The triad of credentialing processes in Engineer Quality Regulation: Accreditation, certification, and licensure/registration

The engineering licensing law established 100 years ago in USA, which aims at protecting the public security and welfare, combining with the currently hot mutual recognition qualification of engineers for their cross-country mobility are built upon the base of Engineer Quality Regulation. After 100 yearspsila development, in the field of Engineer Quality Regulation, there is the triad of credentialing processes: Accreditation, Certification, and Licensure/Regulation. The article explains and compares those core special words; points out the concept confusion now in the world in this field; describes the principle of quality assurance reflected in this triad system. The paper focuses on USA model of this triad of credentialing processes, how and why it came to today, its future trend; simply compares USA model with the models of Canada and UK; analyzes the reason why the three countries have different models of Engineer Quality Regulation. Chinapsilas model is on the process of forming, there are some problems and confusions needed to study and learn from the international experience.