In the last couple of weeks I have visited two branches, the Yorkshire & Humberside branch in Leeds and the Southeast branch in Tunbridge Wells.
The Yorkshire branch was holding its AGM so I was accompanying president Jo Watkins. I was also accompanying Sue Beard, our director of membership and education, who was leading branch discussions about our new framework document on practice and specialisms.
We are currently asking for members’ views on this document at http://landscapeinstitute.org/members/index.php and the purpose of the branch discussions was to outline the need for the document and the approach it takes. There are a number of practical questions the LI needs to address, which become considerably more difficult to tackle without such a document. I’d like to give a brief example of one of them.
A point that has been raised with me at several branch events is about the need to review the Chartership exams. The scope and nature of work undertaken by landscape architects continues to evolve, against a background of emerging new technologies, forms of contract and procurement methods. To become chartered, a candidate needs to demonstrate knowledge in practice of the key things which will be required of them in the future careers. The question is – what are those things?
This is a question that almost everyone thinks they can answer, but of course everyone answers differently. It would be very helpful to be able to conduct the discussion about the content of the exams by referring to a document that
described the activities of the landscape architecture profession, its core professional practice and its various specialisms.
The second advantage of having a document setting this out is that, when we come to review other education processes, we make sure that they are all aligned with what the profession needs. Having a common reference document to underpin all activities means that as long as we keep that document up to date, we can always refer to it whatever we are doing in the future, and ensure everything is consistent.
I hope you will take half an hour to look at the consultation documents and let us know your thoughts. The deadline for comments is 4 July 2011.