Career Boost For Lancaster Environment Centre Students
Masters students on a raft of courses at the Lancaster Environment Centre are to benefit from a decision to allow them to apply for Accredited Associate membership of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health.
Postgraduates on thirteen Masters courses in Environmental Science are eligible to apply for this level of membership of the CIEH, which, potentially, opens up a second route to becoming an Environmental Health practitioner (EHP).
Dr John Quinton, Deputy Director of Postgraduate Studies at the Lancaster Environment Centre, said he was pleased.
“This gives our students a route through to joining a professional body in the Environmental Health sector, allowing them to further their careers.”
The Lancaster Environment Centre has an excellent employment record, with 100 per cent of 2003 and 2004 graduates in employment, further study or on a gap year six months after graduation.
John Guild, an Education Officer at the CIEH, said that there is a national shortage of environmental officers who work in local and central government, private consultancies and blue chip companies.
He said: “Applying for Accredited Associate membership requires having to submit for assessment a portfolio and then undertake a professional interview arranged by the CIEH. To eventually become an EHP you would then have to undertake a suite of professional exams before being awarded a Certificate of Registration as an EHP.
“The advantage is that you don’t have to go back to university to do another degree in environmental health.
Accredited Associate members may also use the designatory letters ACIEH in their professional correspondence but have to undertake at do at least 10 hours of Continuing Professional Development each year.
The Masters courses are: MSc in Contaminated Land and Remediation, Ecology and Environment, Environmental Biotechnology, Environmental Hazards, Environmental Informatics, Environmental Pollution and Protection, Environmental Science, Environmental Technology, Environmental and Biochemical Toxicology, Sustainable Water Management, Resource and Environmental Management and MRes in Science of the Environment and MRes in Environment and Development (with an overseas placement).
www.lec.lancs.ac.uk/postgraduate/careers
http://www.lec.lancs.ac.uk/postgraduate/masters/
http://www.ehcareers.org/index.asp