Lift and Fire

Here is an observation on LIFT and FIRE Training

Having worked for about a decade in the Corporate Health and Safety department of large oil company let me share few observations with the team.

1. There is indeed very high demand for safety professionals in the world. In the specific context of Kerala, there are lot of such jobs in the Gulf and they are often better paid than comparable skilled jobs.
2. Till recently, there were not enough institutions in India which produced safety professionals. The National Institute of Fire Engineering (Nagpur) had annual intake of less than 100. Labour institutes had courses which also had limited intake. NITIE (in Mumbai) started a course on safety and environmental management, but again with an offtake of less than 20. In Kerala, Cochin University started a fire and safety engineering course only in the last decade and also has an annual intake of less than 50. So clearly there were not enough supply
3. In the specific context of India, there was not even enough demand for safety professionals. Other than big chemical and oil industries, most companies did not (and still does not) take safety very seriously. Safety department was often the place where incompetent, inconvenient or troublesome people were transferred to. Safety department was often seen as a nuisance by production and logistics side. However, this is changing. Safety awareness is increasing in India too and there could be lot more such jobs coming up here too. I notice that workers building new airports in Mumbai and Chennai are wearing helmets now.
4. Internationally however the scene has been very different for at least last 20 years. Due to a number of reason (legislation, awareness and economics), safety became paramount in the western world (and by association western MNCs). Not only they appointed qualified people to safety jobs, they also requested safety officers to be appointed by their sub contractors and sub-sub contractors. Initially the sub contractors and sub-sub contractors got away giving the safety responsibility to somebody and then appointing somebody not qualified to do the work as safety officers. However in the end they were forced to toe the line and have people who have at least SOME safety training.
5. I think the news spread and since the official system was not increasing supply the market took over
6. Now I dont know how the safety training industry is regulated in India, but there are international standards on safety training which are simple and easy to adapt for India
7. In the Gulf, the most sought after certification is NEBOSH (National Examination Board for Occupational Safety and Health). This is a UK based Board but approves other institutions to conduct training/examinations which comply to their standard. There are other institutions and other trainings too. We could either start to work with NEBOSH standard (which is internationally benchmarked, but expensive) or create an Indian equivalent. I am not sure who in India will have this responsibility.
8. In the advertisements which I see here I dont see reference to NEBOSH or any other technical quality benchmark. However I do see reference to ISO 9000 etc. ISO 9000 as many of you may know is a quality assurance certification which checks consistancy more than gravity. They check the delivery of a product or service against what was intended to be delivered. It does not guarentee that the safety course (or any other course) is of sufficient quality or meets international standard of quality.

So in summary I would say that the right response to proliferation of such safety training institutes is to bring in a standard of training for them considering that there is indeed market for safety professionals around the world and it is increasing.