This year, the EMA wouldn’t be celebrating the 100-graduate milestone for the NZ Diploma in Workplace Health and Safety Management (Level 6) programme if it weren’t for a conversation that took place in 2012.
Back then, the EMA was offering programmes that led to the National Certificates in Occupational Health and Safety at Levels 3 and 4. These were the only vocational qualifications available to health and safety practitioners in New Zealand – that is unless they wanted to undertake academic study in health and safety at one of NZ’s universities.
Paul Jarvie (PJ) recognised that this represented a significant gap and set about doing something about it. Initially, he reached out to EMA’s then Tertiary Portfolio Manager and suggested that EMA develop a local programme at Level 6 for health and safety professionals. With PJ’s assistance, content was developed and facilitators were sourced, with the first iteration of the programme running successfully in 2013.
At the same time, NZ’s then National government led a targeted review of vocational qualifications with the aim of consolidating the near 12,000 vocational qualifications available down to approximately 1,200.
PJ recognised that this could be an opportunity to add a new health and safety qualification at Level 6 on the New Zealand Qualifications Framework (NZQF). As a member of the Health and Safety Qualifications Review Governance Group, he set about doing this.
The New Zealand Workplace Health and Safety Management (Level 6) qualification was added to the NZQF in 2016 – and today there are 100 graduates.
In recognition of this significant milestone, and the role that the PJ played in establishing the Level 6 programme, the EMA presented him with a Lifetime Achievement Award for services to Workplace Health and Safety. PJ accepted this award at the recent celebration of the 100 graduate milestone held at the EMA.