A new memorandum of understanding (MOU) will see the pool of skilled safety professionals in the oil, petroleum, energy and chemical (OPEC) cluster of industries grow and upskill through training programmes and masterclasses.
The MOU was signed between NTUC’s e2i (Employment and Employability Institute), Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) and the Labour Movement OPEC Cluster on 11 November 2016 at the sidelines of the first Major Hazards Installation (MHI) and Safety Seminar held at the Devan Nair Institute for Employment and Employability.
The MOU comes after the recently announced requirements for safety of MHI regulations that fall under the Workplace Safety and Health Act. The new requirements will take effect in September next year.
MHIs refer to facilities in the petroleum and chemical industries where large quantities of toxic and flammable substances are stored or used.
Prior to the signing of the MOU, biomedical companies Pfizer and MSD, e2i, and NTUC and SIT developed the Specialist Certificate in Programme Safety, which comprises a series of eight workshops to meet new safety case regime requirements for MHI industries.
Equipping Professionals
The new programme aims to equip professionals with the know-how to develop a safety case – a report justifying that a working environment is deemed safe – as well as build capabilities to meet current and emerging skills for workplace safety and health (WSH) professionals in the cluster. It will be first introduced in the cluster’s biomedical sector, and subsequently to MHIs in its other sectors.
“Workers who operate in facilities where large quantities of toxic and flammable substances are used, stored or transported, are truly the backbone of the OPEC industry. We value their contributions and want to ensure that they continue to work with complete peace of mind.
“To this end, we look forward to collaborating with e2i and our industry partners to ensure that the unique process safety needs within each sector will be addressed, and management and safety professionals alike are adequately apprised and trained,” said Labour Movement OPEC Cluster Chairman K. Karthikeyan.
Touching on the seminar, e2i CEO Gilbert Tan said that it was timely to bring practitioners together to share expertise, and provide a training and job matching platform.
“e2i has been working closely with OPEC partners and training providers to identify industry skills and manpower needs. As an enabler, we aim to equip practitioners with competencies and continual skills upgrading to address the fast-changing needs of sectors for companies’ growth and working people’s career progression,” said Mr Tan.
