Abstract
The Chamber of Mines of South Africa (COMSA) certificates were introduced to standardize
stand-alone in-house qualifications for persons working in the mining industry. When the
Higher Education Qualification Framework (HEQF) Act was introduced in 2007, one of the
unintended consequences was that it meant by implication that the COMSA could no longer
issue qualifications. In response to these developments, the intention was to phase out
COMSA certificates by establishing a deadline for the last entry for new candidates into the
COMSA system of the 31st of August 2015, before it was finally recognized that these changes
will have a wider impact in industry that included the Mine Environmental and Rock
Engineering disciplines. Three institutes, namely the Institute of Mine Surveyors of South
Africa (IMSSA), the South African National Institute for Rock Engineers (SANIRE) and the
Ventilation Society of South Africa (MVSSA) made a combined representation where it was
agreed that deadline could be extended for the final time to the 31st of August 2018. This
means that the complete suite of new qualifications must be registered with South African
Qualifications Authority (SAQA) on the correct level and provided by approved training
institutions and accredited by the Mine Qualification Authority (MQA) and the three
professional institutes respectively. The application process to have a course approved is
tenuous at best and it is anticipated that a minimum of two years will be required to get one
level of qualification approved. The positive spin-off of this crisis is that “learned societies”
and professional bodies involved in the mining service sector were forced to develop a range
of recognized vocational qualifications to develop the skills within industry. This paper
outlines the requirements for the qualifications and outlines the progress made towards the
development thereof.