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Value in IEng Registration

Afternoon all, just sitting behind a laptop screen pondering and found myself plotting course for my career progression and seemingly unlikely professional registration for CEng.

My current employer has encouraged that I achieve CEng registration (easier said than done) and any promotion to the next grade would be subject to attaining CEng. I'm wary of submitting my application for CEng due to not having an adequate level of education (I have a Bachelors degree only) and at my age there's little chance of me returning to university for further study. I'm employed as a senior engineer and acting principal engineer within a project I'm currently commissioned. I appreciate that working at a principal engineer level does not necessarily provide the evidence required to prove that my understanding and knowledge is at a MEng level.

Rewind a few years, I was reasonably proud of successful registration and to achieve IEng, however, to date I'm of the opinion that it has done little else other than measurement / benchmark of my competence and identify area's in which I need to strengthen. My employer (at the time of registration) did not professionally recognise IEng registration and from my own observations nor do other employers (that I've noticed). A cursory glance of job listings on LinkedIn, shall normally state a requirement for applicants to hold CEng registration or working towards CEng with no mention of IEng. There's an immense pressure to achieve Chartership and with failure to do so could be possibly observed as I'm either inadequate or not quite cutting the grade by a prospective or current employer.

Is there any value to the IEng registration other than a personal achievement and worth maintaining? I imagine the nervousness and apprehension about navigating the CEng route and the fear of failure that I'm not unique in this respect and other's may have a similar story? Not sure what I would wish to hear, but knowing of others that succeeded with a similar background and level of education would provide some encouragement.

Regards,

Allan.

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0 Roy Bowdler over 4 years ago

Like Jim I registered IEng in 1987 and have recently retired. Within a few years my career transitioned away from actually carrying out “engineering work”. However, the various management roles that I subsequently held had an engineering context, so retaining registration and membership of a professional engineering institution seemed appropriate. Many CEng would say the same.

The IET predecessor institutions that I was a member of, led their IEng members to believe that they were highly respected and valued. How true this was outside those institutions themselves is debatable, but Engineering Council adopted the principles that they were, “different but equally valuable to Chartered Engineers” and “overlapped in practice”. Personally, I’m of the view that there is a spectrum or continuum of professional engineers from the “more practical” to the “more theoretical”. Some are relatively static at either end, but most are moving somewhere around the middle. They require a solid theoretical underpinning knowledge of their discipline, with substantial relevant training and experience in practice.

Greatly disproportionate weight has been given within the current system to time spent in university relative to work based learning. So mastery of complex mathematical concepts, often never subsequently used and therefore wasted, are held to be “essential”, with practical capability “optional”. Petty and often irrelevant distinctions have been made for the purposes of academic accreditation between degrees of similar merit, with IEng (more practical) degrees stigmatised in many quarters.

Over the last dozen years the IET has adopted a “competence based” approach, based on UK-SPEC. As others have said, this means that for an experienced practitioner, what they have done in practice and the way they have deployed their underpinning knowledge is the measure of a Chartered Engineer. The attainment of a graduate or post-graduate student in examinations and assignments usually measured at the age of 21/22 is something else. I would describe this as potential, or even “intellectual horsepower”, which can be turned into performance. However, the evidence of a difference in performance between engineers beyond the threshold of higher education in many roles isn’t clear. There is perhaps a correlation is some roles such as R&D.

Theoretical examination is convenient for assessment and relative grading, but a relatively weak predictor of performance in many roles. We need therefore to revitalise, better balanced blends of learning such as apprenticeships, which were for many years stigmatised as “suitable only for the less able”. Ironically IEng was the only professional engineering recognition available to engineers with qualifications like HNCs and apprenticeship until recent years, unless you were one of an incredibly small number who were “well in enough” with a chartered institution to be allowed to write a report in lieu of an accredited degree.

I am aware that Engineering Council intends to help “clarify the distinction” between the two categories. I am unsure who this is intended to benefit or how? Industry doesn’t buy into these simplistic role stereotypes, because they are artificial. They can understand the idea that for certain more demanding, higher risk, higher profile or “prestige” work, deploying a chartered practitioner can be advantageous. They could if it were adopted, understand how every Chartered Engineer should pass through an “intermediate stage” (which is how IEng has been used by some).

Based on your post Allan, I can see no reason why you shouldn’t succeed in a CEng assessment, with some advice and coaching. Good luck!
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0 Roy Bowdler over 4 years ago

Like Jim I registered IEng in 1987 and have recently retired. Within a few years my career transitioned away from actually carrying out “engineering work”. However, the various management roles that I subsequently held had an engineering context, so retaining registration and membership of a professional engineering institution seemed appropriate. Many CEng would say the same.

The IET predecessor institutions that I was a member of, led their IEng members to believe that they were highly respected and valued. How true this was outside those institutions themselves is debatable, but Engineering Council adopted the principles that they were, “different but equally valuable to Chartered Engineers” and “overlapped in practice”. Personally, I’m of the view that there is a spectrum or continuum of professional engineers from the “more practical” to the “more theoretical”. Some are relatively static at either end, but most are moving somewhere around the middle. They require a solid theoretical underpinning knowledge of their discipline, with substantial relevant training and experience in practice.

Greatly disproportionate weight has been given within the current system to time spent in university relative to work based learning. So mastery of complex mathematical concepts, often never subsequently used and therefore wasted, are held to be “essential”, with practical capability “optional”. Petty and often irrelevant distinctions have been made for the purposes of academic accreditation between degrees of similar merit, with IEng (more practical) degrees stigmatised in many quarters.

Over the last dozen years the IET has adopted a “competence based” approach, based on UK-SPEC. As others have said, this means that for an experienced practitioner, what they have done in practice and the way they have deployed their underpinning knowledge is the measure of a Chartered Engineer. The attainment of a graduate or post-graduate student in examinations and assignments usually measured at the age of 21/22 is something else. I would describe this as potential, or even “intellectual horsepower”, which can be turned into performance. However, the evidence of a difference in performance between engineers beyond the threshold of higher education in many roles isn’t clear. There is perhaps a correlation is some roles such as R&D.

Theoretical examination is convenient for assessment and relative grading, but a relatively weak predictor of performance in many roles. We need therefore to revitalise, better balanced blends of learning such as apprenticeships, which were for many years stigmatised as “suitable only for the less able”. Ironically IEng was the only professional engineering recognition available to engineers with qualifications like HNCs and apprenticeship until recent years, unless you were one of an incredibly small number who were “well in enough” with a chartered institution to be allowed to write a report in lieu of an accredited degree.

I am aware that Engineering Council intends to help “clarify the distinction” between the two categories. I am unsure who this is intended to benefit or how? Industry doesn’t buy into these simplistic role stereotypes, because they are artificial. They can understand the idea that for certain more demanding, higher risk, higher profile or “prestige” work, deploying a chartered practitioner can be advantageous. They could if it were adopted, understand how every Chartered Engineer should pass through an “intermediate stage” (which is how IEng has been used by some).

Based on your post Allan, I can see no reason why you shouldn’t succeed in a CEng assessment, with some advice and coaching. Good luck!
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