LAHORE, June 22 (TNS): Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) has become the 19th signatory of prestigious Washington Accord which would facilitate mobility of engineering graduates and professionals of Pakistan at international levels.
With this entry, PEC’s accreditation system and processes has got an international recognition. The graduates from PEC accredited engineering programs will be accepted for education and employment purposes in other member countries of Washington Accord.
The proposal for Pakistan’s membership was placed by the PEC delegation comprising of Engr. Jawed Salim Qureshi, Chairman PEC, Engr Prof Dr Niaz Ahmad Akhtar, Vice Chairman PEC (Punjab) and Convener Engineering Accreditation and Qualification Equivalence Committee (EAQEC), and Dr. Nasir Mahmood Khan, Senior Additional Registrar, PEC.
The Washington Accord is an international agreement among registering bodies of member countries accrediting academic engineering programmes at university level, leading to the practice of engineering at the full professional level. Regular quality review is an important function to maintain international quality.
In terms of this agreement each registering body accepts the accrediting processes of the others. The Accord recognizes substantial equivalence of programmes accredited by those organizations and recommends that the graduates of accredited programmes in any of the signatory countries be recognized by the other countries as having met the academic requirements for entry into the practice of engineering.
The founding Signatories of the Accord in 1989 were: Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) – USA, Canadian Council of Professional Engineers (CCPE), Engineering Council (EC UK), Institution of Engineers of Ireland (IEI), Institution of Engineers, Australia (IEAust), and Institution of Professional Engineers, New Zealand (IPENZ). At present, the Washington Accord member countries are: Australia, USA, Ireland, New Zealand, UK, Canada, South Africa, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Chinese Taipei, Malaysia, and Singapore, and the provisional Members are Germany, Russia, Srilanka, India.
Membership of Washington Accord is recognition of the quality of engineering education offered by the country and an avenue to bring it into World Class category.
PEC is the only authorized statutory body in Pakistan entrusted with the task of undertaking accreditation and registration of Engineering and technology education programmes. All Engineering programmes including those offered by University/college are accredited by PEC. The Council (PEC) evaluates the quality of programmes offered by educational institutions/universities at degree levels.
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