Postgraduate education for the steel industry

In 1992, the Department of Materials Engineering at the University of Wollongong signed an agreement with PT Krakatau Steel, Indonesia's national steel company, to provide postgraduate coursework education for the company's engineers. Over the next five years, the Department provided an on site program at Krakatau Steel's Cilegon works in Java. Members of the Department staff were flown regularly to Indonesia to deliver lectures and to provide tutoring. The coursework program developed reflected the diverse background of the students entering the program and the desire of the company to improve their engineers' understanding of basic principles of Materials Engineering, and particularly, of the metallurgy of steel. The program was run with cooperation from Tirtayasa University in Cilegon. Over 100 students graduated with Masters degrees from the program. A quite different program was developed for BHP Ltd., Australia's largest steel company, in 1995 to educate their engineers in modem management techniques and specific steelmaking technologies. The program was delivered locally in a variety of modes. This paper discusses the similarities and differences between the respective programs and reflects on the challenges facing universities in providing post graduate education to the steel industry.