In a changing construction industry where competency is challenged every time with the emergence of new and increasing needs for accurate cost planning and cost control mechanisms, bill preparation and estimating are key competencies which any Quantity Surveyor must have in preparing realistic cost plans, which will eventually help in controlling project cost.
The ability to describe is seen as a skill that is vital for the professional development of any Quantity surveyor. This skill is an inevitable tool when it comes to preparing bills of quantities and estimating. It is becoming a worrisome trend seeing "watery" BOQ's being prepared by Quantity Surveyors, with the excuse of insufficient time given by Clients or Architects to prepare the bills.
The problem is not one that is has a singular cause, and definitely cannot, and must not be attributed to insufficient timing for bill preparations. One of the major cause of the dwindling act of "description" is laziness. The "practical" or "effective" academic syllabus for quantity surveying at the polytechnic and university levels can be said to be in a "lazy" state, as it does little or nothing to ensure that students are given proper orientation on the need for a good descriptive ability in order to give accurate representation of any work item.
Apart from the "curricular laziness" lecturers on the other hand, in some cases do not have the time to pass this skill to their students due to insufficient credit hours, or the loaded course content for measurement and estimating courses. Students also play a part in this problem by not developing themselves in this "art". Most of the excuses for the student's laziness is that there are standard descriptions in offices where they undergo industrial training, or they rely on the technical argument that SMM 6 or BESMM 2 allows for coding of items with heading descriptions in each classification.
It is hoped that the NIQS (Nigeria Institute of Quantity Surveying) and the QSRBN (Quantity Surveying Registration Board of Nigeria) will make concerted efforts with other relevant institutions to revive this important but dying skill.
