ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines – The worsening shortage of mining engineers and related professionals in Mindanao has prompted the United States Assistance for International Development (USAID) to take appropriate steps by providing a scholarship program for the degree of Bachelor of Science in Mining Engineering (BSME) this School Year initially for 15 deserving local college students, many of them Muslims and members of the Indigenous Peoples (IPs).

The USAID, through its Growth with Equity in Mindanao (GEM) Program, said the agency’s financial support is provided under its Investments of Vocational/Elementary/Secondary and Tertiary Studies (INVESTS) project.

Most of the INVESTS mining engineering student-scholars, GEM field officials here said, were selected from qualified applicants from trouble-rocked communities of the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), and neighboring regions in the Southern Philippines.

According to a GEM report, the scholars are currently enrolled at the University of the Philippines (UP) in Diliman, Quezon City, Palawan State University in Puerto Princesa City, and Cebu Institute of Technology (CIT).

“Mining engineering is a relatively unknown academic field in the Philippines as the few tertiary institutions of learning that offer the course produce only about 24 licensed mining engineers every year,” the GEM program said, adding that the country’s rapidly expanding mining industry requires at least 100 engineers annually.

Scholar Musarapa Insiang, a Maguindanaon from Datu Paglas town, said the USAID-financed college education “will give me the rare opportunity to have a stable career in mining engineering which is a fast growing industry not only in Mindanao but also in other parts of the archipelago.”

If Insiang will later hurdle the licensure examination, GEM said, “she will be among the few Muslim women mining engineers in the country.”

Another female Muslim USAID scholar, according to GEM, is Haiza Pigkaulan of Columbio town in Sultan Kudarat, who is taking courses in Mining law and Environmental Science at the Palawan State University.

Pigkaulan said there are mining companies operating in her province and she prefers to work in any environmentally responsible firm anywhere in the country’s second largest island region rather than seek employment abroad, although working in a foreign country would mean much higher compensation.