Industry organisation Consulting Engineers South Africa (Cesa) has welcomed the Engineering Council of South Africa’s (ECSA’s) decision to refine its processes for validating category one continuing professional development (CPD) activities, which include courses, conferences and webinars, besides others.

“This has been necessitated by the many unscrupulous training providers in the industry who have been falsely advertising CPD-validated training courses and conferences that often do not match their CPD points allocation,” Cesa points out.

“Often, the CPD allocation for the training being provided does not match the quality and content requirements for the allocation of the level on which the CPD points were initially awarded,” says Cesa School of Consulting Engineering manager Brenda Lacey-Smith.

To improve the governance and quality of CPD training and the points that are claimable, ECSA has implemented new standards and processes to which all voluntary associations and academic institutions offering training or CPD validation services must abide when awarding CPD points.

“This process started during 2020 and is now in its final stages of providing recognition to industry bodies such as Cesa. This recognition has been awarded to Cesa following a comprehensive audit by ECSA of the organisation’s systems and processes,” explains Lacey-Smith.

Cesa says it is unfortunate that there may be frustration experienced by some Cesa member firms and industry partners during the transition to the new system; however, the organisation, in ensuring that both the quality of training and the CPD point allocations are maintained at a high standard, still welcomes this important development.

Cesa has aligned its systems with the new standard and has been successfully audited and approved as a recognised ECSA certified licence body, to be a CPD validation agent.

“We are now in a position to offer this CPD validation service and, subsequently, ensure that both our training and CPD point allocations can stand up to any scrutiny by ECSA. This will ensure that when registered persons claim such points in the future, they can do it confidently, having the Cesa CPD validation stamp of approval,” says Lacey-Smith.