March - April 2014

Examiners Report
NEBOSH International
General Certificate in
Occupational Health
and Safety (IGC1)

Examiners Report
UNIT IGC1:
MANAGEMENT OF INTERNATIONAL
HEALTH AND SAFETY
March - April 2014

For:

NEBOSH International General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety

NEBOSH International Certificate in Construction Health and Safety
NEBOSH International Certificate in Fire Safety and Risk Management

CONTENTS

Introduction

Candidate performance

Examination technique

Command words

Learning outcomes

Conclusion

2014 NEBOSH, Dominus Way, Meridian Business Park, Leicester LE19 1QW
tel: 0116 263 4700

fax: 0116 282 4000

email: info@nebosh.org.uk

website: www.nebosh.org.uk

The National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health is a registered charity, number 1010444

Introduction
NEBOSH (The National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health) was formed in 1979 as
an independent examining board and awarding body with charitable status. We offer a comprehensive
range of globally-recognised, vocationally-related qualifications designed to meet the health, safety,
environmental and risk management needs of all places of work in both the private and public sectors.
Courses leading to NEBOSH qualifications attract around 35,000 candidates annually and are offered
by over 500 course providers, with examinations taken in over 100 countries around the world. Our
qualifications are recognised by the relevant professional membership bodies including the Institution
of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) and the International Institute of Risk and Safety
Management (IIRSM).
NEBOSH is an awarding body that applies best practice setting, assessment and marking and applies
to Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) regulatory requirements.
This report provides guidance for candidates which it is hoped will be useful to candidates and tutors in
preparation for future examinations. It is intended to be constructive and informative and to promote
better understanding of the syllabus content and the application of assessment criteria.
NEBOSH 2014

Any enquiries about this report publication should be addressed to:

NEBOSH
Dominus Way
Meridian Business Park
Leicester
LE19 1QW
tel:
0116 263 4700
fax:
0116 282 4000
email: info@nebosh.org.uk

General comments
Many candidates are well prepared for this unit assessment and provide comprehensive and relevant
answers in response to the demands of the questions. This includes the ability to demonstrate
understanding of knowledge by applying it to workplace situations.
There are other candidates, however, who appear to be unprepared for the unit assessment and who
show both a lack of knowledge of the syllabus content and a lack of understanding of how key
concepts should be applied to workplace situations.
This report has been prepared to provide feedback on standard date and on-demand IGC1
st
th
examinations sat between 1 March and 30 April 2014.
Feedback is presented in these key areas; examination technique, command words and learning
outcomes and is designed to assist candidates and course providers prepare for future assessments in
this unit.
Candidates and course providers will also benefit from use of the Guide to the NEBOSH International
General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety which is available via the NEBOSH website. In
particular, the guide sets out in detail the syllabus content for IGC1 and tutor reference documents for
each Element.
Additional guidance on command words is provided in Guidance on command words used in learning
outcomes and question papers which is also available via the NEBOSH website.
Candidates and course providers should also make reference to the IGC1 Example question paper
and Examiners feedback on expected answers which provides example questions and details
Examiners expectations and typical areas of underperformance.

Unit IGC1
Management of international health and safety
Candidate performance
This report covers all examinations, both standard and on-demand examination sittings during March
and April which produced an overall pass rate of 56%.

Examination technique
The following examination techniques were identified as the main areas of improvement for
candidates:
Misread or misinterpreted the question
Where candidates misread or misinterpret the question. the consequences in respect of marks can be
significant with most or all of an answer missing out on the marks available. Candidates need to be
reminded to read questions with care and be sure they understand what is required before beginning to
write their answer.
An example where candidates may misread or misinterpret a question might be where a question
requires candidates to give the meaning of the term risk assessment, and a candidate provides an
answer that details how a risk assessment is done and who might carry it out. In some cases, there
may also have been a link between this and the rote learning mentioned below.
Did not respond to the command word
Care to follow the command word is crucial in candidates efforts to gain marks. Candidates provided
too little content in their answer to be a valid outline and instead merely listed or identify points. This
type of error is particularly detrimental to a candidates performance as those that know the topic of the
question, ie the points in the answer are correct, miss out on marks through this limited technique.
More feedback and detail of the requirements of the command words is given below.
A measure that course providers can take is to allow candidates to practise questions with appropriate
feedback where proper attention to command words is not shown.
Other areas of improvement include:
Repeated the same point in different ways
This may indicate a lack of depth of knowledge ie the candidate was aware that more points were
needed but repeated the few that they knew. This may also be due to candidates not planning their
answer before beginning to write it and not realising that a point covered in their answer is being written
down again. Candidates need to get the right balance between time spent considering the question,
planning their answer and writing the answer down. This is another area that may be addressed by
practicing questions and receiving feedback on performance.
Provided rote learned responses that did not fit the question
This could have overlap with the misread or misinterpreted the question above although in some
cases it appeared to Examiners that candidates had recited the answer to a question that they hoped
to see in the question paper, rather than the question actually asked.
Did not answer all of the questions
This is likely to be either a time management issue or lack of knowledge.

Command words
The following command words are listed in the order identified as being the most challenging for
candidates:
Outline
Candidates did not provide sufficient depth of answer to be a suitable outline but instead they only
listed or identified points.
Explain
This command word requires candidates to provide an element of explanation in their answer, the
explanation of why or how. This could be related to limited examination technique (lack of attention to
this command word) but could also indicate limited knowledge of the question topic and inability to deal
with the question topic in the required depth. Many provided bullet points instead of a full explanation.
Describe
As mentioned above, just a list or identification of points was often provided but a describe question
requires candidates to be able to provide the required element of description in their answer.
Give
A question which requires candidates to give is usually in a question with a further requirement such
as give the meaning (of a term) or give an example. This may relate to a lack of knowledge for
example, when candidates are asked to give the meaning of a term and are unable to.
Identify
Most candidates provided sufficient depth of answer when required to identify points. Some candidates
can be tempted to write too much about a point identified. A candidate who answers a question which
has an identify command word and which has eight marks available will not gain good marks by
covering one or two points in great detail.
Candidates need to be taught the meanings of the command words and understand why they are a
crucial part of answering questions. In particular, candidates should understand the risk of missing out
on marks available even if they know the topic and can provide correct points. Practicing questions
with the different command words along with feedback on the answers given is likely to be helpful to
candidates.

Learning outcomes
Candidates performed well in these areas of the syllabus:
2.1

Outline the key elements of a health and safety management system

3.4

Explain how health and safety behaviour at work can be improved

5.2

Explain the purpose of, and procedures, for health and safety auditing and

5.3

Explain the purpose of, and procedures for, investigating incidents (accidents, cases of
work related ill-health and other occurrences).

________________________________________________________________________________

The following learning outcomes have been identified as being the most challenging area of the
syllabus for candidates sitting this examination:
4.2:

Explain the principles and practice of risk assessment

Candidates need to understand the meaning of hazard risk and risk assessment and the principles
and practice of risk assessment and to be able where required to explain those principles and practice.
Full summary of this learning outcome is set out in the eleven bullet points in the syllabus Guide to the
NEBOSH International General Certificate in Occupational Health and Safety (the Guide).
Some candidates provided answers that included points related to risk assessment but did not appear
to have sufficient breadth and depth of knowledge of the principles and practice as set out in the
syllabus guide.
Course providers need to ensure that all of the content in the syllabus is taught or studied and
candidates need to be reminded that they are likely to be examined on the full content. Some
candidates may be tempted to rely on their own work-related experience, in this instance, their
experience of use of risk assessments, but this may be superficial knowledge rather than the outcome
of appropriate tuition and study.
________________________________________________________________________________

3.1:

Outline the health and safety roles and responsibilities of employers, managers,
supervisors, workers and other relevant parties

Candidates need to understand these roles and responsibilities and how these are actioned, for
example how top management demonstrate their required commitment. The content of this learning
outcome is set out in the syllabus guide.
It appeared that candidates had a limited understanding of the range of responsibilities as set out in the
content of 3.1 in the syllabus guide. Candidates were more confident with some roles and
responsibilities, perhaps those responsibilities that they have experience of at their work but less
confidence with other roles and responsibilities such as the supply chain or those in control of
premises.

________________________________________________________________________________
2.3:

Describe the key features and appropriate content of an effective health and safety
policy

Candidates need to understand the key features and appropriate content as set out in 2.3 in the
syllabus guide. Examiners describe candidates providing incorrect content in their answers to
questions where this learning outcome was featured, with some appearing to confuse health and
safety policy and health and safety management systems. Examiners commented that some
candidates did not appear to have the breadth and depth of knowledge to answer questions related to
learning outcome 2.3 with confidence.
_________________________________________________________________________________
1.1:

Outline the scope and nature of occupational health and safety

1.2:

Explain the moral social and economic reasons for monitoring and promoting good
standards of health and safety in the workplace

Examiners observed that candidates knowledge of these parts of the syllabus as being somewhat
superficial and did not enable them to provide the breadth and depth of answers needed to gain good
marks.

Conclusion
Candidates whose tuition and study have covered the full syllabus and have had attention to good
examination technique, particularly, consideration of what the question requires, planning the answer,
time management and attention to the command word were able to gain reasonable or good marks
and achieve a pass standard or better in the examinations covered in the period of this report.
Those candidates (just over half / 56%) who passed their examination are to be congratulated on their
achievement. It is the intention and hope that the information in this report will be helpful to course
providers and candidates to improve the success in future sittings of the IGC1 examination.

The National Examination

Board in Occupational
Safety and Health
Dominus Way
Meridian Business Park
Leicester LE19 1QW
telephone +44 (0)116 2634700
fax +44 (0)116 2824000
email info@nebosh.org.uk
www.nebosh.org.uk