Process safety education - learning at the level of the establishment and at the human level

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Major industrial accidents, such as the accidents in Seveso (1976) or in Bhopal (1984), did occur in the past. They still happen contemporarily, eg. fire in Arkema Inc. on August 29, 2017 or in BASF Corporation October 17, 2016 and there is little doubt that they will keep on occurring in the future. Lack of or insufficient learning, drawing no conclusions from accidents or even forgetting about them might be viewed as some of the reasons for such state of affairs.Learning can be considered at the level of the whole establishment (learning organization) as well as at the level of a particular person. With the use of Peter Sange's definition of learning organization and its five characteristics: thinking systems, personal mastery, mental models, shared vision and team learning, we can diagnose the weaknesses and strengths of establishment as an organization that can learn. However the learning process of the individual depends directly on the way the lecturer delivers knowledge. The use of the division of professional qualifications into mental, practical and personality traits with the application of Bloom's taxonomy (classification of educational learning objectives) and Niemierko's taxonomy (classification used in Poland) allows us to look at training in a different, more practical way.Training methods and organizational solutions, especially in process safety, play a key role as they transform into the need to use the acquired knowledge in practice, in a real situation, under pressure at the moment of accident. There is a reason the key elements of the system for the prevention of major industrial accidents, i.e. the safety management system and emergency plans, are based on systematic training and continuous improvement. Emerging concepts and methods of occupational safety and health management intertwined with resilience engineering, such as Safety II, Zero Accident Vision or Human & Organizational Performance can be successfully used in process safety.