From failing structural engineering to evaluating engineering programmes

Yesterday and today I am back in class, online this time. The Board of Engineers Malaysia selected me for two workshops run by its Engineering Accreditation Department. The EAC New Panel Evaluators Workshop was on 3 November and the ETAC one is today, 4 November. Both are for industry panel members. Each is a full day on Zoom, 8.30 am to 5.00 pm, and each carries 21 BEM CPD hours.

If you are not from engineering: EAC (Engineering Accreditation Council) accredits engineering degree programmes in Malaysia. ETAC (Engineering Technology Accreditation Council) does the same for engineering technology programmes. Accreditation is how the profession checks that a programme produces graduates ready for professional practice. The evaluation panels include academics and people from industry. As an industry panel member, my job is to bring in the view from the site, the plant room and the project office.

The student who failed

Many of you know my story. I was expelled from UiTM after failing structural engineering. I found my way back, finished my civil engineering degree, and went on to spend more than 20 years at Malaysia Airports, from Engineer Jamban to Project Director of the KLIA Aerotrain replacement. Now I am being trained to evaluate the programmes that produce our next engineers and technologists. I never planned for that.

Why I applied

On Aerotrain and the baggage handling system replacement, the calculations were rarely what held us back. The hard parts were interfaces between systems, approvals, failed tests days before a deadline, and people who had to agree on a way forward. The graduates who did well with us could write a clear report, speak up in a meeting with a contractor, and stay calm when a test failed. Those skills can be taught, and accreditation is one of the places where industry gets to say so.

I hold both Ir. (BEM) and Ts. (MBOT), so I work with engineers and technologists every day. That is why I applied for both panels.

What day one covered

The EAC session opened with the IEA Graduate Attributes, presented by Ir. Prof. Dr. Siti Hawa Hamzah, Associate Director at the Engineering Accreditation Department. These are the benchmark for what a graduate should be able to do, shared across the Washington, Sydney and Dublin Accords, which cover engineers, engineering technologists and engineering technicians. The UN Sustainable Development Goals ran along the bottom of the opening slide. That told me a lot: graduates are now expected to weigh sustainability alongside the design.

And yes, we took a break

Halfway through the morning the screen switched to a cup of coffee, a countdown and two words: Take a Break. Zoom put my name label right on it, "You". I took the hint. A full day of accreditation rules on a screen is a lot, and the brain needs the pause as much as the body does. In my own classes I treat the teabreak as part of the programme. People come back sharper, and the best questions often start over coffee.

Insya Allah, I want to be the kind of panel member I would have needed as a student: firm on standards and fair to the lecturers doing the teaching. It is the same reason I train. I want to close the gap between what we learn in class and what the job actually asks of us.

Day two continues this afternoon. Back to the Zoom room.