[Next] [Previous] [Top] Lifelong Learning for Professional Engineers3 -- Responsibilities and Trends
The primary responsibility for professional growth must ultimately rest with the individual engineer. Engineers perform many tasks throughout their career for a number of employers and/or clients. Engineers must establish career paths and ensure that their technical competencies grow to meet the challenges of varying assignments. The individual engineer should invest a meaningful part of his/her time in acquiring new knowledge. This can be done on the job, by using informal networks of information and by formal instruction. Examples of tools and practices to accomplish this are provided in the Guideline section of this report. However there are many other participants in the lifelong learning process, and their duties and their roles must also be recognized and fulfilled. These include employers, educational institutions, technical societies, and professional licensing bodies. Most provincial licensing bodies are moving towards mandatory continuing competency programs. As an example, The Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysicists of Alberta (APEGGA) has approved a mandatory program that puts the onus on individual members to comply with guidelines established by APEGGA, including the requirement that members record their lifelong learning activities. The Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC) is an Authorized Continuing Education Unit (CEU) Sponsor of the International Association for Continuing Education and Training, and has established criteria and guidelines for the assignment of CEUs in Canada. EICs Member Societies are responsible for approving and assigning CEUs to relevant continuing education activities. Several U.S.A. states have formal continuing education requirements, and many are considering adopting formal requirements. They have been applied mainly to self-employed consulting engineers, with exemptions given for engineers employed by large companies. Parallel to these efforts to establish formal competency requirements, many organizations have developed their own approaches and techniques to maintain and improve the competency of their engineering staff. Examples of these are summarized as Best Practices in Section 4 of this report. Suggested guidelines for each of the participants in lifelong learning are outlined in Section 5.
Lifelong Learning for Professional Engineers - 10 DEC 97[Next] [Previous] [Top]
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