High demand expected for OSH professionals
TAWAU: The demand for tertiary qualified occupational health and safety professionals is expected to be high as more Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) practitioners and experts are needed to ensure a safe and healthy working environment.
Chairman of the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), Tan Sri Datuk Seri Lee Lam Thye, stressed that the development and industrialization of the country could be achieved without sacrificing human lives.
As Malaysia aims to be an industrialized country, it is bound to face challenges in terms of the working environment, he told the media after officiating at a safety and health seminar at Open Universiti Malaysia (OUM) Tawau in conjunction with the OUM Education Day here on Sunday.
Lee, who is also the chairman of OUM, disclosed that the university is offering two programs on safety and healthy working environment, which are Bachelor of Occupational Health and Safety Management with Honors and Master of Occupational Safety and Health Risk Management.
The Bachelor of Occupational Health and Safety Management with Honors program is a part-time open and distance learning undergraduate degree program, which is designed for OSH professionals, who are both practicing and experienced at either management or technical level.
The program will increase the knowledge and skills in a number of areas, including occupational hygiene, hazard management, OSH management systems development and evaluation.
It incorporates experiential learning concepts with projectbased learning and provides hands-on experience, ensuring students graduate with ‘realworld’ experience.
Lee said the program provides career prospects and advancement in a variety of industries while OSH professionals work alongside other professionals in the organization to ensure a safe and healthy working environment.
For Master of Occupational Safety and Health Risk Management, it is a postgraduate program which offers a qualification that provides a sound business and technical basis to support the implementation of hazard identification, risk assessment and control measures and to monitor their business effectiveness.
The capstone unit for this master program is a workrelated research project.
Graduates of this course are likely to have increased opportunities across a wide range of professions and industries.
“OUM has 37 learning centers throughout the country, including six in Sabah (Kota Kinabalu, Keningau, Kota Marudu, Sandakan, Lahad Datu and Tawau). All programs offered by OUM today are recognized by JPA and MQA. I hope many people, especially the youngsters, are aware of the importance of OSH in schools and working environment,” Lee added.
According to him, a total of 34,258 industry accidents were reported in 2015 compared to 63,423 cases in 2002.