Updates on the Washington Accord Initiative

UPDATES ON THE WASHINGTON ACCORD INITIATIVE

Last June, in Kyoto, during the International Engineering Alliance (IEA) Meeting, the state of 3 accords and 3 registers were considered. The 3 accords are the Washington Accord for professional engineers, the Sydney Accord for engineering technologists and the Dublin Accord for engineering technicians. The 3 registers are the International Professional Engineers (IntPE) register run by the Engineers Mobility Forum (EMF), the register run by the Engineering Technologists Mobility Forum (ETMF) and the APEC Engineer Register. It was reported that a new accord, called Seoul Accord, for computing professionals was signed last year and wants to be part of the IEA.

The Philippines participates in the IEA Meeting as a partner in the APEC Engineer Register. The goal now is to be a full participant in the IEA by being a signatory to all accords and being active in all registers. The initial step would be to try to gain membership in the Washington Accord.

Zooming out further, there is the equivalent of the Washington Accord in Europe. Formed only in 2006, the EUR-ACE now accepts non-European accreditation bodies as members. So another long-term goal would be to also go for membership in EUR-ACE since there are a significant number of Filipino engineers in Europe as well.

All of these developments have informed the proposal to establish a body that will be eligible not only for membership in the Washington Accord but in all other accords, including EUR-ACE. The proposed name is the Philippine Accreditation Board for Engineering, Computing and Technology (PABECT). Its regular members shall be professional societies in engineering and computing and of similar organizations representing the engineering technologists and engineering technicians. In the short-term in will pursue Washington Accord membership.

Outcomes-based accreditation shall be done by PACUCOA, PAASCU and AACCUP. PABECT shall certify that the accreditation has been done under the terms of the Washington Accord. The accreditation teams shall be composed exclusively of engineers from industry and academe, all wearing the hat of their respective professional societies. They shall not be representing their companies or their schools. The team shall be invariably chaired by an engineer from industry.

Funds are now being sought for the drive for Washington Accord membership from the CHED and the COMSTE. Once the full amount is secured, the drive shall commence.