Professionalization in Safety: A Study of the Fundamental Knowledge of Future Safety Professionals

This contribution to the ESREL conference will present an experimentation about testing fundamental knowledge of future safety professionals. The post master Management of Industrial Risks has graduated more than 250 students since 2004. The program addresses Occupational Health and Safety and Industrial Safety topics. Most of the students find a job related to one of those two domains. The program recruits among a large panel of Master Programs, going from Safety, Health, Quality, and Environment. Students then follow a 500 hours program and they do a 1000 hours internship. The question we arise is "What is the fundamental knowledge a safety professional needs to master?" And how can we assure that a student graduated from the program masters this knowledge? This article will present how fundamental knowledge for safety professionals is identified and how this knowledge is assessed. A fundamental knowledge assessment was done on one cohort of students and their feedback on this test is collected. This kind of test develops their meta-knowledge in the safety domain. A critical reflection about learning in the safety domain and quality analysis of safety education programs is made and perspectives about future curricula are proposed.