Course Accreditation Policy
EHA has been responsible for accrediting environmental health university courses for over 25 years. Our accreditation scheme focuses on ensuring courses that want to graduate Environmental Health Officers (EHOs) equip their graduates with the required skills, knowledge and attributes to enter the profession.
Our Environmental Health University Course Accreditation Policy was reviewed and adopted in 2014 and sets the current benchmark for universities to meet. All Australian accredited environmental health courses must meet the national standard aligning with the environmental health officers skill and knowledge matrix endorsed and published by enHealth (2009). (Summary of the underpinning skills and knowledge for accreditation)
Our accreditation system continues to be valued by universities and employers. EHA continues to field questions from other universities seeking advice about accreditation and what benchmark they have to meet to receive accreditation. Many government and private employers mandate that a prospective employee must hold a qualification from a university that is accredited/recognised by EHA. Further our national accreditation system is accepted internationally through the International Federation of Environmental Health (IFEH).
There is significant choice for prospective environmental health students and cadets with accredited courses that offer on-campus and external learning, as well as undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Obviously the accredited courses also provide students with quality skills for other employment opportunities with a variety of government agencies or private industry.
Environmental Health University Course Accreditation
The EHA environmental health course accreditation policy has set the standards for environmental health university courses for over ten years. The policy sets out the accreditation criteria which universities must meet in order for their environmental health course/s to be accredited. Graduates of accredited courses are recognised as having the skills and knowledge required to practice as Environmental Health Officers (EHOs).
In 2013 enHealth funded a project managed by EHA to review the environmental health university course accreditation requirements. The project report made several recommendations including that the accreditation criteria be reviewed to align with the enHealth ‘Environmental Health Officer Skills and Knowledge Matrix’. As a result, the enHealth matrix was mapped to identify underpinning skills and knowledge that need to be developed through accredited university courses.
