QP to launch emergency and safety college November

Qatar Petroleum (QP), in partnership with Qatar’s Ministry of Interior (MOI), will open a state-of-the-art college dedicated to emergency and safety professions at Ras Laffan Industrial City on November 12, 2013, announced QP today. The Ras Laffan Emergency and Safety College (RLESC) will offer internationally recognized as well as professional vocational qualifications courses and programs in Fire Safety Engineering and Fire Safety Management, said QP in a statement today. A vision of HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, the RLESC is a premier safety academy that is spread over 100 hectares and equipped with modern classrooms, high-tech training props, and other support and administration facilities, the statement said. Manager of the RLESC Khalid Ahmed Al-Ansari said “The RLESC is designed to be one of the largest and most advanced education and training institutions in the region, serving not only companies and individuals in Qatar but also those in the greater Middle East, North Africa and Asia. The college is a testament of our resolve to become a hallmark of emergency safety training, and its primary objective is to educate and train emergency and safety professionals to internationally recognized qualification and standards in a variety of functional areas.” These areas include the oil and gas sector, petrochemical industries, marine, civil aviation, civil defence, industrial firefighting, emergency medical services, hazardous materials, search and rescue, health and safety, emergency response, and driver training, he added. The RLESC offers a large selection of educational options comprising of vocational training courses and academic programs, as students can enroll in Fire Safety Management or Fire Safety Engineering diploma and degree programs. Plans for the future include degrees in Safety, Environment, Occupational Health, Business Continuity, Incident Management, and other related fields, the statement explained. Applicants can enroll in single training courses on a specific field of study which duration varies from three days to 12 weeks, or in academic degree programs, which can extend from 2-4 years. The first academic degrees will be available starting September 2014. The college has a capacity to train up to 300 students at a time, and it uses English as the main medium of instruction, with Arabic translations also available for the courses and examinations, the statement added. The Texas Engineering Extension Service (TEEX) is the training provider of the RLESC, the statement said adding that TEEX is internationally acclaimed in the area of advanced practical emergency and safety training. In addition, all RLESC courses and degrees are accredited by the National Board on Fire Service Professional Qualifications (ProBoard) in the USA. RLESC also has the support of Texas A&M University at Qatar, which is the current research partner of the college in the field of liquefied natural gas (LNG).