Posted By John Fraser Gary C40 I disagree with everything you say. If NEBOSH is so bad, then can you tell me why hundreds of safety people all over the UK are doing NEBOSH Courses from Cert to diploma. The reason why I have went down the NEBOSH route is purely driven by Job descriptions on what potential employers expect from candidates.It is the gold standard of H & S Quals - everyone in the safety world is aware of its standing and hence willing to spend time gaining the qualification. Thus anyone with the NEBOSH Dip backed up with experience is in the driving seat as far I am concerned, due to fierce competition from other candidates with similar quals. I thought about doing the Postgraduate Cert at Strathclyde Uni - but decided against it. I think a wise choice . John

Posted By John Fraser As I said before, if NEBOSH is so bad then why so many people / safety professionals are doing it in the uk and beyond ?. John

Posted By David McGuire Hi all, I am currently going through the post graduate certificate in risk and safety management at strathclyde university. So thought I would join in this discussion. I have done the NEBOSH route as well, i.e. general cert, construction cert, and envrionmental dip. I found NEBOSH to prescritive in way they want you to answer questions. Yes it is a very good qualification, but it is not the be all and end all, the PG cert, NVQ 4 etc are just as good and have the same standing in IOSH i.e. grad IOSH.

Posted By David McGuire John, I disagree with your comment on "a person having a NEBOSH dip and experiance will be in the drivng seat with respects to gaining a job". Although I do agree that the NEBOSH dip is a good qualification to have as a safety professional, I think having a MSC in risk and safety management would be a better advantage/ qualification than the diploma! The MSC in risk and safety management is a higher qual than the dip in both IOSH terms and the national qualifications structure.

Posted By justgossip In my experience, i worked as H&S for a firm for about 5 years and all was well ( external audit indicated ). Then i was made redundant. I could not get a job without getting a NEBOSH cert so off I went and acquired my cert. the course was not a waste of time. The one thing it did not do was develope my ability to convert legislation into action within the workplace. I now meet up with H&S people in the construction sector who have NEBOSH and more. I judge such people by the actions of their employees. I would conclude that NEBOSH is requirement to do the job. On the sites i visit, the qualified people seem to have serious problem in converting the knowledge into a positive action by all employees of a company structure. Some companies are using a lot of resources for not a lot of results. I will not be going further down the academic line as this would be boring. If they bring out a qualification that was evidence of competence then I would go for it. So I would conclude NEBOSH is a good academic qualification that should be held by all safety practitioners but we need something that addresses real life. however I could be wrong as i have only met up with about 20 H&S bods garry

Posted By Anne Mageean The first question on the A paper on Tuesday referred to "developing and evolving yourself as a health and safety practionner" I certainly could not rote learn an answer to that one!! Anne

Posted By John Fraser David Mc Guire In my experience, anyone who has a MSC in H & S but no practical experience to back it up is struggling to find H & S work. In my last place, several people went for a h & s advisor advisor position , but they all got knocked back because they were over qualified academically, but no practical experience / CMIOSH status to back it up. Ir also didn't help that the two people interviewing them ( h & s manager & h & s director )had only a level four qualification ( NEBOSH Dip ). The quote at the time was that they are over qualified with no experience to back it up. As I have stated previously, match the experience to the qualification = better chance of being successful at interview stage. John

Posted By JasonGould Doing the cert and then claiming the whole NEBOSH thing is just a silly photographic memory route is just ridiculous IMHO and smells of sour grapes. If I recall correctly based on rough memory from start to finish, = total of 6 exams ranging from 2 to 3.5 hrs each. Well over a 800 hrs study time discounting home study and background reading which raises to 1000's hrs. 35,000 (50,000 before you trim them down) word based assignments on scenarios that are not a simple case of black and white. Yeah go on, tell me it was all a waste of time (ROFL) or that I just walk around quoting this and that. Whilst there are plenty of alternative routes out there, NEBOSH route still stands as one of the best routes in my book although I would never rule out other persons with different quals because at the end of the day quals just mean quals and experience means experience. I have met a variety of persons whom hold very little in terms of paper quals but you can bet your life I would rather them looking after a construction site than myself. Equaly so, I have met people with the whole lot and I would never let them get anywhere on a site :) I don't have a photographic memory (whats this subject about again?) I never did any exams at all previous to the NEBOSH ones so strongly refute any claims it is only for academics or the photographic memory type of person. Quite simply this is just not the case at all and some people whom fail, fail because they simply never did the work or understood what was being asked in the first place. I don't quote rules and regs unless it is required (trust me there are times when it is required both on site and in the boardroom)Anyone with any real experience in H&S will know this is true. GC are you from the club of CMIOSH members are geeks and elitist and NEBOSH qualified persons have no perspective of the real world?

Posted By Jay Joshi In my view, this is because both the employers and surprisingly, recruitment agencies do not know better. My post is to do with all the qualifications including the NEBOSH Diploma accredited by IOSH to meet the graduate membership grade We have had a lot of anecdotal comments regarding the quality of prospective job candidates with University Graduate/Post Graduate -Certificate/Diploma/Degree routes to qualification. We cannot make reasonable conclusions as they are not based on a proper scientific survey and the sample size of the personal comments is very small When we are discussing the merits of only the qualification, we should leave experience out of it as it is blindingly obvious that anyone qualifying with more experience is most likely to have an advantage! It is rare that you will have a NEBOSH Diploma qualified person without experience as this particular route in context of cost, time etc is not practicable for those without experience. Another factor is that as NEBOSH is one of the oldest "qualifications", this is being mentioned etc, by the employers, the recruitment agencies etc, although many more now include "equivalent". I have contributed to similar threads previously, and let there no doubt that when it comes to the broad equivalency of various routes to "academic" qualifications, the University Graduate/Post Graduate -Certificate/Diploma/Degree are at a higher level than the NEBOSH/BSC Diploma Refer to the most recent guidance from IOSH titled “Setting standards in health and safety - raising performance through training and competence development”. Appendix B on page 13 titled “How the different qualification levels relate to each other” . http://www.iosh.co.uk/fi...ARDS101108%20%282%29.pdf The most important clarification is on Page 4 of the same guidance. This clarifies having an “academic” qualification in health and safety , i.e. from the higher education sector or nationally accredited awarding bodies such as the National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health (NEBOSH) doesn’t make one competent to practise health and safety. It only demonstrates is that the person has carried out a programme of academic work leading to the development of knowledge and some skills, and that they’ve been formally assessed in an examination and/or by some other method. The “knowledge” the person gained can form the basis of competence, as long as that person then acquires suitable experience and skills in the workplace. An NVQ/SVQ in occupational health and safety which demonstrates competence in the knowledge and skills needed in the particular workplace setting the person undertook the NVQ, requires the person to gain more work experience/knowledge in the wider context to become competent.

Posted By John A Wright GaryC40 wrote "The vocabulary used is alien to normal working practice and to be honest, i suggest its just a conditioning exercise". and then "I have went down ..." Well if you use THAT sort of vocabulary or grammar I would expect NEBOSH Cert. classes to improve your skills significantly! :o)) Seriously though, I attended a 12 x Friday course at Warwickshire College for my Cert. and with 16 pupils in the class and a very good tutor I learned a lot new H&S subjects, learned a lot about interacting with people of different professions, and learned about problem-solving in various work environements with H&S issues. What you put into it is what you get out of it - I was developing a new career and I put effort into the classes and into passing the exams. I appreciate there was a necessary skill required in interpreting NEBOSH-speak questions but even THAT is still useful now when getting definitions across to customers/operatives who need to grasp some fundamentals in safe systems of work. John W

Posted By Suffolkman Folks "stop the world I want to get off", why does it matter to anyone whether NOBOSH is the "gold standard" or not surely what is important is the every H&S professional is competent and effective. There are a variety of routes to IOSH membership grades which in my opinion are all equally valid and a matter of personal choice. Personally I took the old NEBOSH Cert and thought it was great, did the Nebosh part 1 diploma and passed (but thought the project was to restrictive)then completed my NVQ4 and obtained CMIOSH, did IEMA Cert, and recently passed PgC and am going on to PgD/MSc.... a mix that suited me on cost/ availability/ support etc... grounds Lets all show some respect for anyone however they get to professional status please

Posted By GaryC40 Just to clarify a few things. I am not a snob, elitist, geek, respectful, right or wrong, but i do have an opinion, which is shared (in some respects) with other forum users. I do not agree with the Nebosh method, but that does not mean i disrespect persons who have achieved NGC and/or DiP status. Its bloody hard work! It is obvious through reading this thread that there is a great deal of passion regarding formal qualification methods used in the pursuit of academic competence. Where there is passion there is also pride, a good sign! It will be interesting to see how Nebosh and alternatives courses evolve over the next 5 years. Only tome will tell. Good luck and good night.

Posted By Allan Curran I respect your point of view but to say that all you need is a photographic memory and the ability to regurgitate is flawed. There is far too much to memorize and regurgitate-aside from that photographic memories are extremely rare - understanding and achieving a depth of knowledge is not.

Posted By Pete Longworth William, you are spot on to say that there is more than an element of snobbery here. I remember when I did my diploma. It was the first year of the new diploma and the attitude of those taking dip2 at the same time was very much "That's a Mickey Mouse diploma compared to ours" It reminds me of the old "that was the week that was " sketch. " "I've got the new diploma so I can look down on him because he only has the NVQ4, but I must look up to him because he has Dip2" "I've got dip2 so I can look down on them" "I know my place, I've only got NVQ4 and must look up to them, funny thing is we are all CMIOSH" All a bit pathetic really.

Posted By David McGuire Pah cop out I think!

Posted By JasonGould Oh Please This is getting a little off topic now, Original Poster stated that Nebosh route is pretty much nothing more than a memory exercises and is flawed from his own experience. I can fully understand why some people whom had taken the Nebosh route would be in full disagreement with that statement and others will agree but I don't think the post was not meant to be a us V them type. I can appreciate why people do not necessarily agree with the Nebosh route (It is expensive, it does have a sense of classroom tactics and examination technique and overall it is nothing but another foundation course when you take out experience) I always thought the whole purpose of these varying routes to CMIOSH is to assist people to becoming competent in the work they do by what ever means is best for them for gaining that competence. Also note that I am in full agreement with the original poster if he is getting satisfaction out of the route he has taken no matter what route and this in no way makes him or anyone else for that matter any less better at H&S than myself (Only real life actions and achievements do that, not courses). All this said, lets be clear here Anyone claiming other routes are flawed without having actually done the other route in full is bound to stir up a bit of a hornets nest in a place where there are a diversity of course takers. Snobbery in the H&S field is a totally unjustified viewpoint from anyone because the field is so damn large, it is blatantly obvious there is no single expert or expert course out there. There are people out there that even the most in-depth courses and practical exercises won't help and they will still be a useful as a ashtray on a motorbike in some areas. Equally so there are people out there whom only need a short H&S course and whom actually have a much larger effect on H&S than any of us can ever hope to achieve. And finally, there are people out there whom do abuse the different routes resulting in bad names etc but we all must understand that this in no way undermines the intentions of the routes and equally so there are people out there whom have poured there hearts and minds and money into the learning they do. Should the industry (especially recruitment) do more to recognise other routes? Absolutely. Is one route any better than the other? Absolutely not. Am I better than you because I did this and I did than? Aint even gonna go there Will I stand up for the route I had taken? Course I will Is there sometimes an elitist viewpoint and anti elitist view point that all so often comes across on here? bah hum dum Is there often sour grapes out in the field of H&S when Nebosh is mentioned? bah hum dum again

Posted By GaryC40 What a monstrous thread! As the original poster may i be permitted to put a lid on this? Conclusions If your interested in HS and have no formal qualifications then start with a recognised qual such as the IOSH managing safety, leading to NEBOSH Cert level...agreed? After this the world is yours. There are several routes to take all of which will ultimately lead you to your goal. I think what i have learned from posting my original comment is that there are a great number of people out there who are hard at work trying to better themselves and making a living out of trying to create a better life for themselves and others? I was surprised by the snobbery factor, this is something that i have not experienced and in NO way did i intend to look down on anyone (read my comments) To the people that commented on the fact that i have only sat NGc and Construction... fair play, i based my opinion on NGC format and feedback from colleagues and other associates. Perhaps after the PGC i will target the Nebosh Dip, then comment. In summary, i personally did not enjoy doing the NGC and do not think that learning should involve significant levels of stress. The route i have taken reduced that stress, maybe that is more about me that Nebosh. In my view learning should be an enjoyable experience not painful. Anyway guys and gals lets just get on with it and make a difference, no matter what qual we decide to target! Good luck to all new students and thanks for all the comments. Now back to the real work of passing the bloody course! Cheers everyone. Can we be pals now? Gary :)

Posted By Peter F Gary, I did agree with you until you backed down. NEBOSH and IOSH are both based on regurgitating legislation and regulations and have no real merit in improving health and safety. I have been involved in health and safety for over 10 years and like most I pick up a book and read. I do however have strong problem solving and negotiating skills which serve me well in this background. The problem stems from companies advertising and asking for qualifications or memberships they don't understand, i.e. membership of NEBOSH with a IOSH cert. The unfortunate part is that qualifications have always been the way companies judge people, that's why we always encourage our kids to do well at school.

Posted By Peter F Well there there then!