Mandatory Continuing Professional Development Program Analysis

Engineers, as well as other professionals, have an important role in society. Their work is dedicated to properly and professionally serve and protect the public. The Mandatory Continuing Professional Development (CPD) for engineers in Ontario is a program aimed by Professional Engineers of Ontario (PEO) to force licensed engineers to be continuously exposed to new knowledge and experience needed to cope with technological advances in order to strengthen their careers and to maintain competence throughout their working life and therefore to better serve the public. Even though this sounds interesting however, the program has many setbacks and should be rejected or kept at its voluntary level as it is time consuming, costly, unfair for many licensees, and may not
Unlike other professions considering the Continuing Professional Development program like doctors, lawyers, teachers, etc. who work directly and independently with the public, engineers usually work in a team which incorporates supervisors, managers, technicians, and executers which makes it hard and less likely for errors to reach the public. One incident such that the partial collapse of the rooftop parking deck could not be blamed on the absence of a mandatory CPD program in Ontario and therefore could not be one of the reasons to speed up the process of mandating the program. The program has already been incorporated in many companies through their Quality Assurance programs. It should be kept at that level and companies and their employed engineers decide on themselves whether it is needed or not. It seems like that it is becoming some kind of dictatorship where they impose and force programs and engineers have to obey without taking their opinion into count. The CPD program should be kept at its voluntary level and individual professionals should decide on their own whether to participate or and be part of