Awareness Workshop for Laboratory Attendants

Synopsis

The Mauritius Research Council (MRC), in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Scientific Research (MoESR) and the Mauritius Institute of Education (MIE), organized an Awareness Workshop for Laboratory Attendants.

The main objectives of this workshop were to:

• sensitise participants on their roles and functions in the laboratory,
• discuss the basics of the organisation and management of school laboratories, and
• promote participants’ awareness of issues relating to safety in the laboratory.

With regard to the above workshop, the MRC established contact with the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), India, which already runs a comprehensive training programme for laboratory technicians in schools. To assist in conducting this workshop, IGNOU provided two resource persons:

• Dr Ved Goel (Director, International Division), and
• Dr (Ms) Vijayshri (School of Sciences).

This workshop was run as a one-day session in each of the four educational zones of Mauritius, and included participation of laboratory attendants based in secondary schools in Rodrigues. An estimated 150 secondary school laboratory attendants benefited from this workshop.

A Certificate of Attendance was delivered to participants attending the one-day workshop.