Rome Declaration on Mainstreaming OSH into Education and Training

During the Italian Presidency seminar on "Mainstreaming OSH into education - the workers of tomorrow" that took place in the context of the international conference in Rome on occupational safety and health in SME's on 1-3 October 2003, the health and safety experts agreed upon the need for a European strategy based on qualified and quantified goals aiming at preparing children and young people for future working life. The seminar closed with the Rome Declaration on Mainstreaming OSH into Education and Training.

Objective:

The main objective of this Rome Declaration is to prepare and sustain people during their life, since their childhood, engaging schools and any other professional training institution in actions providing safer and healthier workforce in the EU of tomorrow.

During the Italian Presidency seminar on “Mainstreaming OSH into education – the workers of tomorrow” the health and safety experts agreed upon the need for a European strategy based on qualified and quantified goals aiming at:

• Preparing children and young people for the challenge of their future working life assuring them occupational safety and health;
• Providing all citizens and workers, in particular, with a life long learning;
• Improving the involvement of educational and training system initial and continuing in fostering health and safety in the workplace.

This strategy needs to be clearly focused on young people; particularly in view of enlargement as from May 2004 there will be 75 million young people in the 25 member States of the European Union.

Background:

The Luxembourg Consultative Committee for Health and Safety approved in 1998 a guideline document on the need for a global early education and training strategy to ensure better workplace conditions.

The Lisbon Council in March 2000 set the overall strategic goal: “to become the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion” until 2010.

The March 2002 seminar in Bilbao organised by the Spanish Presidency, the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work in co-operation with the European Commission was the first step in the discussion on the mainstreaming of OSH in education policies and practices at EU-level.

The Community strategy on health and safety at work 2002-2006 stressed the need for “awareness raising and education from an early stage on” and stated that education and the prevention culture are the key factors for maintaining and improving quality of work.

New strategies in the Education and Training field also need to be adapted to the OSH and Education approach, for example the concrete future objectives of education and training systems and its follow-up through the European Work Programme for Education & Training.

Call for action:

This Declaration calls upon the European Social Affairs Council, the European Parliament and the European Commission to consider action to:

• Implement the European Employment guidelines of the Member States to ensure that:
  • Education & training in safety and health principles are mentioned as means to achieve safer and healthier workplaces and as an important tool for improving quality of work in Europe;
  • Qualified and quantified goals for preparing young people for working life by means of education & training to be integrated into the Employment guidelines; One of these quantified goals could be that “All young people when leaving school must have received OSH training for at least 8 hours within the regular educational course, before 2010”. Each Member State can decide at which stage in school life and the ways to deliver this training;
  • Every life long learning activity foresees an adequate budget dedicated to OSH.
• Develop an action plan to mainstream OSH in education & training at the European level and to carry out regularly actions in cooperation with the European Social Partners in order to promote it.
• Support, and participate actively in the European Week for Safety and Health at Work 2006 – Young People at Work.
• Support, within the framework of the Commission’s Vocational Training activities, the development of European networks for safety and health vocational training in different sectors.

The declaration calls upon the EU-Member States and Accession States and their Social Partners, to consider:

• Setting national goals and developing coherent strategies for preparing children and young people for working life by means of education & training.
• Setting qualified and quantified goals for improvement of the working environment in schools and other educational establishment.
• Exchanging good practices of mainstreaming OSH in education & training in an enlarged European network group of OSH and education training experts.
• Participating actively in the national organisation of the European Week for Safety and Health at Work - Young People at Work during 2006.

The declaration finally calls upon the coming EU-Presidencies of Ireland and the Netherlands to consider relevant action during 2004 to organise an appropriate follow-up to this declaration.

The participants of the Rome seminar hope that this declaration can serve as impetus towards the development of coherent European OSH- and education and training policies as a major contribution towards the development of a European prevention culture and thus the improvement of the quality of work and education in the European Union.