New professional registration advisors trained for the Middle East
Last December the IET hosted an event to train 11 international professional registration advisors (IPRAs) to cover the Middle East.
Increasing the region’s number of IPRAs by a factor of three, these advisors will be working across countries including Qatar, UAE, Egypt and Oman, allowing for more engineers across the Middle East to gain access to professional registration support.
“This project was all about removing the bottlenecks for engineers to become professionally registered,” explains IET Europe, Middle East and Africa Communities Committee (EMEA-CC) chairman Iain Murdoch. “In the EMEA region there was a limited number of advisors who had an increasing workload. This was in addition to their regular day jobs.
“In order to improve the process for both the volunteers and applicants, it was seen that more IPRAs would help to solve this problem. The Middle East also has a high transient working population due to contracts, projects etc. Therefore with high turnover, we wanted to ensure the professional registration process would not be impacted if one or two individuals left the region.”
The work began back in 2012 with the first step of training a number of existing IPRAs to deliver Routes to Registration workshops, but as time moved on it became clear that the demand for support across the Middle East was high and more IPRAs were needed.
The importance of professional registration in the Middle East
“The Middle East is a booming region with some of the worlds’ largest and best known engineering mega-projects. There are huge numbers of engineers from all over the world working there, as well as many technicians needed to construct and maintain the facilities,” says Iain.
“Having more IPRA’s will help the IET to encourage more engineers to become professionally registered,” notes Dr Mahmoud Chawki, who ran the training day.
“Each engineer wishing to become professionally registered is required to undergo an interview and two IPRA’s are needed for each interview. [Until now] very few countries (if any) in the Middle East had more than one resident IPRA. Therefore, candidates faced long waiting times in order to arrange for an interview to get an additional IPRA to travel to the country of the candidate or require the candidate to travel to another country where an interview could be set up.
“There are lots of members who might move to the region for work but want to continue with their professional development,” adds David Houssein, IET Community Relationship Manager. “The IPRA service is something that can be done remotely, however applications such as Skype have been banned in certain countries, so being able to meet with someone face-to-face is a real benefit for members,” he notes.
International collaboration leads to successful training day
The EMEA-CC agreed that the best thing to do was to run a workshop to train further IPRAs, and it was decided to do this in Doha, Qatar, where a committee meeting was being held.
“This was a great demonstration of different elements of the IET working together,” Ian enthuses. “The EMEA-CC had identified the need to have more IPRAs trained in the region from feedback received from events such as Community Volunteer Conference and direct engagement with the local networks (LNs). One of the LNs, Qatar, agreed to host this event.
“Staff members in the UK contacted potential candidates and provided the initial screening. The Qatar LN was able to assist in providing recommended venues, timings, advising on local cultures (avoiding specific dates or times) and co-coordinating local issues. Finally, the travel arrangements, venue hire and visa were supported from UK.”
After staff had put out a call for IPRA volunteers, reviewed the applications and selected them based on availability and location, the training date was set for 8 December. The full-day presentation, workshop and Q&A was delivered by Mahmoud, a previous EMEA-CC member and an IPRA himself.
“Having a volunteer IPRA deliver the training gives a much better insight into what is required and he understands the key issues. The course delegates responded well to training received by one of their peers,” Iain highlights.
Sujata Gupta was one of the event’s trainees and is already beginning to help engineers in her community.
“It’s a great feeling to help fellow engineers in their personal and professional progression,” she says. “I am receiving lots of requests for advice and I am also planning to conduct a presentation in my office to promote professional registration among engineers. I’m also looking into the opportunity of presenting at exhibitions – helping to promote the IET.”
How this work will benefit the Middle East’s engineers
David goes on to show how the development of IPRAs will help engineering across the Middle East.
“There is an appetite to improve standards within the region. IPRAs will help members become professionally registered, which will in turn improve the standards and the image of engineering. Although there is still work to be done in promoting the value of professional registration in the region, we are fortunate that we have a large number of local members who promote it within their companies and help to create a demand for it. It’s also a positive for teaching standards as well as for practicing engineers.”
“People working in the Middle East on long or short-term contracts will benefit by being able to continue their professional registration activities,” Iain continues.
“Local engineers will be able to develop their skills further and gain an internationally recognised qualification. Companies benefit by having competent staff, in a tight labour market it can be a way to attract or retain staff. The countries themselves benefit by being able to increase the level of engineering competence and take on larger and more complex projects in the future. The professional registration process will hopefully become more efficient as a result of this project.
“This was a very interesting project and I would encourage engineering-rich regions to follow similar projects if this is suitable. The organisation of IPRA training is a relatively easy way to solve a challenging problem and is a good way to engage with active volunteers,” he concludes.
If you're thinking about becoming professionally registered then we recommend getting in contact with an IPRA and get the process started.