% present on the Council, but is it more representative
of the industry as a whole, or does it reflect simply the proportion of
women at higher positions within the sector?
The Gender Diversity of Mineral Processing Graduates

At the XXVI IMPC held in 2012 in New Delhi, India, a symposium was
held on Human Resource Development. As part of this symposium, a
survey was carried out to investigate the supply and demand of minerals
engineers as at 2010 (Cilliers, 2013). One of the questions asked in this
survey was regarding the proportion of female graduates in mineral
processing subjects, therefore giving a good indicator as to the supply of
females into the mineral processing sector. It should be noted, however,
that not all countries/regions deliver mineral processing specific degree
programmes (either undergraduate or graduate), nor were the data
exhaustive. Nevertheless, this gives a good benchmark for quantifying the
proportion of women entering the industry.

Figure 1 gives a breakdown of the distribution and numbers of mineral
processing graduates produced by the different countries or regions that
contributed to the survey. While China dominates with 50% of the graduates,
it is interesting that countries/regions with significant mining industries
(Australia, North America) produce relatively few mineral processing
graduates. This is discussed further in the original study (Cilliers, 2013).

Meeting the Challenges of a
156 Section 4
Changing World