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The Labour Department (LD) today (September 26) launched a number of measures to improve the existing mandatory safety training (MST) system, including consolidation of the existing guidance notes issued for different MST courses, standardisation of course contents and centralisation of issue of course examination papers.
The LD has consolidated the existing guidance notes issued for different types of MST courses and laid down all approval conditions to facilitate reference and compliance by training course providers (TCPs). The new guidance notes and approval conditions have been uploaded to the LD's homepage at www.labour.gov.hk/eng/osh/content5.htm .
A spokesman for the LD said standardising the contents of MST courses aimed to maintain consistency of the courses delivered by different TCPs and assure course quality. This could also shorten the time for considering applications for course recognition by prospective course providers. At the same time, the LD would prepare examination papers centrally and issue them to individual TCPs shortly before the examinations in order to eliminate the chance of leakage of examination questions. These two measures would start with the "Mandatory Basic Safety Training" (commonly called Green Card) courses first and will be extended to other types of MST courses progressively. TCPs of Green Card courses should begin to use the standardised course contents and examination papers issued by the LD from the date specified in the consolidated guidance notes.
The Factories and Industrial Undertakings Ordinance and its subsidiary regulations require persons engaged in specific high-risk sectors, activities or machine operations to complete MST. The Commissioner for Labour is empowered to recognise these training courses and authorise TCPs to issue relevant certificates.
The above improvement measures were formulated in light of the results of a thorough review of the MST system to address deficiencies in the existing system. Before the launch, comprehensive consultations were carried out and general support from the industry was gained. The LD will strengthen the monitoring effort to ensure earnest implementation of the improvement measures. Failure to comply with the approval conditions may result in withdrawal of the recognition of the courses and the authorisation to issue the relevant certificates.
Persons requiring more information are welcome to call the department's occupational safety and health advisory telephone service hotline on 2559 2297.
Ends/Monday, September 26, 2011
Issued at HKT 11:41
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