Mainstreaming occupational safety and health into university ...

Mainstreaming occupational safety and health into university educationOn the other hand, the requirement in these Member States to implement new OSHlegislation to comply with the EU OSH directives has provided opportunities for themto further develop their teaching and research work in the OSH area. They are alsointroducing new learning methods, for example, e-learning OSH resources.Practical laboratory workCarrying out practical work in a laboratory is perhaps the most hazardous part ofuniversity activities. While both professors and students usually recognise this, theystill need specific instruction and training in laboratory safety. There is a clear interfacehere between learning about OSH and the university’s responsibility to keep staffand students safe. In the laboratory work, students can see the OSH principles andrequirements for the first time put into practice in their own work. To get the mostout of this instruction, it should not just be a presentation of laboratory rules, butput in the context of learning about risk assessment and prevention so that studentsdevelop a more general awareness and skills related to risk and risk prevention. Thelaboratory safety case from the University of Vienna, Austria, takes this approach andcombines theoretical instruction with practice. The NOP-online/KMR-dangeroussubstances, case from Germany shows how e-learning and an online database cansupport learning and make resources available over across several universities.E u r o p e a n Ag e n c y f o r Sa f e t y a n d He a l t h a t Wo r kActive and practical education methods linked to the real worldLearning should concern the development of skills, attitudes and behaviours as wellas theoretical knowledge. This cannot be achieved through the use of lectures alone.In addition, it is a well-known that practical, ‘active learning’ guarantees far betterlearning results than passive methods such as lectures (see box). This is especially truefor a practical topic such as OSH and previous EU-OSHA reports have emphasised theimportance of ensuring a close link to working life and striking a balance betweentheory and practice (see annex 3).It is, however, a challenge to introduce more practical and participatory learningmethods into university education where large student numbers are involved. It alsorequires more resources from universities and perhaps in some cases, perhaps, a changein mentality by some about how learning at university should take place as well asspecific skills on the part of educators. In universities the easiest educational methodsfor them to implement solutions to implement are lecture-hall teaching combinedwith e-learning. Nevertheless several of the cases demonstrate ways in which a moreactive-learning and participatory approach can be achieved and how a real-life worksituations can be incorporated can be incorporated into their methodology.Visiting and working in real workplaces is an important, effective way to improve thesafety and health awareness of students, which is difficult to replicate in the classroom,even with the use of resources such as videos to take the student out to the real-lifesituation. In the case description from INRS, France, architectural and engineeringstudents design projects together, such as houses. In the case from Belgium, studentsof architecture visit construction sites and observe the work in order to understand thesafety and health requirements of construction work. In the case of DEMI in the NewUniversity of Lisbon in Portugal, students perform risk analysis at real workplaces in orderto learn the correct techniques. The University of Mining and Geology St. Ivan Rilskicooperates with mining companies in order for students to learn safe working methodsin this hazardous industry. The National Safety Council in the USA has developed OSH/business case studies for use on business courses. The educational materials developedfor engineering students at Liverpool University, UK use accident case studies.151