Public Member Reports
Board of Examiners
The primary role of APEGA as a regulatory body is to protect the public through appropriate and relevant regulations. One of the departments critical for fulfilling this role is Registration, supported by the work of the Board of Examiners (BOE). The BOE— with its respective subcommittees, including the Policy Working Group (PWG) and the Competency-Based Assessment (CBA) Task Force—establishes and develops the admission standards for engineers and geoscientists and evaluates the qualifications of applicants against these standards. To protect the public interest, the BOE has adopted a risk management process to review and evaluate all applications. Policies and bulletins reflecting changes and advances in current-day practice and relevant legislation are initially developed by the PWG and ultimately approved by the BOE. These documents guide the process to reduce ambiguity, misinterpretation, and inconsistencies in final decision making regarding registration across applicants and disciplines. In this regard, Registration staff and the BOE are commended on their due diligence in ensuring the qualifications of applicants meet the standards worthy of a professional designation. Registration staff continually updates apega.ca with any changes for applicants on registration requirements and communicates direction to academic and experience examiners and other stakeholders. In 2023, the PWG developed and revised new and old policies that improved and reduced application process time and increased review efficiency. Applicants with a recognized, four-year engineering, geology, or geophysics degree now have their academic and experience qualifications reviewed concurrently. The PWG continues to address important matters, such as academic qualifications and the required12 months of Canadian experience. All decisions made by the PWG must meet the principles of fairness, consistency, and public interest and safety. In 2023, the CBA Task Force revised the wording for key competencies and indicators. These changes will provide additional clarity to applicants and examiners on the types of experience and details required for completing and evaluating the CBA. The work of the CBA Task Force will continue in 2024. During 2023, the BOE continued to meet virtually for most meetings. Two in-person workshops for BOE members were held in June and October. We support holding most meetings online and believe most of the BOE’s work, such as the review of applications, can be done virtually without compromising registration requirements and standards. We also support in-person workshops that focus on improving examiner evaluations of applicant academic and experience requirements. We acknowledge the commitment and the efforts of APEGA staff that enable the BOE to function effectively and ensure all assessments for registrations meet a high-quality standard and protect the public interest.
Leslie Beard Allan Mah Ernest Skakun, PhD Public Members
57 64
apega.ca
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