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The Use Of Mandatory Continuing Professional Development Essay

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The iconic journalist and one of the most trusted figures in American television, Walter Cronkite once said that in seeking the truth, one must get to both sides of the story [1]. It may be philosophically worded perhaps, but it is unequivocally true. As such, the likely introduction of mandatory continuing professional development by the PEO is a thorny topic that must be critically analyzed and scrutinized on both ends of the spectrum. Those in support for continuing professional development argue that practitioners get applicable training on the job and that certain concepts such as ethics simply do not change and thus don’t require a statue for mandatory continuing development. However, others have an antipodal perspective, arguing that continuing professional development should be mandatory to prevent loss of knowledge over time and to allow members to keep at pace with the latest practices and procedures of the engineering profession.

Perhaps the most convincing argument that those against continuing professional development provide is that engineers get all the adequate skills training on the job. This is most prevalent for new engineering graduates, that can spend up to two years getting trained prior to starting the job. Take for example, Lehigh Hanson Canada – subsidiary of the building materials conglomerate, HeidelbergCement Group. New graduates spend 24 months in a comprehensive program that provides on-the-job as well as formal training [2]. To put in

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