Barista brews up a mining career

More than 400 metres below the surface at BHP's Olympic Dam in South Australia, Lisa Wing is practising cutting through pipe with a power saw.

The 26-year-old is in training to work as a services technician in the copper mine, but just months ago she was behind a coffee machine working as a barista.

"It's a bit hard down here - we've only got Nescafe Blend 43," she jokes.

Ms Wing is one of a wave of young people undergoing a new training program at the Roxby Downs site.

Officially opened by Premier Steven Marshall on Friday, the School of Rock is a five-week program designed to immerse students in the underground working environment.

Another student, 22-year-old Josephine Breede, worked as a passenger services agent at Adelaide Airport before she too made the move north.

"I constantly heard about mining," she said.

"It's a rewarding career and there's a lot of opportunities out here, so that's what attracted me."

Olympic Dam asset president Laura Tyler said the new program "filled a gap" in BHP's training program.

"What we saw was as we were bringing in new starters, they weren't always as confident as we would like them to be," she said.

"Rather than (having a school) on the surface, let's do it in the environment that we're going to ask people to work in so that they get a real feel and a real taste for it."

Ms Tyler said the injury rate among the new starters was significantly lower than the rest of the mine, while retention rates were on the rise.

Over the past six months, nearly 90 people have undertaken the program.