The Australian OHS Education Accreditation Board is an independent body auspiced by the Australian Institute of Health & Safety to accredit OHS professional education programs.
The role of the Board is to approve and oversee the accreditation process to ensure appropriate governance of the process and that appropriate standards are maintained. Composition of the Board has broad representation from
- OHS professionals
- OHS academics
- Education
- Industry including employer and union
- Australian Institute of Health & Safety (AIHS)
- Australian Institute of Occupational Hygiene (AIOH), the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society of Australia (HFESA) and the Australian New Zealand Society of Occupational Medicine (ANZOM)
- OHS regulators
Specifically the Board manages the OHS education accreditation process by
- Approving guidelines and operating procedures for accreditation
- Maintaining a register of appropriately qualified and trained persons from which persons are drawn to form individual assessment panels for the purpose of evaluating applications
- Appointing people to individual accreditation assessment panels
- Receiving and reviewing preliminary/provisional accreditation recommendations from the assessment panel
- Endorsing recommendations made by the assessment panel or recommending alternative or additional actions including seeking additional information, making visits or other appropriate actions
- Seeking advice from relevant external agencies on matters relating to OHS education
- Maintaining links with industry (including employers, workers, regulators and the community) to ensure relevance and currency of accreditation criteria
- Monitoring information on accredited programs between accreditation cycles and taking action as appropriate
- Maintaining links with institutions providing accredited programs
- Maintaining links with like-purpose international bodies
- Reporting annually to the Board of the Australian Institute of Health & Safety.