IMechE in Oman - working for professional engineering recognition

In December 2018, Ed Hansom, Professional Advisor at IMechE, represented the Institution at the 28th Arab Engineering Conference.

The event, which is held annually in different locations around the Gulf region, took place from 11-13 December 2018 at the Sheraton Hotel in Muscat, Oman.

Day one of the conference began with welcomes from key speakers and a video presentation on the conference organisers, the Oman Society of Engineers (OSE). There followed a series of workshops covering a wide range of subjects. Ed spoke about the academic accreditation process for the HE sector in the UK, as performed by the IMechE and similar professional engineering institutions under licence from the Engineering Council. He spoke again, after lunch, this time about the registration of professional engineers in the UK by the IMechE and similar professional engineering institutions, again, under the auspices of the Engineering Council. Both talks were well received by the audience, some of whom asked some pertinent and challenging questions at the end of each session.

The second and third days of the conference were devoted to the keynote addresses, invited talks and technical presentations. The emphasis of the event was engineering education with a particular insight into how engineers might be taught in the future. There was also an introduction to Oman’s Professional Engineering Network (OPEN) which, whilst very new, is already promoting professional engineering institutions in Oman. The Institution is a founding member of OPEN which has been established to enable engineers, architects and quantity surveyors living in Oman to achieve professional competence and excellence through acquiring internationally recognised professional qualifications.

On 12 December, Ed Hansom also represented the IMechE Chief Executive at the graduation ceremony of the military cadets from the Military Technological College (MTC) located just outside Muscat. The ceremony was a very prestigious affair with many senior military officers and members of the Omani government in attendance. As part of this event, Ed presented an IMechE certificate to Murtadha Mahmood Abdullah Alajmi for achieving the highest mark in the Diploma of Higher Education in Aeronautical Engineering and another to Abdul Majeed Abdullah Rashid Al Manthari for achieving the highest mark in the BEng (Hon) in Marine Engineering. The evening ended with a breath-taking lights and lasers display which lit up the entire complex.

The entire trip emphasised the strong links between Oman and the UK and the high regard in which the Institution is held in within Oman. It is hoped that there will be many benefits as a result of this visit. There is strong local demand for recognition of Omani engineers, Omani universities and Omani qualifications by bodies based outside Oman.The IMechE is poised and ready to help Oman achieve this goal in any way it can.