The drive to have all engineers registered under the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) is aimed at improving the quality of the services rendered by the engineering profession in the country and providing competence assurance, says ECSA president Cyril Gamede.

The council requires engineers to fulfil professional competence criteria in their respective disciplines. These disciplines include chemical, civil, electrical, industrial and mechanical engineering, besides others. Reports of prospective professionals must be presented to the professional advisory committee for each discipline. The report is based on work done on projects for the engineer to be able to register with the council.

Engineers who aim to provide consultancy services in the design and implementation of engineering work are required to be registered with the council and companies increasingly require their engineers to be registered, which increases the assurance that the engineers are qualified and competent in their disciplines, Gamede notes.

ECSA is a signatory to the Washington Accord (professional engineers), the Sydney Accord (professional engineering technolo- gists) and the Dublin Accord (professional technicians). These accords ensure consistency in engineering competence levels among signatory countries. They also improve the mobility of engineers among the signatory countries. The signatory status of members is reviewed every five years.

ECSA accredits engineering programmes of tertiary institutions of behalf of the Council for Higher Education. ECSA also conducts research on engineering education, training and development in order to improve the throughput of engineers. The research also identifies gaps in engineering training. These findings are then shared with education departments, industry, universities and the profession.

ECSA has launched a survey to understand the extent and level of engineering skills in the country, compared with our economic requirements. This survey aims to gather data on where engineers are working in South Africa, their ages and main competences. This has not been done before and will be made available to government and its institutions to support development of the engineering sector in South Africa.

“ECSA has signed a memorandum of understanding with government to provide input for the Presidential Infrastructure Coordinating Committee on Strategic Infrastructure Projects. This is to support the socioeconomic development goals linked to the projects and to ensure implementation is efficient and effective,” says Gamede.

One key challenge facing the sector is that newly graduated engineers and technicians often cannot find employment to do the requi- site work necessary to qualify for registration with the council, emphasises Gamede.

Therefore, ECSA encourages all companies to provide opportunities for new graduates to gain experience in a variety of work situa- tions, as ECSA registration criteria require applicants to have experience in a set number of different capabilities associated with the discipline, he notes.

Registration makes engineers more market- able and valuable to companies, concludes Gamede.