A tertiary education centre specialising in mining engineering will be built next to the Muswellbrook Library.
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Muswellbrook Shire Council secured $4.9 million funding for the project in the latest round of Resources for Regions, released last week.
The council has committed $1.1 million to the centre, and has obtained in-principle support of $800,000 from the Bengalla Mine Community Investment Fund.
The council will own the facility, and will partner with TAFE NSW Hunter Institute and the University of Southern Queensland (USQ).
Muswellbrook Shire mayor Martin Rush said the development application for the project had been lodged this week.
If approved, the project is expected to be under construction by early 2015 and completed for the start of the academic year in 2016.
“This facility, in conjunction with council’s residential student college, library, and Mining Industry Skills Centre will allow our community to build a specialist campus for the delivery, in time, of a range of polytechnical university qualifications which are vital to meet the challenges of the decades ahead,” Cr Rush said.
“Council is in the early feasibility stage of exploring a number of other additional facilities to continue to grow the role education plays in the Upper Hunter.”
Cr Rush said keeping wages high, but competitive and sustainable, required a dramatic shift in the delivery and uptake of education in the Hunter over the next decade.
“This is particularly true of the coal industry,” he said.
“Of all the forms of income, wages is the most important for the health of the region’s economy because it is the component with the highest relative expenditure on consumption.
“Consumption drives economies.”
Cr Rush said the partnership with Hunter TAFE and the USQ would deliver opportunities to deepen industry knowledge and skills.
In addition to mining engineering, the centre may also offer degrees in workplace health and safety and environmental science.
The centre will be a three-storey building, with state-of-the-art teaching spaces, a large lecture space, teaching rooms, computer lab, student common, staff offices and staff common.
