Occupational Safety and Health as Assessable Transversal Competence in Higher Education

Occupational safety and health appears in many higher education programs. Universities rarely state what students must be able to do in situations involving occupational risk. This study analyses how occupational safety and health is defined and assessed in research on curriculum design, competence frameworks, and educational evaluation. The analysis used competence mapping, alignment checks, and cross-level tracing to examine learning outcomes, teaching activities, and assessment formats. The results suggest that safety is treated as knowledge of hazards and rules. Assessment depends on recall and procedural compliance. Judgment, decisions under real conditions, and responsibility allocation are not evaluated. A framework is derived that defines safety through three forms of performance, risk interpretation, action selection, and decision justification, organized across non-equivalent levels of evidence. Learning outcomes, learning activities, and assessment are connected to these performance requirements. Progression can be defined and checked across program stages. Occupational safety and health become a form of transversal academic competence when it is defined through evidence from performed tasks instead of topic coverage or regulatory content.