The “Austrian Health and Safety License” – a first step into the ENETOSH project
by Reinhard Körbler

In our opinion vocational and technical education and training (VTE) is not just education for the occupation, for specific profession-related qualification but also education by the occupation, by experience and standing the challenge of working life. Qualified personnel are needed with experience in information technologies, qualification in economy including knowledge about OSH. We already work well with ECDL, the European Computer Driving License and EBDL, the European Business Driving License.
First talks about implementing the Occupational Health and Safety License in Austria were quite positive, even knowing there are still different legal situations within the European Union. Nowadays the target for occupational schools is to provide additional competences that are linked to the practical working situation. To reach that the schools let their teachers participate in special training seminars to enable them learning and teaching these new qualifications.
In Austria we are offering a series of OSH seminars since 2004 for teachers in vocational schools and higher technical colleges. Duration will be 96 hours in total, 48 hours are announced by the Federal Institute for Pedagogic Education and 48 hours are to choose from our organisations standard seminar programs. The participants will be trained to be tutors and instructors for OSH and they get a certificate on that. The education program contains the following items: basic laws and technical standards, organisation of OSH in practice, workplace safety, ergonomics, chemical substances, evaluation of hazards and cost-benefit analysis. With this extra knowledge teachers will be able to include OSH facts in the teaching programs of their schools. Finally their students will get a certificate, the above mentioned Occupational Health and Safety Passport.
A special working group within ENETOSH has to define the main criteria for international acceptance of the teachers licence and the OSH Passport as a certificate for students. Permission of trainers or teachers, permission of schools or institutes, examination of students by institutes, supervision by external experts and costs of the education are just some of the questions to be discussed within the involved organisations in the future.
We hope that ENETOSH will play an important role in the further development of this task and will help to follow up the implementation of OSH in the various national education programs in and probably at neighbours of the EU.
The following table shows an overview on OSH training in occupational schools in Austria and the qualification of teachers to trainers for OSH.