The President of the UK's Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), Mr. Barry Brooks (CEng), visited Macao Polytechnic Institute (MPI) on 11 June 2014. During the visit he commended the endeavours of MPI in quality assurance and international certification and expressed his anticipation of strengthening mutual collaboration and exchange in the areas.

Mr. Brooks was warmly received by Professor Lei Heong Iok, President of MPI， Dr. Marcus Im, Director of School of Public Administration, Mr. Henry Chan, President of MPI Student Union. Professor Lei noted that MPI’s Computing Programme had been accredited by IET as early as 2009 and was also successful in its monitoring visit in 2013. The Computing Programme is Macao’s first higher education programme in Information Technology to be accredited by an internationally renowned professional body. With its quality judged to reach international standards, the programme is recognised by the signatories of the Washington Accord and Sydney Accord. Students of the programme from the 2009/2010 cohort onwards are thus eligible to obtain professional qualifications in various signatory countries/regions. Professor Lei added that MPI is also the first higher education institution in Macao to have undergone a successful institutional review conducted by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education, a UK quality assurance agency of international standing. The quality of MPI’s teaching and management is internationally recognised.

The IET academic accreditation process involves a comprehensive review of the programme’s teaching documentation (e.g. teaching plans, student work, examination papers, etc.) and teaching facilities (e.g. classrooms, laboratories, research centres, etc.) as well as a series of dialogues with its teachers, students and graduates. The experts at IET found MPI’s faculty quality, teaching plans, social services, hardware environment, and the situation of students’ progression to employment or further study satisfactory, thus accrediting the Computing Programme with the highest ranking. As the programme has successfully passed the IET’s academic accreditation process, students will have the academic qualifications required to be an IET chartered engineer upon successful graduation.

The IET is one of the world’s leading engineering technology professional academic institutions. Currently it has more than 160,000 members in some 130 countries and regions in the world. It is a prestigious international institution of engineers and one of the world’s largest certification bodies for qualifications of engineers. Authorised by the UK’s Engineering Council, it can grant qualified engineers globally recognised qualifications. The UK’s Engineering Council was one of the first organisations signing the Washington Accord, the world’s professional engineering certification system, in 1989. It has conducted accreditations for more than 1,300 engineering related courses/programmes in the UK and for more than 50 courses/programmes overseas. The Washington Accord is one of the world’s basic academic assessment index systems developed for assessment purposes to ensure the quality of engineering professionals. After more than two decades of development, the quality assurance system based on the Washington Accord has become an important academic and teaching evaluation/certification system internationally.

During his stay at MPI, Mr. Brooks also visited MPI's teaching and research facilities in Information Technology. The delegation accompanying Mr. Brooks to visit MPI included the persons in charge of IET Asia Pacific, IET Hong Kong, and the Macao Institution of Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.