Sarens is the latest organisation to complete the process of becoming an approved European Crane Operators Licence (ECOL) training centre and is expected to start its first ECOL courses shortly.
The company’s training centre in Wolvertem, Belgium, received its ECOL Certificate at the end of last year following final approval from Lloyds Register, the body tasked with overseeing standards.
Ton Klijn, ESTA Director and Chair of the ECOL Supervisory Board, said: “The ECOL Supervisory Board congratulates Sarens and we wish them many successful ECOL training sessions and certified operators in the future.”
In a further development, the online examination system for ESTA’s ECOL project is now up and running in three languages – English, Dutch and Danish – and work is underway on German and Spanish versions.
Talks are also ongoing about signing Mutual Recognition Agreements (MRAs) between ECOL and relevant organisations in Spain, Germany and the UK. So far two MRAs have been agreed, with TCVT from the Netherlands and BCACS from British Columbia, Canada.
To date, ECOL has carried out 19 examination sessions. A total of 38 operators have been certified. They were examined in three different countries.