Professional Excellence Consortium

Subtitle

Introduction

Professional Excellence Consortium(PEC) is an inter-professional platform created by the Commission for Professional Excellence (SCPE), one of the Seminary Commissions of Manzil-e-Murad Development Network. PEC is actively engaged with various professional bodies developing strategic relations with a view to laying solid foundations for a rich and strong professional culture.

 

 

Vision & Rationale

While there have been many representative organizations on both public and private levels mandated to advance various professions in the country; there was a need felt to do more than what is currently being done, especially  in putting targeted efforts for establishing sophisticated structures, reliable systems and efficient mechanisms  to undertake an ongoing quest for professional excellence and to ensure creation of a sound professional culture within the country.

There was also a need for establishing a formal link between industry, government, professional communities, and academia to strengthen collaborative working on initiatives to make Pakistan ‘a research oriented destination of choice” for targeting high value projects.

Professional Excellence Consortium has been created to bring under one umbrella all facets of the professional excellence as viewed from policy, research and practice standpoints including: Statutory Reforms, Chartering & Mandate Issues, Regulatory Powers, infrastructural Provisions, Standardization and Benchmarking Practices and Quality Concerns, Institutional and Program Accreditation, Training, Assessment, Certification & Credentialing, Professional Responsibility & Liability Insurance, Initial and continuing professional development, and Issues related to Private Consulting to name just a few.
 
We thrive to bring the concept of more than one professional body working jointly on these goals - a glowing reality on the local  scene.
 
 

Mission & Objectives

Specifically, this means:
  • recognizing and raising candidate occupations to an appropriate level of professional status
  • establishment of a professional regulatory commission to oversee performance of existing professional bodies
  • providing for a professional development model
  • to ensure a constant supply of professional in an informed and planned manner applying talent farming strategies
  • to build the capacity of the college arm in playing proactive role
  • to construct a national professional practice model
  • to invent a professional maturity and progress formula adopting the capability-maturity model in order to evaluate the emerging professions' claims for professional status
  • to continually evaluate the maturity level attained by various occupations for their feasibility to organize/upgrade them into state-regulated professions
  • to conduct research into economic feasibility of inception and recognition of newer profession
  • to identify performance indicators and to set corresponding standards for professional organizations including the college preparation arm
  • to oversee the performance of professional bodies
  • to set up professional regulatory boards in each profession
  • to act as rating and grading agency for professional organizations
  • to serve as a catalyzing agent for healthy competition among various professions in their effort to rise up the professional ladder
  • to setup a centralized professional accountability bureau or court like the banking court
  • to engage in capacity building of professions through consecutive stages of their development and progress along the steps in the ladder of the capability maturity model
  • to develop or adopt a capability maturity model with a view to embed it into the National Professional Practice Model

  • In this regard the Capability Maturity Model of Carnegie Mellon University affords a more formal approach and a standard which a professional group may be advised to refer to in order to ascertain the validity of its claim to professional status.

    to the issue of  organizational claim 

  • to develop or adopt a capability maturity model with a view to embed it into the National Professional Practice Model

  • to identify, define and set standard roles and expectations for the various professional organizations

  • to workout a National Professional Practice Mode

title

Rationale


Vision

To enhance the quality of services sector through professionalism

 

Mission

To provide a common platform for exploration, identification, and development of enabling structures, systems and tools to cater for the techno-economic needs and quality professional services in the country.

 

Objectives

  • Identification and incubation of existing and newly emerging trades and occupations with a view to helping them raise themselves to earning and enjoying true status as professions of the highest integrity and competence.
  • Building strategic relations with existing professional organizations to rally forces in order to launch a nationwide campaign for spearheading the envisaged change
  • Founding of inter-professioonal associations around commodity chains to help promote improved liaison with the public and the industrial sectors
  • Coordinating efforts of different stakeholders e.g. public policy makers (particularly in education, labour & manpower), employers, professional organizations, educational institution, and specially guidance & counseling service providers in forecasting and providing for future human resource needs of various sectors

 

Projects  

So far three projects have been designed under this program. APE welcomes stakeholders to join hands in launching and running these projects.

  • Initial & Continuing Professional Development Project
  • The Senior-Citizen Mentors' Guild
  • Professionalization of Existing and New Trades and Occupations

 

Initial & Continuing Professional Development Project

As an outcome of this project, APE has recently developed a tool namely,  " The Accomplished Professional... in the making " with a view to help the aspiring, as well as, the practicing professional assess themselves against generally accepted criteria for professionalism. Both the paper-print and online versions of this portfolio are about to be launched soon. An online application software to help the intended audience successfully manage their professional career is also in the process of development.

Unfortunately, there exists no formal mechanism to ensure proper orientation of professionals to-be guiding and preparing them to fare well in their journey to becoming an established professional in their respective fields. Our portfolio tool (call it a handbook or even a workbook) is prepared as an attempt, however much crude it may be considered, to address this dire need. It is hoped that with the passage of time, as the valuable feedback from our learned readers and reviewers accumulates, the later revisions of the work will become more 'tolerable'.

For students or trainees working toward a professional qualification, the tool serves as a road-map guiding them through their journey to becoming a full-fledged professional in their chosen discipline or area of expertise. For practicing professionals the guidelines given in the 'workbook' help identify the critical steps they may need to consider taking in order to make up for possible deficiencies on one hand and to attain their next level of professional excellence on the other.

 

The Senior-Citizen Mentors' Guild 

Senior citizens are one of the most valuable assets a nation can build itself on. This sector of a society is representative of its accumulated knowledge, experience and expertise. With all the respect and honour that we may afford and tender to our senior citizens in view of their contributions to furthering our society to its present state, a better way to acknowledge their worth and presumably let them feel more esteemed is to ask them to help us guide and counsel the aspiring youth in their quests for success in career and life. There are many ways the old can help the young ranging from simply sharing their experience to allowing to build their life portraits to serve as role models, and if they so choose, getting actively involved working directly with at least one young person with a view to guide and counsel him or her as and when s/he may need.

Cognizant of the value of interactions between our youth and senior citizens, APE decided to invest due amount and variety of resources. After long process of consultation and thorough reviews of similar projects undertaken elsewhere, a consensus has been reached on a solution that is considered to be most practicable economically as well as technically. An exercise to chalk out a detailed course of action is currently underway. It is hoped that the project will be up and running by the end of 2010. 

Professionalization of Existing and New Trades and Occupations

This will be achieved through founding associations of working practitioners within the identified fields and guiding / leading them through all the necessary steps on their way to emerging as fully fledged professional bodies possessing their own professional charters.

The following road-map has been worked out in order to realize the envisaged goal

Step 1

Conducting research with a view to identifying existing and emerging trades or occupations that need to be professionalized

Step 2

Conducting feasibility studies in order to determine our capacity to undertake the professionalization exercise in respect of each of the identified occupations

Step 3

Founding of practioners' association in the selected occupations

Step 4

Formation of a National Council as the Regulatory Body

Step 5

Establishment of an Institute for designing, and offering relevant qualifications

Step 6

Strengthening and Promotion

 

Currently, the following initiatives are being considered in this regard:

Professional Communities Online 

 Founding of Paraprofessional Associations

 

Definitions

What is an inter-professional association?

Inter-professional associations have been defined as private organizations that group together participants from all stages of the same agricultural commodity chain with the objectives of elaborating policies, guaranteeing equity among the members, facilitating the improvement of the performance of the chain and defending the interests of the members. A particular feature of inter-professional associations is that the membership is made up of associations that represent the individual chain professions. Many developing countries have few or no associations that cover an entire commodity chain and there would appear scope for the development of such organizations to promote improved liaison with governments.

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