From the Chairmans Desk

As we move to a possible end to lockdown that was put in place to protect our own lives and the lives of our families we have had to face the realisation of a new form of normal. It has not been easy for any of us as our lives were turned upside down effecting our potential to earn a living without being exposed to the disease.

Engineering Council and Meetings,

After all the scheduled meetings were cancelled in the first few weeks of lockdown the CEO instructed those responsible for meetings to reinstate those meeting as video conference meetings (VC – virtual meetings) after ECSA staff members and administrators where given means to hold online meetings. This meant that I have attended four Hight Impact Committee meeting and an ECSA Council Meeting and the ongoing steering committee and working group for the overarching Code of Practice for the Performance of Engineering Work, in the lock down period:

CRC – Central Registration Committee meeting 6th May 2020.

The very first ECSA VC meeting was the CRC meeting and it was clear from this meeting that this meeting was very important as the first meeting as I and a number of other members were getting very concerned with the backlog of applications that would be building up since the registration process had come to a standstill since the beginning of lockdown. The CEO of ECSA acknowledged that this was a priority and that the first one third allowed by lockdown of staff would be the registration administration office.As the CEO of ECSA pointed out in this meeting that ECSA had to provided staff means to work from home by supplying them with computers and data packages. At the end of this meeting it was clear that another ad-hock CRC meeting need to be held as soon as possible.

CRC – Central Registration Committee meeting 27th May 2020.

The second CRC meeting was held and, on this date, and the feedback from ECSA registration administration was that applications assessments were back on track. It was also pointed out by the administration manager of ECSA registration that training of assessors, moderators and reviewers that was scheduled for the first half of 2020 would have to happen going forward via online video conferencing. The other major consideration is that assessments and in particular the review stage/interview will need to take place as a VC.

IC – Investigation Committee meeting 12thMay 2020

Investigations are ongoing and all I can say is that there are a number of LMI’s that are under investigation. Most of these are due to practicing out of scope of competence.

EC – Education Committee meeting 15th May 2020

The greatest challenge for the EC committee is how to consider go about an assessment of engineering programs and approval of those engineering programs that would normally be carried as a site visit at the universities that would be now possible be carried out as an online assessment going forward if a physical site visit cannot be carried out.

ECSA CoP – PoEW

The Steering Committee and the Working Group that I am a member of finalised the overarching Code of Practice for the Performance of Engineering Work that was presented to ECSA council for approval scheduled for the 11th June 2020. The next step will be for each sector of engineering to develop a Code of Practice for that sector of engineering for registered persons. https://www.ecsa.co.za/ news/Latest%20News/ECSA%20 Code%20of%20Practice%20for%20 the%20Performance%20of%20 Engineering%20Work.aspx

ECSA Council meeting 11th June 2020

Besides all the high impact committees’ chairpersons each reporting to council one the work carried out for noting and council approval the main focuses of this council meeting was the nominations process carried out for the approval by the minister for Built Environment of the council members for next term of council. One of the plans that ECSA council will deal with in the next term is the determination of education standards and the accreditation of educational programs and set accreditation criteria, for institutions and create pathways for Academies and TVET Colleges programs for seamless integration into mainstream engineering qualification disciplines. This would be a pathway for the LMI qualification.The Engineering Council through the Council for the Built Environment (CBE) has developed a survey to feed into information required by the Women Empowerment and Gender Equality Transformation Committee. ECSA has requested that the members of Voluntary Associations – i.e. LEEASA are kindly requested to fill in the survey on the link provided below: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/ e/1FAIpQLScBGvTdfPkwvGRuEAGx pTXF9JRzqkZsILQbogMpnAz2YugQ uQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

Until next time stay safe and take care, From Chairman, Arni Sommer.