Mainstreaming occupational safety and health into university ...

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Mainstreaming occupational safety and health into university educationE 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 kupstream as possible, of the fundamentals of occupational risk prevention by futurecorporate executives.Aims and Objectives:OOTo initiate future engineers, during their course at Ecole nationale supérieure dechimie de Rennes, in OSH and the prevention culture.OO To introduce active learning and participative methods.OO To relate the learning to real-work situations.S c o p eThe project began in 1997. At the instigation of the Conférence des Grandes Écoles andthe Commission du Titre d’Ingénieur, the ENSCR began thinking. The content of thetraining course had to be organised to increase the students’ involvement.By agreement with the consulting engineers of the CRAM fund, the school committeditself to a project instruction method based on case studies. The programme wasbegun with second-year students. They had acquired basic knowledge in theirtraining course as engineers and were preparing to choose their specialist trainingprogrammes. In the first year of the engineering training cycle they had alreadyexperienced group working, under the responsibility of a project manager.With the help of the CRAM fund, the school selects topics that can be seen inenterprises. Examples include: paints and substitute products; core treatment of woodand new derivative products; the polyester industry; glycol ethers; the OHS manual;the food processing industry; and design of workplaces, etc., with a total of more thanfifty memoranda and case studies.For each case to be studied, a group of students is formed. It has the task ofinvestigating the issues in the light of the legislation and studying the risks relatedto the product and the trade. Once the case study has been written, the quality ofthe report is assessed by the school’s Director of Industrial Relations, in cooperationwith the consulting engineers and technicians of the CRAM fund. Then the studentspresent their report to the entire class followed immediately by a debriefing sessioncoordinated by a representative of the CRAM.Students were enthusiastic about the project from the beginning. It enabled themto work differently, take initiatives, leave the school to meet the partners, in particularthe CRAM, and become familiar with the industrial environment, enterprise safetymanagers and the CHSCTs (committees for health, safety and working conditions).However some disadvantages of the scheme soon became apparent: the difficultyof finding new study subjects; and students’ investment only in their own researchdespite the reports given to the whole class. So to ensure the continuity of theseteaching measures, they had to evolve.A new instruction module needed to be established, that would be as comprehensiveas possible, coherent and not take up too much space in the already dense secondyearprogramme. Therefore, with the help of national institute INRS 11 , a trainingprogramme over a cycle of 18 hours is being worked out, to provide the necessarybasic knowledge of work-related risks.11 Since 1996, the French national research and safety institute INRS has encouraged the establishmentof thematic networks bringing together the representatives of engineering schools, CRAM funds,other institutions and enterprises.90
Mainstreaming occupational safety and health into university educationFrom 2002 on, twelve project task forces have taken over responsibility for the twelvesections of the programme. They review the content of each course, draw up a paperdocument and change the examples, always in conjunction with the CRAM and INRS.In 2003 a new element was added: online publication of the courses on the school’sintranet. Allowance had to be made for changes in learning materials and techniques,in particular with the support of information and communication technologiesapplied to education. In parallel to this online publication, the students still providelectures. A hard-copy document submitted to each student enables them tofollow the course and retain the essential aspects of each section. An evaluationquestionnaire is used to check the knowledge acquired.The project then continued in 2006: students worked on making the presentationsuniform and took part in outings to illustrate the lectures, always under thesupervision of the CRAM engineers and technicians. Each graduate can now receivean updated CD-ROM containing, in addition to the courses and examples, relevantbibliographic information and links to useful websites.At the CRAM fund for Brittany, their commitment to the project has been reinforced inthe medium-term guidelines for 2005-2007, with a view to providing skills transfer toresource teachers to relay occupational health and safety instruction to the students.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 kResults and evaluationActive student participation in their own training appears to be a very appropriateeducation method for occupational health and safety.The successful implementation of this approach is the result of a partnership betweenvarious stakeholders, in a spirit of cooperation, especially between the ENSCR and theCRAM fund.In addition to the strong involvement of the engineering students already mentioned,they have expressed high levels of satisfaction on completion of their projects. Thesubject interests them and they enjoy it.Problems facedAt the end of the first year of the experiment, it became apparent that a number ofaspects should be altered to be able to sustain the initiative, in particular: difficulty offinding new study subjects, students’ investment only in their own research despitethe reporting to the whole class. The instruction module was therefore changed totackle these issues and ensure that the initiative could be continued in the followingyears.Success factorsThe key factors in the success of this project are as follows:OO the approach is applied to a whole class: every engineering graduate from theENSCR will have been trained to identify the human, social, economic and legalissues involved in OSH within the enterprise, and to take this aspect into accountwhen managing activities and leading projects;OO the teaching method evolved with each academic year so as to improve and adaptit to students’ needs as much as possible; andOO the extensive cooperation between the School and the CRAM fund ensured thesuccess of this initiative.91
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TE-WE-09-007-EN-CIn order to improv
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