Membership to the Institution is through the Competency Based Assessment (CBA) process. Competency Assessment is simply checking and testing if a person who practices engineering is firstly qualified in engineering with a Washington Accord educational qualification and if not an equivalent qualification that is accepted by PERB and IEPNG or if not, then based on the evidence provided (work samples), an assessment can be made to determine if the person has the knowledge required to perform complex engineering task.
The person is assessed using the evidence provided (work samples) to determine if the person is competent and able to perform complex engineering tasks/projects etc. The two key areas tested are:
- Engineering Knowledge; and;
- Competence in accordance to accepted standards and ethics.
The engineering qualifications does NOT take precedence when assessing a person BUT is required to prove that the person has/possesses engineering knowledge. More emphasis is placed on determining if the person has the competence in twelve key areas (standards) which are used to measure if the person can perform as a Professional Engineer.
The Professional Engineer is required to undertake a CBA every three (3) to prove/show that he/she is still COMPETENT in the Practice Area he/she is performing in (e.g. Civil Engineer or Works Manager or FAS, Design) in order to be registered as a Professional Engineer.
Competencies
To benchmark the competencies of its members to accepted World Standards (Washington Accord, Sydney Accord and Dublin Accord)
IEPNG has recognized that the undergraduate engineering degrees offered at the Papua New Guinea University of Technology (Unitech) in Lae does not meet the requirements of the Washington Accord nor its technical colleges according to the Dublin Accord for the diploma courses. Therefore, it has taken on the challenge to lead the industry to collaborate with Unitech, to upgrade and update its engineering courses, laboratories and teaching staff in order to be accepted to the World Standards registers (2017, Mick.B). It is anticipated that the first year of the Civil Engineering Course and the Mining Engineering Course will be the first ones to get provisionally accredited to the Washington Accord in 2019 with Mechanical Engineering and Electrical to get provisional accreditation in the following year.
Federation of Engineering Institutions in Asia Pacific (FEIAP), of which IEPNG is a member, has tasked Engineers Australia (EA), New Zealand (IPENZ) and Engineers Singapore to mentor IEPNG and assess PNG Unitech for accreditation to the Washington Accord.
The Professional Engineers now practicing engineering in the different sectors who graduated from PNG Unitech will have to go through the CBA to show their competence. The CBA is the pathway that IEPNG has adopted to show Unitech graduates to attain certification under the Washington and Dublin Accords. To qualify for a CBA the applicant must have graduated from a non-Washington Accord Accredited University after completing four (4) years undergraduate study. The CBA is used to assess how an engineer applies the Technical qualifications in their current engineering work.
CBA Application Instruction Booklet (For professional engineers)
