Nowadays, competency of Quantity Surveyor in a developing country is an importance issue. According to Jayalath, 2013, Quantity Surveyor defined as the cost and ?nancial accountant of the construction industry. In the past, QSs used only to dealing with only ?nancial aspects of projects.
Quantity surveyors contribute to overall construction project performance by acquiring, developing and deploying appropriate competencies. They were considered as main construction shareholder stated by Eyiah-Botwe, et al., (2015) and Woa & Flood, (2016).According Oke, et al., (2016) stated that, quantity surveying firms as aligned organizations that provide services that cover parts like project procurement, contractual and cost management in infrastructural development. According to Yogeshwaran, et al.
, (2014), QSs were earlier appointed by consultants, contractors and clients. Besides that, QSs are involved in all phases of a facility’s life cycle such as feasibility, design, construction, extension, refurbishment, maintenance and demolition in the construction projects. In order for quantity surveying services to determine whether their skill and training processes are competent, agreed measures are required to enable them to compare their ability with the best practice. To this extent, there is a need to develop a holistic measure to assess quantity surveyors’ competence, evaluate their performance and induce continuous professional development.
1.1 Quantity Surveying Profession According to Dada & Jagboro, (2012), during process of preconstruction, construction and post-construction stages, QS add worth to the contractual and ?nancial management of construction projects. According to Ashworth, et al., (2013), as a QS has to ensure that sources of the construction industry are used proficiency to the best advantage of the society by providing, inter alia, ?nancial management of projects and cost consultancy services to clients and designers during the entire construction process of the projects. Thus, to ensure the progress of the construction industry to be competency, QS as a main key professional in the construction industry. Back then, QSs had only to work for the consultant, contractor or the client of a project (Sha?ei & Said, 2008). But today, they work as project managers, arbitrators and involved in the insurance, ?nancial, manufacturing, taxation and valuation industries in construction field (Hemajith, et al., 2007).
1.2 Skills and Competencies of Quantity SurveyorsHow best to educate the professional, and ensure a base of competence in the recruit and a firm foundation for lifelong professional and personal development? That question has exercised the surveying, and every other, profession for as long as specialisms have needed labels. According to Lam, (2009), to ensure that performance quality is accurately assess, professional services are must intangible, heterogeneous and multi-dimensional and crucial. Best alternative to updating a profession’s knowledge base is to ensure that the constituent skills, abilities and value of the profession are commanded to periodic evaluation. Quality in the growth of profession, is the setting of a standard of competence and the assessment. This is an area particularly under critical observation in the 21st century. According to Kennie, et al., (2001) and Goodhead, (2012) the increasing globalisation of the profession and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), there are argument of accrediting the academic element of training, given the very different educational cultures across the world.
QS Practitioners must continuously face challenges and new opportunities and required distinct to competencies to perform more in their ?eld. Although been listed by the professional bodies amendable the profession, the levels of competencies achieved by graduate QSs have not been clarified. At present, they are verified through the core competencies outlined by the governing professional bodies (Perera, et al.
, 2011).1.3 Construction Industry According to Khan, (2008), Economic growth and development of a country, construction industry is considered as a major contributor. According to Queensland, (2012), stated that Construction industry works on the constructs, deconstructs, reconstructs, renovates, alters, demolishes, relocates, maintains or repairs any type of building, infrastructure facilities and engineering services. Due to its important role, this construction industry has become different from other sectors of the economy. Globalisation had given a development in the global transport infrastructure and IT, enabling construction services to be carried out in different geographical locations worldwide. Modern industry has realised the need to change its practices and started using compatibility software such as Building Information Modelling (BIM), which offers collaborative data applications to support the entire life cycles of projects.
Increased demand for energy ef?cient automated construction and IT applications require the services of skilled and ?exible professionals to bear the performance and competitiveness of the industry. If there are any important competencies lacking among these professionals, the result can be high costs, time lags, inef?ciency and lost businesses. 1.4 Sustainability Development for future Quantity SurveyorThe construction industry has a serious influence on the economy of any country. As Medineckiene, et al., (2010) pointed out construction activities contribute considerably to the progression of national economy and society as real-estate development is necessary for people do their normal routine life and other needs.
However, the construction activities generate negative externalities as they are main sources of global environmental pollution and ecological damage. Cotgrave ; Kokkarinen, (2010) also outline, if environmentally friendly practices were applied to the construction activities, there would be high chances for the environmental degradation to be slowed down significantly. However, implementation sustainable development is not easy without proper skills and knowledge. To implement the sustainable development, it is importance to have sustainability cultured workforce working in the industry. According to Cotgrave ; Kokkarinen, (2010), to prepare the workforce with enough sustainability knowledge, providing a sustainability education to undergraduate construction students is the main in making changes towards greener practices as those graduates will be the construction professionals of the future.
According to Murray ; Cotgrave, (2007) stated that, the need for professionally qualified individuals to distribute sustainable development has increased expressively due to a foreseeing vision of an equitable, safe and healthy future for the planet. Therefore, equipping the workforce with relevant sustainability knowledge, skills and values has become the focus of most countries throughout the world. According to Brown, et al., (2015) and Weatherton, et al., (2015) numerous professional organizations, such as American Society of Civil Engineers, National Academy of Engineering, also distinguish the need for incorporation of sustainability into engineering education. Le Grange, (2011) pointed out that incorporating the sustainability concept into construction-related courses and syllabi is one of effective ways to improvise the sustainability literacy of QS students who will turn out to be professional quantity surveyors in the upcoming future. 1.
5 Identifying the Competencies Expected of Graduate Quantity SurveyorGraduate QSs gain competencies from their university education and from their workplace training. However, in the absence of competency-level benchmarking, a mismatch exists between the expectations that the construction industry has about the competencies of quantity surveying graduates and the actual competencies of these graduates. Present-day quantity surveying graduates dissatisfied the industry with their professional competencies stated by Perera, et al., (2011). The competencies expected from graduate QSs are being dragged in different directions by the industry and the educational institutions. The industry expects graduate QSs to be involved in all quantity surveying occupations and at the same time contributing to the growth of the economic and construction industry. Once QSs graduates and get employed, high possibility their potential to develop their professional skills.
On the other hand, the educational institutions are focusing on producing adaptable graduates with foundation knowledge in all aspects of the profession. According to Perera, et al., (2010) ,educational institutions believe that their graduates only need possess the competencies outlined by the regulatory bodies and thus are less interested in giving due consideration to the opposite needs of industry and this means that certain capabilities expected by the industry are absent graduates produced.In some other case, according to Wickramasinghe ; Perera, (2010), Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) need to identify different working patterns that graduates possess employability skills that employers prefer them to. Ropes, (2015) outline that, to provide graduates with competencies which help them to function effectively in scope of changing work environments, HEIs should develop curricula in collaboration with construction industry. This backdrop required many professional bodies nationally and internationally to develop both the policy and standards for regulating various undergraduate programmes in HEIs.
According to Mekenzie, (2010), HEIs have an important role to play in professional development Higher education providers have the responsiveness that design, and delivery of study programmes must fulfil with industry practice and professional body requirements. The effect of industry on curriculum development is greatly increase.1.6 ConclusionIn final analysis, as the increasing of complexity of buildings and the use of space to build the buildings causes the environment degradation and this will lead to the demanding skilful professional bodies such as QS. On the other hand, globalisation had given improvement to the transportation and IT which help construction to access any place in worldwide.
In order to produce professionals QS, the education and industry play an important role in collaboration to produce professional QS. As the time goes by, the changing of expectations from educations and industry always do opposite. Industry expects graduates to improve their performance by going beyond the con?nes of the curriculum of their degree programme and making themselves available for future improvements. The quantity surveying educational institutions, on the other hand, focus on producing graduates who will be able to cater only to present-day needs.
New opportunities and developments in the industry reinforce the need to upgrade the competencies of graduate QSs to prepare them to face the threats and challenges of the industry in the future nor now.
