Institution of Engineers oppose ‘Higher Education (Quality Assurance and Accreditation)’ Bill

Whilst acknowledging the fact that there is a national need for Quality Assurance and Accreditation in the Higher Education sector, the Council of the Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka (IESL) in a statement said it unequivocally rejects the Higher Education (Quality Assurance and Accreditation) Bill as gazetted on 14 June now before Parliament in the form it had been drafted. 

In its statement issued by President Eng (Prof) T. M. Pallewatta said it is the understanding of the IESL that the Bill is to be taken up for discussion on 21 August, and is imperative that the Government be prudent to cease this course of action and heed to constructive suggestions of stakeholders who have had decades of experiences in the said sphere before redrafting the Bill.

As you are aware, the IESL is the Apex Professional body of Engineers in Sri Lanka. Being a membership organisation, we are very much interested in education, professional development, and progress of engineers and their contributions towards the society we serve daily. 

IESL has a membership of over 20,000 Engineers, out of which more than 5,000 are Chartered Engineers, of all disciplines of engineering, working in the state as well as the private sector. With the establishment of the Engineering Council of Sri Lanka, IESL is empowered to authorise the registration of Chartered Engineers, Associate Engineers and Affiliate Engineers, and to practice engineering in the country registration in the Engineering Council is imperative. 

IESL has its Board of Accreditation, comprising a balance of reputed Engineers and senior university academics, for evaluation of degree programs in Engineering, according to globally accepted norms for practice of Engineering under International Engineering Alliance (IEA), and we have been the signatory of the Washington Accord since 2014, which has strict rules and criteria for accreditation of engineering degrees, to produce Engineers who have the competence to perform under local conditions according to international standards. 

We are also the provisional signatory of the Sydney Accord, which is the international accord for evaluation of Engineering Technology degrees for Accreditation.

IESL, which is the only professional body in Sri Lanka for Recognition and Accreditation (under internationally established and recognised Washington Accord and Sydney Accord) of four and three-year Engineering Degree programs approved by the UGC and MoHE, based on its decades of experience, unequivocally suggest the GoSL not to initiate debate on the said Bill in its current form but to embark on a comprehensive consultative process:

Without haste, but with a sense of urgency and transparency to the public 

With all stakeholders; State Universities/Commissions/Authorities, well established Professional institutions, Academics and other reputed higher education providers 

With who are already involved in this nationally important matter of quality assurance and accreditation of higher education degree programs 

While keeping the scope of the bill to: governing regulations, standardisation, quality assurance and accreditation, and funding mechanisms  

Allowing eventual public hearings to ensure parents and children who are the recipients understand the value of the proposed mechanism

Without getting into minute details, IESL sees following fundamental drawbacks in the present proposed bill:

• Composition of the all-powerful Commission to be established consists of nominees by a sole authority, the Minister, without allowing a more transparent representative approach to such nominations. Its decision-making process is undemocratic even within its 13 members
  
   
• The proposed Commission established under the Bill clearly concentrates all the powers (Regulatory, Accreditation, Funding and Standards setting) to a single body leading to conflicts of interests, to say the least
  
   
• The drafters of the Bill have not given any hearing in the formation of this Bill to many stakeholders who are legally and officially involved in the subject matter of Higher Education Quality Assurance and Accreditation such as the IESL (which has been deeply involved in these processes for decades)
  
   
• The scope of the Bill is across diversely varied educational and professional sectors and a single commission is not qualified or even practically capable of doing what it embarks on to do
  
   
• The Bill has draconian powers to rescind all existing mechanisms after its establishment and the details of how it plans to renegotiate outsourcing of its powers to existing bodies in quality assurance and accreditation is absent
  
   

Therefore, IESL wish to strongly reiterate that any Bill dealing with Quality Assurance and Accreditation of Higher Education in Sri Lanka should be prepared with utmost transparency through comprehensive consultative processes with all stakeholders.