Eastern promise for UK engineers

The move will see collaboration between the two organisations on matters relating to engineering education and degree accreditation systems. As part of its role as the national regulatory authority for UK professional engineers, ECUK maintains a database of accredited engineering degrees. It licenses over 30 engineering institutions to assess academic programmes for inclusion on this and is responsible for ensuring consistency of accreditation practice. Currently, China has no national system for accrediting engineering programmes. CAST has been charged by the Chinese government with creating one and ensuring that is compatible with current international practice. Joint workshops will be one of the mechanisms for information exchange between the two organisations. It is also intended that each side will send representatives to observe the other party’s accreditation activities. In addition, and subject to agreement on costs, ECUK will help CAST to develop the procedures needed to achieve substantial equivalence with Washington Accord requirements. Once this has been demonstrated it will act as a sponsor of China’s application for provisional membership of the accord. The agreement was signed on behalf of ECUK by vice chairman Barry Dobson CEng and for CAST by executive secretary Professor Feng Changgen.