Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • Maternity & Paternity
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
    • OHW Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • Maternity & Paternity
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
    • OHW Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+

Learning & developmentSupplier News

The Guardian features Learning Light’s e-learning programme for e-waste workers in Nigeria

by Personnel Today 20 Oct 2010
by Personnel Today 20 Oct 2010

An article by Louise Tickle, published in the Education Guardian on 12th October (http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/oct/12/electronic-waste-recycling), explained that people in developing countries who make a living scavenging the dumps of electronic equipment thrown away by the first world face daily hazards most of us never consider. Recycling our waste electrical items is a dirty job, and those who do it are among the poorest and least educated in the world.

Some of simple processes used to recycle this waste release carcinogenic chemicals. The crude break-up of electrical items can cause heavy metals such as lead and mercury to leak into the soil and the water table – where they are taken up by plants, ingested by animals and, eventually, accumulate in humans.

Even when electronic equipment is certified as safe for re-use and exported legally, the thousands of manual workers who dismantle it are still unlikely to have had any training in how to handle it safely.

This challenge has been taken up by Professor Oladele Osibanjo, director of the Basel Convention Coordinating Centre For Training and Technology Transfer for the African Region. In looking for suitable flexible and accessible learning materials, Osibanjo, based in Lagos, Nigeria, is using e-learning materials created by Learning Light, in combination with face-to-face workshops led by Dr Margaret Bates from Northampton University’s Centre for Sustainable Wastes Management.

Learning Light, a company limited by guarantee which focuses on promoting the use of e- learning and learning technologies, initially developed these learning materials for use among prisoners in the UK – allowing them to learn a skill and gain a nationally recognised qualification and thus reduce the chance of their re-offending.

Covering various aspects of waste recycling operations, the Learning Light e-learning programmes deal with disassembling electrical equipment – from sewing machines to LCD televisions – in the most environmentally-friendly way and concentrate on the requirements of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Directive (WEEE Directive).

Those who complete these e-learning programmes have the knowledge and skills to disassemble electrical equipment – such as old personal computers – and break down this equipment into its constituent parts. These parts can then be recycled and, depending on the costs of copper, plastic and so on, can produce an income for the ‘disassembler’.

Delivered in discrete online units which require no reading or writing by the learners, Learning Light’s teaching units are loaded onto a computer or, where broadband services are available, accessed online. The progammes use strong visual and oral prompts that translate easily from a UK context to a Nigerian classroom.

 

In the UK, the Learning Light course leads to an NVQ. In Nigeria, the course is being developed to lead to a formal Nigerian qualification for people who might never even have finished school.

 

 

Avatar
Personnel Today

previous post
Comprehensive Spending Review: 490,000 public sector job cuts expected
next post
Comprehensive Spending Review: Chancellor confirms 490,000 jobs will be cut

You may also like

NHS should upskill admin staff to reduce waiting...

23 May 2022

Young people’s skills don’t match employer needs, finds...

11 May 2022

How flexible learning can close the digital skills...

9 May 2022

Productivity blighted by users’ tech problems, research reveals

6 May 2022

Half of employers want to replace apprenticeship levy...

7 Apr 2022

Learning and talent management: how a united strategy...

2 Apr 2022

Demand for L&D professionals soars as firms prioritise...

30 Mar 2022

‘Clear market failure’ to meet reskilling needs, say...

15 Mar 2022

How to ensure that ‘bad days’ don’t happen...

15 Mar 2022

The importance of being an ethical leader and...

15 Mar 2022
  • Apprenticeships are the solution to your recruitment problems PROMOTED | Apprenticeships have the pulling power...Read more
  • What it really means to be mentally fit PROMOTED | What is mental fitness...Read more
  • How music can help to ease anxiety at work PROMOTED | A lot has happened since March 2020, hasn’t it?...Read more
  • Why now is the time to plug the unhealthy gap PROMOTED | We’ve all heard the term ‘health is wealth’...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2022

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2022 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
    • Advertise
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Equality, diversity and inclusion
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • Maternity & Paternity
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
    • OHW Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • XpertHR
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Pricing
    • Free trial
    • Subscribe
    • XpertHR USA
  • Webinars
  • OHW+