Announcements

CRANE & LOGISTICS Partner receives ECOL Certificate as the first German based examination institute!

Global crane and heavy transport specialist Sarens has applied to qualify its Belgian training facility under ESTA’s new European Crane Operators Licence. The move is another big boost for the ECOL scheme. To date, two European training facilities have become ECOL qualified – Mammoet in the Netherlands and EUC-Lillebǣlt from Denmark – with a further six … Read more

The new future management team of ESTA’s planned European Crane Operators Licence (ECOL) project is almost complete as the project nears its formal launch early this year.  The final meeting of the current ECOL Working Group took place in Copenhagen, Denmark at the end of January. The voluntary group, chaired by ESTA Director Ton Klijn, … Read more

ESTA’s planned European Crane Operators’ Licence  is receiving growing support from major clients who see it as a way of improving performance and safety on site. ESTA Director Ton Klijn said: “There are very good signs that client organisations are beginning to see the advantages of ECOL. Informally, we have already had strong signs of … Read more

ESTA and the ECOL Working Group are very sorry to announce that our good friend and colleague Gunnar Mardon died on October 2 following a stroke. Gunnar was Chief Executive Officer of Canada’s National Occupational Council and sat on ESTA’s European Crane Operators Licence working group where his support and expertise was of great assistance … Read more

ESTA has applied to have the ECOL operator certificate registered and recognised by the Dutch NLQF qualifications framework. Through the NLQF it will be aligned with the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) Level 2 across Europe. 

ESTA Director Ton Klijn is calling on European training organisations to send in their training schemes so that they can be validated against ECOL standards. “The idea is to compare all of the national training schemes and to identify what is needed – if anything – for them to comply with ECOL standards,” Klijn explained. … Read more

The first trial of the new European Crane Operators Licence scheme has been successfully completed at Mammoet’s training centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.  Four crane operators were processed through the ECOL system which involved 240 hours of training split evenly between theory and practice. So far, three have passed – one at the second attempt … Read more

ESTA is looking for candidates plus training and examination organisations to take part in the ECOL trial pilot project in February (see story below). Candidates can be novices that have to be trained from scratch, or operators with demonstrable experience. To find out how to take part, please contact the ESTA/ECOL Main Office on Tel: … Read more

ESTA’s ECOL Working Group has agreed a date to begin trialling the project – February 1, 2018. Assuming that goes to plan, ESTA will be in a position to request the European Qualifications Framework to have the ECOL operator certificate registered and recognised at EQF Level 2 across Europe.