Lee: Niosh needs support to create OSH awareness
KUALA LUMPUR: Efforts to instil a safety and health culture among students and teachers will not succeed without support from all stakeholders, says National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (Niosh) chairman Tan Sri Lee Lam Thye.
He said Niosh on its own could not reach out to more than 10,000 schools and the five million students in Malaysia without help from non-governmental organisations and the private sector.
Lee was in Hong Kong yesterday to speak at a technical session of the 33rd Asia Pacific Occupational Safety and Health Organisation Annual Conference.
He presented a paper on “Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) in School – a Niosh Malaysia Approach in Cultivating OSH Culture at an Early Stage in Malaysia”.
Although the “OSH in School” programme was first introduced in 2002, Lee said it only gained momentum when Niosh collaborated with the Education Ministry in 2016.
“To date, more than 50 schools have participated in the programme and many more are expected to join with the support of NGOs and the private sector, which can help provide volunteers and sponsorship for the initiative,” he said.
More and more teachers and students were receptive to the idea of OSH education to prepare them for their entry to an accident-free work environment, he said.
“Niosh has also published a guidebook titled OSH programme in Schools and distributed it to several schools with sponsorship from corporate organisations.
“We plan to publish a more comprehensive and updated guidebook after receiving input from students, teachers and the stakeholders,” he said.
The three-day conference is organised by IOSH, the world’s largest professional health and safety organisation with more than 47,000 members in over 130 countries.
Apart from Niosh, the Malaysian Society for Occupational Safety & Health and Malaysian Occupational Safety and Health Practitioners Association also took part in the conference.
These three organisations will jointly host the 35th Asia Pacific Occupational Safety and Health Organisation Annual Conference in Kuala Lumpur in 2020.