ARB Acts to Maintain Standards

ARB Acts to Maintain Standards (04/12/2002)

The Architects Registration Board (ARB) recognises that most schools of architecture do an excellent job in equipping students with the skills required for contemporary architectural practice. A number of recent cases have, however, highlighted key areas of concern. The high standards expected by ARB have not been achieved, and ARB has had to decide whether to renew the prescribed qualification.

To forestall press speculation about the reasons for recent decisions, ARB would like to place in the public domain the issues which have underpinned those decisions:

• Failure to deliver criteria in the areas of Architectural Design, Environmental Design, Constructional and Architectural Technologies, and the Cultural Context of Architecture (for one Part 2 qualification recently considered, there were deficiencies in all three of these areas);

• Minimum pass standards being set below an acceptable threshold of achievement;

• Successive quinquennial reviews identifying recurring problems;

• Assessment regulations allowing students to gain a qualification even when, because of compensatory allowances, they have not passed all key modules relating to ARB’s criteria;

• Failure to meet conditions imposed by ARB within set deadlines; and

• Significant changes in resourcing, e.g. rapid staff turnover, worsening staff:student ratios, which threaten the maintenance of standards.

ARB takes a serious view of these issues, and in some instances has felt compelled to consider withdrawing prescription. However, if a way forward can be found – through dialogue and with appropriate urgency - it may be possible to preserve the prescription.

ARB’s Chairman, Owen Luder, commented:

‘The Board is mindful of its duty to give the public assurance that those using the title ‘architect’ are competent to practise. It can only do this by making sure that those coming onto the Register have received a high standard of education and training. If ARB has doubts about the quality of a qualification it has prescribed, it will act accordingly.’

For further information on this or other education matters, please contact Jon Levett on 020 7580 5861