Route tp Professional Engineer Status in Malaysia

Details regarding the route to Professional Engineer status in Malaysia are available from the Institution of Engineers Malaysia (IEM) website (IEM 2010) in the dowloadable copy of the Graduate Member Registration Form. At Malaysia Campus our MEng degree courses are currently accredited by the Board of Engineers Malaysia (BEM) and thus graduates from those courses hold the ‘Accredited Engineering Degree’ mentioned at the top of the column of Academic Requirements. The route from there to professional engineer status is clearly defined.

Our BEng degree courses, while accredited by the Malaysia Qualifications Agency (MQA) and listed on their current Register accordingly, are counted by BEM as UNACCREDITED degrees. Thus in the figure, BEng graduates fall into the category represented by the bottom box in the column of Academic Requirements. While the figure shows a route to professional engineer status it has the additional Academic Requirements shown. The Secretary of BEM also confirmed the existence of this route for holders of 3-year engineering Bachelor’s degrees in a recent newspaper article (Ruslan 2010) which stated ‘The board however provides a pathway for unrecognised engineering degree holders. They can complete a Master’s programme in the related engineering disciplines.’ The ‘Coursework Masters Programme in Engineering’ would need to be a postgraduate MSc degree accredited by the MQA in Malaysia. Our own ‘MSc in Chemical Engineering’ degree course is MQA accredited and falls into the category of ‘MSc Coursework Mode’ in the MQA Standards for Engineering.

MEng graduates who intend to qualify for Professional Engineer status are advised to apply for graduate registration with BEM immediately on graduation.

BEng graduates who plan to follow the ‘unaccredited degree’ route are strongly advised to first get written confirmation from BEM on ‘recognition’ of any MSc course they propose to complete, before enrolment on the course.

References:

Ir Ruslan Abdul Aziz, Secretary, Board of Engineers Malaysia, (2010)
‘BEM Clarifies Course Time’, The Star Education, 1st
August 2010, ppE7