PROGRESS AND RENEWAL
APEGA Launches Improved System for Reporting and Examining Experience
Imagine an application system featuring a list of core competencies applicants use to measure and explain their work experience, regardless of discipline. Wouldn’t that be fairer, more transparent, more efficient, and easier to understand than a less guided and structured reporting process for work experience? Yes, it would be. And it will be — because that’s exactly the era APEGA is now ushering in, through competency-based assessment (CBA). Licensure can be complex, especially for applicants who gained their experience outside Canada. But CBA makes it easier for them to understand how their skills will be recognized and evaluated. COMING SOON — ACADEMIC ASSESSMENT METHOD APEGA is also developing an academic assessment method (AAM) to help us better evaluate the educational credentials of engineering applicants and reduce processing times. With AAM, Canadian and internationally trained applicants will be assessed using a single academic standard. Because all engineering applicants for Professional Member, Licensee, and Member-in- Training will meet a single standard, the academic assessment process will be more objective, more repeatable, and fairer. Details are still being finalized, but there will likely be three different levels of assessment based on the core subjects completed by Canadian or international applicants. We hope to launch AAM before the end of this year.
Launching in July for APEGA engineering applicants seeking Professional Engineer or Licensee designations, the model already has a sound track record. CBA has been used successfully by the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia for more than 10 years. It’s also recommended by two major documents offering APEGA guidance on foreign qualifications — the Pan-Canadian Framework for the Assessment and Recognition of Foreign Qualifications, and the Foreign Qualification Recognition Plan for Alberta. APEGA began developing an Alberta CBA model in 2015, with support from an Innovation Fund grant from the Government of Alberta. It’s a major piece of a four- year registration renewal project set for completion later this year. The registration renewal project is designed to improve tools and service, allowing us to process increasingly complex applications faster, more accurately, and more efficiently. CBA is not used by individuals applying for the designations Professional Licensee (Engineering), abbreviated P.L. (Eng.) or P.L. (Geo.), or Professional Geoscientist, abbreviated P.Geo. HOW DOES CBA WORK? CBA asks applicants to explain how they meet specific competencies in 22 key areas, which are grouped into six categories: • technical competence • communication • project and financial management • team effectiveness • professionalism • social, economic, environmental and sustainability
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