International Engineering Technologist Agreement

The agreement

As a result of an agreement by the Sydney Accord signatories to explore mutual recognition for experienced engineering technologists, representatives of the engineering profession in each of the signatories to the Sydney Accord met in Sydney in November 1999, and Thornybush South Africa in June 2001.

The participants in these meetings, having exchanged information on, and made a preliminary assessment of, their respective processes, policies and procedures for granting recognition to experienced engineering technologists, concluded that these were sufficiently comparable to justify further examination. They agreed on the broad principles of a framework which might enable progress towards removing artificial barriers to the free movement and practice of engineering technologists amongst their countries. An agreement was reached on the principles and outline processes by which the substantial equivalence in competence of experienced engineering technologists could be established. This Agreement is known as the Engineering Technologist Mobility Forum Memorandum of Understanding (IETA MOU)

At their meeting on 25 June 2001, the Sydney Accord signatories established a forum, to be known as the Engineering Technologists Mobility Forum (IETA), through which they, as the representatives of the organisations in their respective countries or territories, would:

1. develop, monitor, maintain and promote mutually acceptable standards and criteria for facilitating the cross-border mobility of experienced engineering technologists;
2. seek to gain a greater understanding of the existing barriers to mobility and to develop and promote strategies to help governments and licensing authorities manage those barriers in an effective and non-discriminatory manner;
3. encourage the relevant governments and licensing authorities to adopt and implement mutual mobility procedures consistent with the standards and practices recommended by the signatories to such agreements as may be established by and through the IETA;
4. identify, and encourage the implementation of, best practice for the preparation and assessment of engineering technologists intending to practice internationally at the professional level; and
5. continue mutual monitoring and information exchange by whatever means are considered most appropriate, including:

   (a) regular communication and sharing of information concerning assessment procedures, criteria, systems, manuals, publications and lists of recognised practitioners;

   (b) invitations to observe the operation of the procedures of other participants; and

   (c) invitations to observe meetings of any boards and/or commissions responsible for implementing key aspects of these procedures, and relevant meetings of the governing bodies of the participants.

At a meeting held at Thornybush in South Africa in June 2001, the participants agreed to recommend that the organisations which they represented consider becoming signatories to a draft Agreement to establish and maintain an International Register of Engineering Technologists.

This Agreement to establish and maintain an IETA International Register of Engineering Technologists is intended to provide a framework for the recognition of experienced practising engineering technologists by the responsible bodies in each of the signatory economies. In particular, such bodies will be encouraged to use the Register as a secure benchmark for arrangements which provide mutual recognition or exemption and/or streamlined access by engineering technologists to licensing, registration or certification in economies other than that in which they first gained recognition.

Nothing in this Agreement is intended to limit the rights of any signatory organisation to conclude bilateral or multilateral agreements with any other organisations on different terms from those implied by the requirements for entry to the IETA International Register of Engineering Technologists.