Why Get Your Engineering Programme Accredited?

In many countries engineering degree programmes can be submitted for accreditation by a professional body and/or graduate engineers can be certified or registered. Where this is available most academic institutions feel that they must offer accredited engineering programmes. I suggest that these processes are at best ineffective (they do not achieve their aims) and at worst they are destructive of creativity, innovation and confidence in the academic community. I argue that such processes (including any internal certification within CDIO) should be abandoned completely. I propose alternative ways of maintaining the quality of engineering design and manufacture, which place the responsibility where it properly lies – with the manufacturer or contractor. This is a polemic piece, not a referenced review of accreditation.