A CENTRAL coast high school has become the first in NSW to enter a formal partnership with a mining company in a bid to boost the quality of the workforce.

Narara Valley High will tweak parts of its curriculum for years 7 to 10 to have school leavers better equipped for the booming coal industry.

Suspicious ... Maurie Mulheron. Credit:Kirk Gilmour

However, the teachers' union warned the concept was ''fraught with dangers'', including a less rigorous teaching of climate change and the threat of ''typecasting'' children from mining areas as miners.

Hunter Valley-based Nucoal Resources, which owns the controversial Doyles Creek training mine - the licence for which is subject of the Ian Macdonald-Eddie Obeid inquiry at the Independent Commission Against Corruption - will sink tens of thousands of dollars into the formation of a Mining Academy of Education at Narara, near Gosford.