Background

During a Plato AGM in 2001, it was decided to open a category in the, then surveying only, statutory body for GISc people. This was mainly due to surveyors who changed their careers to GIS and wanted to be registered with a professional statutory body.

The requirements for this first registration were VERY much natural science orientated with the result that all the BA GISc people were excluded. GISSA opened discussions with Plato on behalf of the GISc community and during the Plato AGM of 2003 it was decided to re- open the GISc category. The requirements were rewritten by the GISSA committee, and aligned with the GISc SAQA Qualifications; it was approved during the Plato AGM. The grandfather clause re-opened from the 1st of January 2005 till the 30th of June 2005.

The categories which were opened for GISc were as follows:

GISc Technician GISc Te (SA)
GISc Technologist GISc Tg (SA)
Professional GISc Practitioner Pr GISc (SA)

During an EAC meeting in March 2008 the academic model for the evaluation of GISc qualifications was finally approved. This model, which was based on the SAQA qualifications, allowed the screening committee to evaluate applicants' qualifications.

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Registrations as GISc Professional

Posted by Gavin Fleming at Dec 17, 2009 10:19 AM

I my be wrong but I think the should be further discourse on the subject of professional registrations. I am of the opinion that becausenot all GIS competent persons have a Bsc. degree in GIS others have a BA GIS degree or Environmental Science, Geography, Social Science etc. with GIS specialization and would like to register as GISc professionals, PLATO is not necessarily the appropriate body to accomodate all GISc professionals. As GIS people we may use a GPS from time to time we also understand the shortfalls in accuracies of these units but for that should we bear direct association to surveyors? GIS and Survey are not interchangeable fields one feels that GIS people are not a subcommunity of surveying but of natural sciences instead. I strongly think that GISSA must either maintain its own professional registrations or must also facilitate or promote registration for professionals under classifications of the South African Council for Natural Scientific Professions. We don't just derive datasets we interrogate them and give them meaning in various contexts to solve problems. I would be interested to hear what your thoughts are?