The rapid pace of technological change, combined with the persistence of unsafe or environmentally threatening working conditions, has served to focus attention on the need to create a safe, healthy working environment and to promote a new safety culture at the workplace. As other business issues, Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) can be managed in the enterprise. Organizations increasingly seek OSH professionals who can catalyse these processes, and it is not always easy to find professionals with the right skills. Becoming a safety and health professional requires multidisciplinary training. The OSH profession calls for a broad-based educational background combined with specialized knowledge in physical sciences (medicine, physics, chemistry and engineering) and social sciences (behaviour, motivation and communication) together with the principles and concepts of management. Many professionals require updating their competences in line with this situation. The International Training Centre (ITC) of the International Labour Organization (ILO) is offering a distance learning course on OSH delivered through an Internet-based platform to satisfy this need. The proposed programme will incorporate the international ILO experience on OSH and the ITCILO's international training experience applied to the methodology. This programme is addressed to participants of both developing and developed countries, who will thus have an opportunity to share their different experiences.
The course is aimed at trainers and advisers in OSH belonging to governmental, employers' and workers' organizations involved in the promotion of OSH within enterprises. The programme may also be of interest to other people from professional or industrial bodies, training institutions involved in OSH issues and, above all, managers, supervisors and technical staff in charge of OSH within enterprises. The following requirements are essential to participate in this course: - the ability to use and access a computer with Internet; - a working knowledge of written English.