[OSGeo Africa] Professional GISc registration

[Peter Newmarch]

Gavin,

With reference to the statement "Ultimately it will become illegal to do 
paid GIS work without being registered.."

This is not entirely true, while registration should always be 
encouraged and supported, the reality is that only certain things will 
get reserved. The reason for this is that Council does not act to 
provide jobs for people - its purpose is to "protect the public" and 
those words are critical, since one will have to show some health, 
safety, public interest or imminent danger to the public reason before 
reserving work. Any broad categorisation of work reservation will fail. 
It will have to be a specific defined activity such as for example;

1) submitting metadata in terms of SDI. - reasoning could be that 
somebody must be accountable if that data is wrong. The public could 
have spent vast sums in acquiring such data and its in the public 
interest to ensure people are legally liable to the public. This would 
not necessarily preclude other professionals from doing this as they too 
are also accountable and liable. To reserve something exclusively for 
GIS practitioners only and exclude other professionally registered 
people (plato (PLS or other) or other statutory council registered 
person) one would have to narrow down the exact expertise that only a 
GIS professional would have and nobody else.

It becomes clear that a lot of thought has to go into work reservation 
and even then one may be sharing it in part with other professions.

Food for thought.

Regards

Peter

Peter Newmarch
Professional Land Surveyor
4Y GeoInformatics Pty Ltd
Tel       : +27 31 5642856
Fax       : +27 31 5643074
Mobile    : +27 82 5705859
eMail     : newmarch at land-surveyors.com

On 2014/01/16 10:51 AM, Gavin Fleming wrote:
> Hi all
>
> I'm at the GISSA national council meeting and professional 
> registration is under discussion.
>
> The message: take professional registration seriously and get 
> registered, no matter what area of GIS you practice in. Ultimately it 
> will become illegal to do paid GIS work without being registered...
>
> For the Government FOSS policy to happen then, it means that all we 
> FOSS GIS advocates must ensure we're registered so we're not excluded 
> from government work. Professional registration is already required 
> for government tenders and posts.
>
> For those of you with fifteen years experience up to Dec 2012, the 
> Grandfather clause for Professional GISc Practitioner is opening up 
> again shortly - take this opportunity. Don't ask me for details, keep 
> watching GISSA, PLATO, PositionIT, etc.
>
> -- 
> regards
>
> Gavin
>
> Gavin Fleming
> http://afrispatial.co.za
> t: 0218630660
> c: 0845965680
> f: 0866164820
>
> _______________________________________________
> Africa mailing list
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