PEO takes leap towards continuing professional development

Professional Engineers of Ontario’s task force that is looking into continuing education programs for licence holders is due to make recommendations to the PEO council at its November meeting.

According to a report by Michael Mastromatteo in the latest issue of Engineering Dimensions (p.8), the task force is expected to recommend a voluntary program that would begin in 2017.

In that program, licensed engineers will be asked to complete an online practice evaluation questionnaire and an ethics module. They will also be asked to voluntarily report the number of hours  they have spent on continuing professional development in the past year.

The information on the form will be used to evaluate for each practitioner the numbers of hours of professional development activity he or she should be completing. The assessment will be based on the engineer’s type of work and what level of knowledge and skill is necessary for that person to practice “commensurate with safeguarding the public interest.”

Engineers who fulfil the practice profile will be identified on PEO’s online directory.

PEO’s Continuing Professional Competence Program has been named (CP)².   The association’s IT department is currently working on preparing a beta website that will contain the questionnaire that licence holders will be asked to complete.