Education, education, education!

When cleanrooms first came into use about 50 years ago they were confined to products such a bomb sights and gyroscopes. In the intervening years, cleanrooms have witnessed a phenomenal growth, both geographically and technically. They are now a major part of the global economy and, without cleanrooms, much of modern manufacturing industry would fail.

In the earlier years, there was insufficient knowledge about cleanrooms for the people associated with them to understand that they were not always being designed, built, tested, and operated correctly. As knowledge has been gained in recent years, it has become obvious that all is not well in the cleanroom industry, and there are reasons for concern.

Gradually, many cleanroom issues have been ad-dressed by experts from the many sectors of the industry working together to write standards of practice, such as found in the international standards ISO 14644 and ISO 14649. However, there remains the problem of how this information is passed over to those working in the industry. Few universities and colleges offer courses in cleanroom technology and, where this occurs, it is not unusual to find that the lecturers have little or no experience of cleanrooms, and the course reflects this.

Cleanroom societies, such as S2C2, have been attempting to plug the education gap, and there has been steady progress. S2C2 has been at the vanguard with the Cleanroom Testing and Certification Board (CTCB) courses in ‘Cleanroom Technology’ and ‘Cleanroom Testing’. These CTCB courses are a start in improving working practices in the cleanroom industry but other courses need to be devised, and other countries brought on board. To move forward in devising education courses with certification of the students through examination, the International Confederation of Contamination Control Societies (ICCCS) have recently agreed, at a meeting of their Council of Delegates in Beijing, to prepare and accredit internationally-recognised educational courses for people who design, test, operate, and work as operators in cleanrooms. An important part of this initiative is that people attending courses will be certified by examination and the ICCCS will set up an International Clean-room Certification Board.

Member societies of the ICCB will write and de-velop these educational courses, which will be accredited within an ‘Accreditation and Certification Framework’ set down by the ICCB. Educational courses will be available for the use of other cleanroom societies. Cleanroom educational courses will be accredited by the ICCCS if they conform to the following:

Accreditation and Certification Framework

The students must be issued with, or have access to, well written, relevant, and up-to-date, notes or textbooks. The course content should be given in the accreditation and certification submission.

Students should have some experience in the subject they are being taught and examined. This will vary according to the subject.

Expert lecturers should be used, with appropriate professional experience (more than 5 years) in the field in question, and appropriate qualifications.

Educational courses will be available for the use of other societies, and this should result in a wider variety of courses being available for people working in the field of cleanroom technology.

People taking the courses should be examined. The examination can be set for different levels of competence according to level of difficulty and content of the course e.g. ‘advanced and basic levels’ or, alternatively, ‘professional’ for people who make the subject their career, and ‘associate’ for people who wish a working knowledge of the subject.

A quality assurance system will be established to ensure a high standard of courses. Topics that achieve this include:

• the setting of clear and unambiguous exam questions
• secure examination supervision
• suitable exam marking practices
• an examination board
• auditing of the course
• an agreement from the student to be attentive and studious during all teaching periods, to study efficiently, and to accept the outcome of any appeals procedure
• an appeals procedure for unsatisfied students.

The following types of courses are candidates for early accreditation.

Basic Courses

1. A basic cleanroom technology course with emphasis on the behaviour of cleanroom personnel. An example of this course is that described in VDI 2083-15.

2. A basic course in the execution and evaluation of cleaning activities.

Advanced Courses

An advanced general course in Cleanroom Technology. An example of this course is the ‘Cleanroom Technology’ course offered by the CTCB of the S2C2.

An advanced course in Cleanroom Design and Construction.

An advanced course in Cleanroom Testing and Evaluation. An example of this course is the ‘Cleanroom Testing’ course offered by the CTCB of the S2C2.

An advanced course in Cleanroom Operations.

An advanced course in Cleanroom Cleaning.

It is clear that members of S2C2 will benefit from this initiative. It expected that the S2C2’s two CTCB courses i.e. ‘Cleanroom Technology’ and ‘Cleanroom Testing’ courses are likely to receive early accreditation.

The Beijing Agreement of the ICCCS marks an achievement at the end of 50 years. A need has been met; a goal achieved.