Ingenieur Vol 71 ingenieur July 2017 | Page 74

INGENIEUR demonstrate our professional standards and competence to potential investors and key players, and also of our capability to deliver engineering services par excellence. Towards this end, I am glad that ACPECC is developing, monitoring, maintaining and promoting mutually acceptable standards and criteria for facilitating practice by ASEAN Chartered Professional Engineers throughout the participating ASEAN Member States. I hope this colloquium will give more thought on the above and produce more policy guidelines to guide Member States. The Board of Engineers Malaysia views the delivery of engineering services as teamwork, performed by the Engineering Team, rather than by individual engineers alone. In line with this, the Board has amended its Registration of Engineers Act to include Engineering Technologist s and Inspector of Works in view of their important role in achieving the right quality of engineering services delivered by the team. This is a form of professional self-regulation where all members of the Engineering Team must shoulder accountability and responsibility in their respective roles, rather than on the shoulder of engineers alone. Also on the subject of self- regulation, Malaysia practises a self- cer tification system for completion of building construction with the issuance of a Certificate of Completion and Compliance or CCC. For example, a Professional 6 72 VOL - SEPTEMBER 2017 VOL 71 55 JULY JUNE 2013 Q & A Session Eng ineer with Pr ac tising Cer tificate who submits a building plan for a factory is authorised to issue the CCC. I am glad to inform that since its implementation in 2007, we have only received a few complaints much to the Board’s surprise. This system has given investors more assurance of timely delivery. In fact, this system has elevated Malaysia’s ranking in the Global Index for “Ease of Doing Business”. With regards to engineering education in Malaysia, the Board of Engineers Malaysia is a full signatory of the Washington Accord since June 2009, which was an important milestone in the context of achieving an internationally accepted education standard. With this status, Malaysian engineering programmes are now legally deemed as having reached substantial equivalence with those of advanced nations. The B oard’s Eng ineering Accreditation Council (EAC) has continued to benchmark its criteria with international practices in other signatory nations of the Washington Accord. In this regard, the private institutions of higher learning are benefiting even more than the public universities. It means that these institutions can market their products better outside Malaysia with the Washington Accord label as a mark of quality in engineering education. With the Washington Accord standards as benchmark, the EAC is engaging the institutions of higher learning to excel in their provision of engineering education based on graduate outcomes as stipulated in the Graduate Attributes criteria adopted by the International Engineering Alliance. The progress in outcome - b a s e d e du c at ion among the engineering education institutions has significantly exceeded those in the non- engineering programmes. In conclusion, I hope you will have a meaningful colloquium wherein many ideas will be mooted for the ACPECC to take into consideration in the way forward towards 2025. A s we c elebr ate our shared success for the last 50 years, the ASEAN engineering fraternity can look to the future with optimism, as we work hand in hand as partners to drive technological and economic development. This ACPECC meeting is indeed an occasion for us to set the tone for ASEAN in the decades ahead. I also hope that you will find time to visit fascinating places and enjoy delicious cuisine in Malaysia, and have an enjoyable experience and stay here.