AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH ENG. (PROF.) T. M. PALLEWATTA
PAST PRESIDENT OF THE INSTITUTION OF ENGINEERS, SRI LANKA
March 2021 |Podcast
In the forth episode of the SLEN Podcast, Eng. Chamil Edirimuni speaks with Eng. (Prof.) T. M. Pallewatta, Past President of the IESL about the "Engineering Profession: Challenges and Opportunities. An edited version of their conversation follows".
Eng. Chamil Edirimuni:
Welcome to another discussion of the digital SLEN podcast series. I am engineer Chamil Edirimuni, sub-editor of digital SLEN and presenting on behalf of the Digital SLEN. Today we have the privilege of talking to engineer professor T. M. Pallewatta, Past President of the IESL, year 2018-2019. He's also representing the present council for the category of Past President. Welcome, Sir.
Eng. (Prof.) T. M. Pallewatta:
Welcome. Thank you. ආයුබෝවන්. සුබ උදෑසනක් Chamil. It's a pleasure for me to be with you today.
Eng. Chamil:
Thank you, Sir.
You know that engineering is one of the most important sectors that paves the way towards the development of a country and today. Our topic is “Engineering Profession - Challenges and Opportunities”.
As for your view sir, what are the challenges faced by the engineering profession and professionals in the present local context?
Eng. (Prof.) Pallewatta :
I think it is a very appropriate and timely question Chamil. Expanded discussion is needed for this, but I will try to put it very succinctly.
Now there is a substantial challenge to the profession of engineering at this moment in this country as well as opportunities. Whether we are going towards those opportunities is the question. So with the starting point of the challenges, the engineering profession is now under the challenge that the engineers themselves are not gainfully employed. As all of you know we are taking around 2200 students to state engineering faculties. That is though very highly competitive GCE A/L, and when they graduate with the ability to handle complex engineering problems, they should be employed in that particular area. I think, if you carefully observe, that most of our engineers are not employed in careers involving complex engineering problems. So they are underemployed. I don't say they are unemployed, but they are underemployed.
So with this picture, you know that all other professions are very concerned. If you take other parallel professions like medicine, law and architecture, in all these areas they are very concerned about the number of professionals they produce. In other words, they don't flood the market with professionals. But in engineering, I think if you can see the UGC intake guidebook you can very clearly see how many engineers are being taken as undergraduates compared with the other categories.
Eng. Chamil :
It means sir, we are flooding the engineers?
Eng. (Prof.) Pallewatta :
In a way. yes. Actually there is a saying that “slaying the Golden goose”. There is a goose who lays golden eggs, one day we want to take all the eggs. So, you kill the goose and there it is. So I think what we're doing for engineering is something like that.
Eng. Chamil :
As we can see under the newly formed Engineering Council Act the roles of each category are specified. Do you think this would solve the issues related to those practices? Or else, are those still prevailing?
Eng. (Prof.) Pallewatta :
In the 1st place, the Engineering Council Act or registration of engineers that we wanted was, not to register all the practitioners involved in engineering. What we wanted was to register professional engineers. That was the intention 20, 25 years ago, IESL had. With that intention only we have forged ahead, but finally, due to so many reasons, we have ended up with the act which is encompassing the whole spectrum of practitioners or so-called practitioners of engineering. So actually in a way, this is good because this demarcates and specifically identifies where each of the engineering practitioners, based on their educational qualifications and their experience training and so on, where they had to be placed. This must be in line with the international understandings. So these are the important things which you correctly mentioned. Our Engineering Council Act stipulates 6 categories of engineering practitioners. Internationally there are only three categories. So that might have some repercussions.
Eng. Chamil :
As you told sir we know that there are different categories of engineering practitioners and each of them practices a unique role in the engineering sector. The harmony of these practitioners in the field is a must for the advancement of a country. So what is your view on the current situation of these different practitioners in Sri Lanka? You mentioned that but I need you to elaborate on it.
Eng. (Prof.) Pallewatta :
First of all, we take the present scenario in the field of engineering or related to engineering and technology. We have only two categories, the diplomats and the graduates. Diplomats are the National Diploma holders in Engineering and Technology. Graduates are from state Universities. So these two practitioners were handling the whole spectrum of engineering aspect in Sri Lanka. So now internationally we have three categories, Engineers, Technologists and Technicians. So this specification was not prevalent in Sri Lanka.
But now with the Engineering Council Act, we have stipulated 6 categories. So, we had to somehow subdivide our practitioners into all these six categories and also have some sort of linkage with the international classification. Also at the moment, we are in flux, which means we're trying to define very clearly what are the roles of each category of practitioners as well as their demarcations, their responsibilities as well as their academic qualifications and so on. We are now trying to put them into two-compartment when they all come into the picture. I think we'll get a better situation but in the interim, it will be a very hard time for us, that is the transition.
Eng. Chamil :
We know that a few years back the government introduced a technology stream at the school level and also at the university level, hopefully with a positive intention. But I have few questions about that. Will it help to fill a prevailed vacuum in the industry? What are changes that you expect in the engineering landscape of this country in future due to this introduction?
Eng. (Prof.) Pallewatta :
The technology stream was introduced to circumvent the problem of many children who have done O/Ls going into the art stream because they're not very much savvy with Maths and Science. So they normally went to the art stream, but even after the degrees there are relatively unemployable. So the government wanted them to be employed. So if to be employable you have to have some vocations skills. That is the reason for introducing this technology stream where the vocationally targeted A/Ls was there and be with the output from the A/Ls they can go to the field straight away as a vocationally knowledgeable set of people.
In the convention A/Ls, leading to engineering and so on, you go through the Physical Science stream. You have very strong theoretical aspects but not much on the practical to do a job. So, this was the intention. But then, after they do A/Ls they want to go to a University. So then the Technology Faculties were formed, and in the Technology Faculties, the Engineering Technology specifically was not going more towards the vocational area, but now they have slightly and substantially shifted onto the academic area, because these technology faculties were formed with the intervention of Science Faculties. So they're thinking is in more in line with the theoretical aspects and as a result, now we are giving them a degree, which is more academic than vocational. They are called engineering technologies, but their role in the international identifications will be quite different. At the moment the industry does not have a slot for them. Because the industry slots are filled by the present engineers and the technicians. So, both of these categories will have to be displaced to have space for the newly coming technologists.
Eng. Chamil :
It means more issues and issues become more complex. Going into the next question Sir, what are the consequences of these conversions of some technology and engineering diplomas into decrease and as the IESL what should be our focus on these moves in terms of the national interest?
Eng. (Prof.) Pallewatta :
yes
Eng. Chamil :
Going into the next question Sir what are the consequences of these conversion of some technology and engineering diplomas into decrease and as the IESL what should be our focus on these moves in terms of the national interest.
Eng. (Prof.) Pallewatta :
For a healthy industry, especially the engineering industry, you need a certain ratio of engineers to technologists to technicians. Basically there's an agreement that for one engineer you need about four technologies and about 16 technicians, one to 4 to 4. So that is a general understanding. But in some countries that this ratio is even tighter.
But if you take the generic picture we have to have one engineer, four technologies and 16 technicians. At the moment, we are producing about 1900 diplomates with national diplomas per year, where else we are producing over 2200 engineers per year. So, it is not 1 to 16 but it is 1 to 0.8.
I'm not denying anybody's right to advance. That is not the case. But the national requirement is that you need more technicians to handle the technician jobs. If you don't have enough technicians our industry will be unstable. So what happens is if we upgrade the technicians producing Diplomas to Degrees then they will no longer be technicians. They will not be able to do technicians work, they will not be happy to do technician’s work. They will no longer be gainfully employed by the effort put in by the state. You make somebody do some higher job or more complex job and you ask him to do a simple job. It's a waste of resources.
So, this proposed upgrading is going to be another highly inappropriate action that might result in even worse conditions, because now, as you can see, we are getting a tsunami at the same time with an earthquake and a cyclone. It's is a combined disaster coming to this profession.
Eng. Chamil :
What is your final message to the engineering community?
Eng. (Prof.) Pallewatta :
That's a very tricky as well as a very important question Chamil.
My final message is, as engineers, based on our ethics, our fundamental obligation is to the public. I would like to extend it even further, its to the planet itself, not only the humans but to other species as well as everything in the environment.
Our secondary responsibility is towards our profession. This profession should go in its desired path, having its standards, its outputs, the way it was intended to. So my plead to our listeners is, maybe some of us are now more senior engineers or senior people who have children who are going to go into the education system. So, you might have different viewpoints because of the available opportunities in education state. But always think about your profession first.
You are an engineer. You may have a child who wants to become an engineer but cannot do it because of the low Z score or whatever. Then you might tend to put your child into a nonstandard path and try to get the path approved. Please don't do that. That is my plead. Because keep your profession asm the second most important thing in your life. So, try to keep the integrity, quality, standard and ethical level of engineers for the future to come.
Eng. Chamil :
Today we met engineer professor T.M. Pallewatta, Past President of the IESL for this discussion beause this has been conducted by digital SLEN throughout. Thank you very much, Sir.
Eng. (Prof.) Pallewatta :
Thank you Chamil.
Eng. Chamil :
Of course, you are most welcome. With that we are going to wind up another discussion from the digital SLEN podcast. Until we meet again goodbye.
