As I announced in the last SLEN, this is a special issue which expressessolely about the achievement of the success we had in obtaining a signatory of Washington Accord. The letter addressed to the President of IESL by Prof. Hu Hanrahan, Chair Washington Accord says “It is with great pleasure that I write to confirm the unanimous decision of the signatories of the Washington accord during their meeting at the IEA meetings, Wellington 2014, to admit the Institution of Engineers Sri Lanka (IESL) as a signatory of the Washington Accord as from 13 June 2014”. The other signatories of the Washington Accord are, Australia, Canada,Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong China, India, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey, United Kingdom and United States. 

According to their website, signatorieshave full rights of participation in the Accord; qualifications accredited or recognized by other signatories are recognized by each signatory as being substantially equivalent to accredited or recognized qualifications within its own jurisdiction. Countries like Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, UK and USA have achieved this status a way back in 1989 and we are not very late as some of the developed countries have achieved this status very recently.

There are certain obligations we have to accept to maintain the signatory status, financial, participation in meetings and more importantly oblige to provide benefits to graduates of accredited or recognized programmes of other signatories. The last obligation, I feel as very important because now other countries do respect our graduates until we remain as a signatory in the Washington Accord. Further, when foreign professionals do visit Sri Lanka for different projects, it is the duty of our senior engineers to impose a bar to make sure that all the engineers who practice in Sri Lanka must be having an equal qualification; now it is very clear that Washington Accord has provided us that platform. Therefore, I urge the senior engineers who take relevant decisions in the country to impose a bar or hurdle that those who practice in Sri Lanka should behaving a qualification from Washington Accord signatory countries to make sure that they are equally qualifiedwith our engineers in their knowledge.

Eng. (Dr.) Udeni Nawagamuwa
nawagamuwa@gmail.com