The recent incident regarding the death of the 21-year-old employee of Samoa Electric Power Corporation, Tevita Amituanai, was given attentions ot the National University of Samoa Professional electricians to comment on.

Dean of the Faculty of Technical Education at N.U.S, James Ah Fook said it’s important for trainees out in the field to prioritize their safeties whenever going out to do a job.

“It’s a process we are doing every day in the classrooms with the learning electricians. We offer courses that are applicable to anything out in the fields regarding electricity and it’s pertaining health and safety of the electricians,” he said.

The deceased is believed to have graduated from the N.U.S and he died from electrocution on Wednesday when he was working on an electronic pole.

There are different particular courses in the School of Electricity and they all come down to emphasizing on the health and safety of the electricians or the trainees.

One of the examples Mr. Ah Fook mentioned is the usage of the rubber gloves that is believed to have a 50 percent chance of safety that was of tip to Samoa Observer from one of the learning Electricians at the N.U.S.

“These rubber gloves have different types with different abilities tagged inside the gloves. So it’s important that electricians know about how to use different types of gloves for different types of work they do,” he said.

This was also supported by the lecturer of Radio and Electronics at the N.U.S, Vagana Uili yesterday during an interview with Samoa Observer.

For the fact that Mr. Uili is daily training the minor electricians at the N.U.S, he commented that safety is the most important purpose of their classroom training.

“It is very important for electricians to prioritize their safeties first before they do something because that is one important purpose of the training we’re doing with these kids in school.”

He added that another issue to look into is getting people to study electricity before going to the field as it's one of the common issues happening out in the ministries nowadays.

“It’s important to get this piece of paper after graduating that way you are sure or you can have the assured knowledge when working for electricity."

“I agree that some people can do anything without a piece of paper these days but I recommend that they should have a bit of knowledge as this is a risky job to take,” he added.

Mr. Ah Fook is confident that his students will be of good electricians after they graduate as they have been learning about electricity inside his classrooms and he advised that this job requires a bit of inside classroom knowledge.