Following extensive deliberations that has included the constructive participation of a Professional Body Reference Group, SAQA is pleased to make the draft Policy and Criteria for the Recognition of Professional Bodies and Registration of Professional Designations available for public comment. A copy of the document is available to view and download here.
Please take note that:
- The deadline for the submission of comments is 15 October 2010 - Comments should be sent to SAQA on the email address professionalbody@saqa.org.za or faxed to (012) 431 5144 - The document will also be published in the Government Gazette between 15 September and 15 October 2010
Please distribute the document as widely as possible to ensure that your constituency has ample opportunity to engage with the proposed policy and criteria at this important stage. Any queries can be sent to the same email address. Please note that implementation will only commence when SAQA makes a public announcement to this effect.
The SAQA Team
Please post comments to this news item below, as these will form part of a SAIMechE submission to SAQA.
Comments...
The SAQA Project Team
says... Posted 26 October 2010
Dear members of the professional body community,
We would like to thank you for the more than 200 pages of submissions received on the draft policy and criteria document. We have collated all the responses and are in the process of making the necessary amendments to the document in consultation with the Professional Bodies Reference Group. As soon as this is done the document will be presented to the SAQA Board for approval. The next meeting of the Reference Group will take place at the end of November after which we will update you on the progress made.
Thank you again for your active participation in this important process. You are still most welcome to communicate with us if you have any queries (professionalbody@saqa.org.za).
The SAQA project team
If SAIMechE wants to become a professional body it will only be able to have members who fall into the current ECSA registration categories which wil be detrimenal to SAIMechE. It is rather preferable to reifnorce ECSA than duplicate resources unnecessarily, moreso given that there are so few resources as things stand.
None of the Voluntary Associations in the engineering profession confer any title or status in recognition of a person’s expertise and right to practice in an occupation, at least not in the statutory sense. It is only the Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) that has this authority, and with this important component missing I must question whether SAIMechE should be registered as a professional body. Is there a role for a recognised professional body which does not confer a professional designation? The two issues are clearly connected in the policy, and it is not clear whether they can exist apart.
At first glance SAIMechE would seem to fit the definition of a professional body, but on second thought we do not represent an entire body of expert practitioners as is suggested. Our members range in age and experience from Students to Honorary Fellows, and as expected we have a significant number of not expert practitioners. You would reasonably expect to find a similarly significant number of expert practitioners amongst our members, and thus we represent a cross section of the profession and not only those with professional designations. The impact of this truth on SAIMechE’s recognition needs to be clarified.
The policy appears sound and addresses the major issues to be dealt with regarding the recognition of professional bodies and the registration of professional designations. The policy is well structured, reads comfortably and is generally understandable. What is unclear to me is the role of the professional Voluntary Association (for example SAIMechE) in the policy, and whether we could or should seek recognition as a professional body in the context of the policy.
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