What does the Mining Skills Council do in order to reduce the human capital gap that exists in the industry?
Our objective as the Mining Skills Council is to change the axis so that the Chilean educational system, whatever the level, begins to train people based on industry requirements. This is an innovation being applied on a national level. Nowadays, organisations have been training their students on par with what they think the market needs. A fundamental change is that the market now has a say in what types and how many technicians and professionals it needs in addition to their specific skill-sets and within what time period they need them. Along these lines, the Skills Council will be periodically issuing reports with real information directly from mining companies, where they give us estimations of what it is they need in terms of human capital. The Fundación Chile has been doing this and been able to estimate the aggregate demand which is extremely important as the information is made available to the entire market.

In the case of workers who have already finished their studies and now work in the mining industry- will there be special opportunities for them to study more?
As of now, no. We are starting this from the ground up, from entry level positions such as operators, where the industry needs the most workers. We are going to continue developing this to reach higher levels but for the moment we are concentrated on the positions where we need people the most- operators and maintenance workers. It takes less time to train them and has a greater social impact, as these are people who did not have access to the mining industry and now they are employed there.

Mining in Chile is very important. What happened to misalign the mining industry and educational institutions?
It is a lack of communication. But the mining industry is the first industry that is supplying specific information on what it needs. The first skills council that has been formed is for the mining industry. In fact, the Minister of Labour, Evelyn Matthei, is urging other sectors such as construction to do the same.

How long do you think it will take to see results from this initiative?
These are short and modular programmes. The idea is the quickly develop the skills in order for the person to enter the system and then the organisation will continue training the employee with respect to what the company needs. The problem is that today there is a gap between how the workers come prepared and what the company actually needs. We should work on this.
Starting in April 2013 we will announce 13 mining entrance programmes and from there we will continue working with the remaining profiles, up to high-level technical positions. This training model has high practical component, which is demonstrated in the field, so it will be a process that gradually shows results. The objective of the programme is that when someone comes to work in mining, they possess all the skills to do what the market expects them to do in their position.

Interview date: 7 November 2012