Registration and Practicing License
What this domain tests
The distinction between being entered on a COREN register and holding a current practising licence, the eligibility conditions for each cadre, and the legal effect of protected titles and seals.
Registers and cadres
COREN keeps separate registers for the engineer, engineering technologist and engineering technician cadres, maintained by the Registrar. Entry generally requires: an accredited qualification for that cadre; national service discharge or exemption where applicable; the prescribed period of supervised post-qualification experience; a satisfactory professional interview; referees, including a registered engineer able to attest to the applicant's work; and good character. Registration is personal, non-transferable and revocable.
The licence is separate
The register entry records that you are an engineer; the practising licence is the annual authority to practise, sign and seal engineering documents. Renewal depends on evidence of continuing professional development and payment of the prescribed fees. A person whose licence has lapsed may still appear on the register yet must not practise, sign or seal.
Protected titles and acts
Only a person registered in the appropriate cadre may use that title or its abbreviation, and only a licensed engineer may sign and seal drawings, reports and specifications. Claiming registration falsely, or using another person's seal, is an offence under the enabling Act.
Worked example
An engineer registered some years ago allows the licence to lapse for two years but continues signing drawings for a client. The correct analysis is not 'registration still stands, so nothing is wrong'. Registration and licence are independent: the signing is unauthorised practice, the drawings carry no valid certification, and the engineer faces both prosecution and disciplinary action for certifying work without authority.
Traps that cost marks
Treating registration as a licence; assuming membership of a learned society confers practice rights; ignoring the referee and interview stages; forgetting that registration can be suspended or removed.