Introduction
The acquisition of a qualification such as the Government Certificate of
Competency was a means to gauge the professional skill level of the
engineer. The measure and identification of the level of competence,
knowledge, skill and behaviour of the qualifying candidate is considered
quantified through the prescribed process of being accepted as a
candidate, and passing the examination. The question is, whether
obtaining this qualification alone is an effective means of ensuring,
and measuring, competence levels for the professional life of the
Certificated Engineer. This could be debated at length and depends on
the relevant experience gained. CPD is a means to effectively measure
each engineers competence and development on a continuous basis.
The proposed CPD regulation requires the measurement of continuous
professional development to maintain your professional registration. The
means of assessing the appropriate breadth and depth required in the
knowledge and skill of an experienced practitioner is a complex subject.
It is a mammoth task to measure and quantify the necessary level of
skill and knowledge across the full breadth of professional engineering
activities, specifically those specialising in a limited range of
activities.
With experience, there is tendency for the engineer to migrate into more
managerial positions. Pure technical and theoretical expertise is
therefore no longer the only factor. The competencies of authority,
management expertise, and leadership are also needed. We now live in a
modern world, with the only constant being the certainty of change.
Competency is a dynamic state and each registered person will be
required to maintain currency with technical evolution. A registered
person's continued competency must therefore develop beyond the baseline
for initial registration, requiring a competence exceeding that at
registration through ongoing personal development.
No doubt, you are all wondering how this will work and how onerous will
it be. Especially when, like most of us, the documentation for the Pr
Cert Eng registration took a few years to complete and eventually
submit.
The CPD system is SAQA aligned, and is intended to measure the quality
of your professional participation over a specific minimum number of
hours over a five-year period. Fulfilling this criteria will enable you
to be eligible for re-registration. CPD is intended to be neither
complicated nor costly for the individual practitioner and takes South
African conditions into consideration. The priority in CPD is to achieve
improved engineering standards in South Africa, while it will at the
same time be of benefit to development in the engineering profession as
a whole.
The means of measurement described above involves three categories of
measurement:
Category 1 - Organisational activities
Attendance of formal educational meetings will be credited if they are
educational and research-based conferences, large-group workshops,
lectures, seminars, and refresher courses. These meetings are organised
on a regional, national or international basis and are non-recurring.
Category 2 - Worked based activities
Work-based activities such as work-based learning, work shadowing,
transfers to new departments, technical work in a practitioner's field
of specialization. Development and professional activities such as
mentoring candidate engineers, in the work place and career guidance
within the working environment.
Category 3 - Individual activities
It would not be the intention to reward activities that do not
contribute to the professional development of an individual. The
intention is to credit only activities that can reasonably be monitored.
These activities will include, review of technical papers, participation
in technical as well as taking part in statutory, professional or
non-technical committees.
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