How should they be taught?
For the past 40 years or so there have been efforts by the ‘safety movement’ and also by engineering institutions to promote the inclusion of health and safety/risk issues in undergraduate engineering degree courses. I have been a participant or an observer throughout. But, no proposal (though some are very recent) has yet to persuade most engineering academics at the grass roots to take up the challenge. With important exceptions, notably in chemical engineering (HAZOPS etc), safety is still an absentee in undergraduate curricula. This should be a concern to all organisations who employ graduate engineers, particularly those in high hazard industries.
It’s axiomatic that the engineering institutions and the Engineering Council (EC) are committed to the highest professional standards of H&S conduct and expertise. The controversy is whether these standards should be taught in university degree curricula as required by the EC; or just learnt ‘on the job’ in subsequent years.
Aston University carried out a survey sponsored by RoSPA/HSE in the 1990s on the prevalence of safety material in MBA programmes. We found that with important exceptions (‘that proved the rule’) safety was also an absentee in MBA syllabuses.
I think I know why safety is neglected. Though my views have oscillated as they have fructified.
This blog asks: what are the challenges? One is inherent in the way engineering is taught. Another is that engineering academic staff have numerous pressures, and teaching H&S is low on their ‘to-do’ list. Thirdly, and linked with the second, is the practical interpretation of the demanding criteria for programme accreditation, notably in areas other than ‘mainstream’ subjects.
The second blog will pose the question where should H&S be taught in the curriculum: Within the mainstream technical modules or as a major part of a ‘stand-alone’ module? I also review the current criteria for accreditation of university engineering degrees – health, safety and risk are explicit requirements, but now part of a very long list of other supporting topics.
The final post will explain: How I include safety issues in ‘Engineering Materials’ – a second-year module at Aston – to 314 mechanical, electro-mechanical, design and chemical engineers. I also describe what I teach in a ‘Professional Preparation for Industry’ final year ‘stand alone’ module for 21 design engineers. I conclude with unambitious suggestions about how some progress might be made.
History and now
The Flixborough Explosion 1974
“At about 4.53 pm on Saturday 1st June 1974 the Flixborough Works of Nypro (UK) Limited … were virtually demolished by an explosion of warlike dimensions. Of those working on the site at the time, 28 were killed and 36 others suffered injuries. If the explosion had occurred on an ordinary working day, many more people would have been on the site, and the number of casualties would have been much greater.” (Inquiry Report)
Figure 1 The Flixborough site – before the explosion Figure 2 The Flixborough site – after the explosion – the ‘Main Office Block’ has been destroyed Figure 3 The temporary by-pass pipe Figure 4 The buckled by-pass pipe
The primary cause of the explosion (see Figures 1 to 4) was the buckling failure of a temporary by-pass pipe associated with large ‘unexpected’ bending stresses. This led to the release of a massive quantity of highly flammable cyclohexane.
The Inquiry Report stated:
“At the time of the installation … none of the senior personnel of the company, who were chemical engineers, were capable of recognising the existence of what is in essence a simple engineering problem let alone solving it. We consider that there are … two important lessons to be learned: ….
(ii) that the training of engineers should be more broadly based. … All engineers should therefore learn at least the elements of other branches of engineering than their own in both their academic and practical training.”
While a laudable suggestion, what the Inquiry failed to recognise was that the Flixborough engineers knew nothing of the rudiments of safety and in particular the safety aspects of change management (crude as they were at the time). With thorough procedures and testing, the design error would have been rectified. Though I ask my chemical engineers why they are studying engineering materials. Silence. Flixborough is the answer.
My Inaugural Lecture in 1979
The title of my Inaugural Lecture at Aston University in 1979 was “Safety: Too Important to be left to the Engineers?”. The case studies presented, notably Flixborough, challenged the safety-competence and commitment of engineers. There were some prescient insights for the time: risk assessment; multi-causality and root causes; unintended errors compared with situational violations; but the lecture concluded lamely:
“I believe that there is clearly a need to broaden the education of engineers to include some of the subjects to which I have referred [Flixborough, but also more prosaic engineering accidents]. These include: management studies; an introduction to human behaviour and ergonomics; health and safety law, and machinery safeguarding design”. [My emphases]
The only response from faculty colleagues I can recall was that the title was insulting to engineers.
An HSE conference – a false start
In 1984 an HSE conference promoted by their Construction Industry Advisory Committee (CONIAC) was counter-productive. It was held at the Institution of Civil Engineers and attended by posh engineering professors. I was invited to give an inspirational lecture in the afternoon. At lunchtime, my distinguished ‘table’ thought the 20 hour detailed syllabus (mainly law) just advocated by HSE, derisory. I ‘went native’, and condemned the HSE proposal. I was not popular with the sponsors.
The focus on law would have been better received if CDM, COMAH, LOLER, PUWER and the Supply of Machinery (Safety) Regulations had then existed. It occurs to me now that a module could be founded on some of these regulations, but each regulation reinforced by an actual case of compliance or more importantly non-compliance – with adverse consequences; supported by technical details.
At that time I advocated integrating safety into ‘mainstream’ technical subjects, supported by case studies. How this should be done, I didn’t explain. But that was my aspiration, then – and now.
Engineering professional bodies and IOSH
HSE, The Hazards Forum (created by four engineering professional bodies in 1989), the Inter-Institutional [Engineering] Group (IIG) on Health and Safety – now re-named the Joint Institutional Group on Safety Risk (JIGSR) and IOSH have taken the lead in more recent years. Professor Dick Taylor as chair of the IIG has driven the process. It is too early to review the effectiveness of the most recent initiatives.
The Hazards Forum published in 1996 an excellent book ‘An Engineer’s Responsibility for Safety. Safety by Design’. There are splendid chapters by eminent business school professors – Sandra Dawson and Sue Cox. (My introductory chapter ‘A framework for safety’ is good stuff; largely ‘ghost written’ by Dr David Wenham who also wrote a chapter on H&S law). The book was referenced in the 1998 EC degree syllabus that first specified teaching of H&S. But have members of the target audience ever read it?
Liverpool University have shown what can be done, though the circumstances were highly favourable: a fundamental reform of the way engineering was taught gave the opportunity to build-in safety as a conceptual foundation in the teaching of some core subjects; an HSE research grant; proximity to Bootle; a risk research institute, but above all because they are enthusiasts, notably at a senior level.
So why has progress been so slow?
The challenge is that there are few informed enthusiasts and risk researchers in the 150 or so UK institutions that offer engineering degrees.
The IIG’s recent focus has been to develop learning materials. But good teaching materials are a necessary, not a sufficient, condition for progress. And my concern belatedly is that the sophisticated materials may be perceived as a complex straight-jacket. This is because engineering departments struggle to find a solution to a much more widely-faceted question, namely how to incorporate not only risk issues (broadly-defined), but also eg, sustainable development, commercial and social contexts, management & business practices, and intellectual property rights. All these topics are ‘mandatory’.
One explanation lies in the factors that determine syllabus development at departmental level, where the inclusion of health and safety is usually below the radar at staff meetings. The most important is that the curriculum is already overcrowded and it is a huge struggle to find space for new material. It is also a struggle to ensure that sufficient lecturers are available to deliver core subjects.
A new module in an undergraduate course has to be taught by someone who needs to ‘up’ their teaching load (rare); knows something about the subject (for risk issues, very rare), and is enthusiastic. What are most academics enthusiastic about? Their personal research. And most H&S research (actually only in a few universities) typically takes place in business schools and psychology groups. Our MBA survey revealed that H&S was taught in the few business schools where research was being done (the exceptions that proved the rule). In the others, many respondents saw safety as a subject of insufficient academic rigour to merit inclusion; sometimes expressed in scathing terms.
Engineering departments can ‘contract out’ ‘management and business practices’ etc to their business schools (with adverse resource implications), but for the above reasons, H&S issues are unlikely to be included. Visiting speakers may be invited to talk about safety, but these potential speakers vie with other ‘professional preparation for work’ contributors. Anyway a two-hour lecture on safety is a trivial proportion of the circa 850 hours of mainstream ‘didactic’ teaching, and an exam question (a crucial motivator) would be highly unlikely.
One fundamental challenge is that while safety and risk issues are mandatory they struggle to get nearer the front of the queue in degree curricula. All this will be explained in the next post.
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