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.
ESTA has formally established the ECOL Foundation, the body that will have the job of supervising and monitoring the system of education, examination and maintenance. The Foundation will set the criteria for becoming an ECOL-educator and for becoming an ECOL-examination institution in this field. Only when ‘ECOL-approved’ can an organisation train and test operators for … Read more
ESTA Director Ton Klijn has stressed the importance of correcting misconceptions about ECOL held by some in the crane industry. He said: “It is a misunderstanding that we are proposing to retrain all of Europe’s crane operators – that is simply not the case. ECOL does not mean experienced and qualified operators, with the necessary … Read more
Members of ESTA’s European Crane Operators Licence (ECOL) working group have reached agreement on one of the most important outstanding issues – how to set a standard for experienced operators without forcing them to completely retrain. The working group driving the project has backed a structure that it hopes will encourage experienced operators from countries … Read more
Leading equipment manufacturer Liebherr has agreed to become an approved training centre for ESTA’s planned European Crane Operators Licence (ECOL) after talks between the two organisations in August. The news was strongly welcomed by ESTA and comes as ECOL undergoes its latest pilot project in Denmark. Two more pilots – or trials – are planned … Read more