How we’ll reposition engineering profession – COREN President

National President of the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN), Engr. Ali A. Rabiu, has said the council has initiated programmes that would reposition the engineering profession.

Rabiu spoke at the end of year briefing with journalists, saying the council carried out some aspects of its core mandate to ensure professionals in the field lived up to expectations.

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“In order to reposition COREN for effective service delivery, we carried out verification exercises across the country so as to place square pegs in square holes and also carry out our regulatory functions seamlessly.

“The Engineering Regulatory Monitoring (ERM) is another mandate of COREN and to get this programme started properly, we set up national technical committees at the national level and state technical committees at the state level.

“So far we have inaugurated the state technical committees in seven states of the nation, – Nasarawa, Katsina, Gombe, Bauchi, Edo, Jigawa and Kano.

“These committees will drive the ERM programme in the states while the national technical committee will make policies for the programme,” he said.

He added that COREN also registered engineering personnel and firms and accredited engineering courses in Nigerian universities and polytechnics.

“In the outgone year, we were able to register 4,509 engineering personnel, made up of 3,796 engineers, 622 engineering technologists, 29 technicians and 62 craftsmen.

“The engineering profession is a family made up of four cadres; engineers, technologists, technicians and craftsmen. We all work together to ensure the success of whatever project we are handling.  This is the number we have been able to register in this outgone year in spite of the numerous challenges of COVID-19,” he further said.

Engr. Rabiu said further that the council visited 11 universities to do accreditation programmes in  engineering faculties and accredited 44 programmes which were all approved.

“One of the programmes very dear to the present administration is to develop our permanent site at Jabi, Abuja. Initially we started the project on a PPP arrangement but we want to jettison that and source funds through IGR and budgetary allocations to carry out that project. We hope to commence the project proper this year 2021.

“We also have some capital projects ongoing across the country in Benin, Edo State, Lafia, Nasarawa State and in Katsina State capital,” the COREN president added.