2 There is a corresponding lack of educational and institutional capacity to grow the profession fast enough in a number of Commonwealth countries While lack of capacity is cause for concern in a number of Commonwealth countries, the rate at which the profession is growing in these same countries is insufficient to achieve the same ratios to be found in OECD countries within a realistic timeframe. While the number of registered architects in Ghana, for example, is growing at a faster rate than any of the other respondents, at 10.9% per annum, it is starting from a low base of 484 members and with a ratio of 0.02 architects per 1,000 head of population; insufficient for a country of 28 million which is urbanising at 3.1% per annum. At the other end of the spectrum, Uganda, with only 178 registered architects, has been shown to have the most critical shortage yet the profession is only growing at 3.2% per annum while the country is urbanising at 5.3% per annum.
3.39
Cyprus
2.28
Malta Hong Kong
0.82
Malaysia
0.76 0.74
Australia
0.70
United Kingdom
0.63
New Zealand Botswana
0.44 0.33
Canada Bangladesh
0.18
Pakistan
0.17
South Africa
0.16
Uganda
0.09
Sri Lanka
0.09
Ghana
0.07
Antigua and Barbuda
0.00
Figure 7 Number of architecture schools/1m population
Not all respondents were able to provide sufficient historic data from which to calculate the growth of the profession. However, if one considers (as a crude measure) the number of architectural schools per 1m head of population then figures from Australia (0.74), Canada (0.33), New Zealand (0.63) and the United Kingdom (0.7) suggest that for mature economies an average of circa 0.6 schools per 1m head of population as a guide. This figure compares with survey responses from Ghana (0.07), Sri Lanka (0.09), Uganda (0.09), South Africa (0.16), Pakistan (0.17) and Bangladesh (0.18), highlighting the need for measures to increase capacity over the short, medium and longer term.
20
Planning for Rapid Urbanisation