Promoting the engineering profession

Chris Staff (July 15) makes continuous reference to the Engineering Board and the Chamber of Engineers in the same breath, as if the two are very closely bound. This is not the case.

The Chamber of Engineers exists to represent and promote the engineering profession in Malta. On the other hand, the Engineering Board is a legal entity that regulates the profession according to the Engineering Profession Act of 1988 and which advises the minister concerned on issues related to the mentioned Act.

The Chamber and the board do interact regularly and cooperate for the benefit of the profession but do maintain their respective roles as should be.

Several points mentioned by Dr Staff are indeed within the jurisdiction of the Engineering Board and, as such, the Chamber will not dwell upon these. Hence, the Chamber will limit its response to cover two important points raised by Dr Staff, namely (i) should IT be seen as part of the engineering profession and (ii) regulation and ethics of the professional. The Chamber of Engineers appreciates that these issues can be debated at length but would like to clearly state its position on these matters in order to avoid any misunderstandings.

Engineering is perhaps the most rapidly changing and developing profession, which now encompasses fields such as marine, aerospace, telecommunications, biomedicine, materials, production, transport and software - to name but a few - rather than just the legacy classifications of electrical or mechanical. In fact, the Chamber of Engineers already has members hailing from various engineering-related disciplines: mechanical; electrical; marine; civil engineering and also IT.

With specific reference to IT, the Chamber will continue to recognise, promote and support the proliferation of IT engineers. They are on the increase and it is anticipated that in future IT engineers will be as popular and numerous as mechanical and electrical engineers. This position is also similar to that of other foreign engineering institutions where in fact there exist numerous IT courses both in EU as well as is non-EU countries, which are recognised by their national engineering institutions as well as by FEANI, the European Federation of National Engineering Associations.

Other international organisations have even recognised achievements in information technology with reputable engineering awards being issued such as:

a) the recent award-giving ceremony held in the UK a month ago, whereby the Royal Academy of Engineering awarded the IBM team behind WebSphere MQ with a handsome prize for innovation, a first win for software development. This was the first time in its 36-year history that the MacRobert Award for innovation in engineering was awarded to a software development team.

b) the prestigious Charles Stark Draper Prize for 2004 awarded last February by the National Academy of Engineering of the US went to four people for their vision, conception and development of the principles for, and their effective integration in, the world's first practical networked personal computers.

In addition, from an academic point of view one can look at the UK example, whereby practically all four-year courses that have information technology in the various guises of computer engineering or computer science or informatics, or usually a mix of the three, state that graduates are eligible for membership of the British Computer Society, BCS, as well as membership of the Institute of Electrical Engineers. This enables UK graduates to obtain their chartered engineering status awarded by the UK Engineering Council.

Even at the University of Malta, one of the departments in the BSc (Hons) Information Technology degree programme mentioned by Dr Staff, is the Department of Communication and Computer Engineering, which is in the Faculty of Engineering.

In line with best practice in other jurisdictions therefore, the Chamber feels that due to the rapidly changing and dynamic nature of the profession, attempting to "pigeon hole" engineering professionals within a certain discipline would be a mistaken approach. The Chamber has an inclusive vision, where it recognises that, increasingly, engineers will have to specialise in order to be successful in their careers. It thus is of the view that engineers that are suitably qualified, and with the requisite experience, in various technical disciplines outside the traditional electrical, mechanical or civil areas should be given equal professional standing and welcomed within the engineering fold.

With regard to the issue of ethics, the Chamber believes that an engineering professional should attach the utmost importance to self-regulation. In 1999, the Chamber spent a great deal of effort in creating a code of ethics for the profession. This code was drawn up so comprehensively that it was subsequently adopted by the Engineering Board in its entirety and was issued to all warrant holders in May 2001 as the recognised code of ethics for the profession. The Chamber therefore feels that any engineering professional, especially a holder of an engineering warrant, should abide by the code of ethics irrespective of the discipline practised.

In conclusion, the Chamber of Engineers is proud that over the past 26 years, it has striven hard to promote the interests of the engineering profession with what it feels is a considerable degree of success. The Chamber will therefore continue to represent and consolidate the profession, as it firmly believes that within a small country such as ours, this is a highly sensible approach that will result in providing members with a more dynamic and interesting network for information exchange, professional development and contact making, regardless of the various engineering specialisations they hail from.

Ing. Tranter is the president of the Chamber of Engineers.