Continuous Professional Development is the ongoing lifelong process of formally and informally developing, maintaining and documenting your professional skills, knowledge and experience that you gain beyond any initial training. It enables professionals to keep their knowledge, skills and experiences relevant and up to date with the latest technology, innovation and research regardless of their field of discipline. It is a lifelong learning process that benefits all engineers.
A CPD Framework was created as a guide based on work carried out by Prof. Ing. Jonas Redwood-Sawyerr using the South African model.
The main purpose of the CPD Framework was to Improve the overall standard, relevance, and quality of engineering courses and CPD being offered at the University of Sierra Leone and the professional institution (SLIE). The PERC Education Committee and the Education, Training, and Professional Development Committee of SLIE agreed that there was a need to improve overall engineering training and practice standards in Sierra Leone by implementing a Continuous Professional Development framework. The committee chair, Ing. Prof. Redwood – Sawyerr had developed a draft framework based on the South African model in 2017. This was used as a basis for designing the current CPD Framework with contributions from the Engineers for Change SL UK, who incorporated the attributes of the ICE CPD programme. The framework also drew references from the Ghana Institute of Engineers' draft CPD Programme. A sub-committee was created to manage the CPD framework creation and implementation. The UK team worked with a sub-committee of Part 4 consisting of Ing. Barton Cole, Ing. Solomon Tucker, and Ing. Patrick Williams in addition to the Part Lead, Ing. Louise Chaytor. The framework is a guide to the process, requirements, professional development units an engineer could obtain on an annual basis and how it would be evaluated. The framework also defines how CPD would be audited, the right to appeal, and other legal steps of the process.
The Education Committee of PERC and SLIE worked with the Part Lead, Ing. Chaytor to develop the final CPD Framework.
The overall aim is to embed a culture of training in the country and create a community of engineers that can drive improvement in the standard of engineering practice by ensuring that they have access to established knowledge and skills through various activities that constitute continuous professional development.
Career progression and Credibility – SLIE/PERC certification of professional engineers through CPD will enable professional engineers to benefit from career progression within their institutions or other institutions and will lend credibility to their technical expertise locally and internationally. It will determine those who can be considered experts in their field of engineering.