Student course guide

Terms of use

Individuals interested in informally studying units of the new national occupational health and safety (OHS) qualifications can freely enrol and use the SafetyLine Institute on the basis that they use a participating provider if they later decide to seek skills recognition or formal training to gain the unit of competency or qualification.

Workplaces wishing to use the material for internal training and development programmes can freely authorise their employees to enrol and use the SafetyLine Institute on the basis that they use a participating provider if they later want their employees to seek skills recognition or formal training to gain the unit of competency or qualification. 

Training providers pay a modest fee to use the SafetyLine Institute materials and these fees go into a government managed trust fund which is used to fund development of new material.   Participating providers view the licensing concept as beneficial as it eliminates wasteful and needless duplication of material.  This is in accordance with a recent review of vocational education and training in Australia which highlighted the desirability of having a single set of nationally available materials for each qualification. 

Skills recognition

If you intend to gain a formal OHS qualification or complete a unit of competency your participating Registered Training Organisation (RTO) will provide skills recognition services at any time during your studies at the SafetyLine Institute.  If necessary the RTO can also provide further training services and help you to develop a training plan that identifies the sequence in which you will work through units of competency and the timeline for completion.  All arrangements for formal assessment will be organised by your participating RTO.  The SafetyLine Institute only provides access to learning materials.  Please be aware that your participating RTO will charge fees.

Background information

The SafetyLine Institute has been established by WorkSafe, Department of Consumer and Employment Protection, which is the government department in Western Australian responsible for the administration of the Occupational Safety and Health Act 1984.   'WorkSafe' is a trade mark owned by the State of Western Australia. 

The SafetyLine Institute is part of Western Australia’s contribution to the National Occupational Health and Safety Skills Development Action Plan and is a key element of the plan to enhance the capability of workplace parties and those assisting them.  The aim is to help learners at workplaces to develop competencies in key units of the new national qualifications of Certificate IV in Occupational Health and Safety and the Diploma of Occupational Health and Safety to ensure they are appropriately skilled and competent in work safety so they can participate effectively in consultations and in identifying and implementing improvements. 

The Readings were produced by WorkSafe and underwent an extensive peer review process to ensure the contents met industry and enterprise requirements as judged by WorkSafe inspectors.  The learning guides were written by leading industry OHS consultants as selected by WorkSafe, and each industry OHS consultant used their peer network to validate the contents.  The final documents were edited by WorkSafe.  For the next stage of validation we plan to create Holistic Assessment Tools for each qualification as part of the process of validating the materials for the qualification rather than the materials for a given unit.

Other sections of this guide

Other sections of this student course guide provide information on learning, assessment and the official qualification structure for the qualifications supported by the SafetyLine Institute.