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Value in IEng Registration

Allan Rowan
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
    Some very valid points from Colin.  

    With apologies in advance to Andy if I am mischaracterising his argument. I would see some key characteristics of a Chartered Engineer as being able to investigate, evaluate, deliberate and report. These attributes are crucial to organisations (or individuals) that offer professional services, such as consulting engineers. This is reflected in the popularity of CEng in this area of activity.

    The attributes described are to some extent “academic”, although they can be acquired through experiential learning.  I have observed over the years, many Engineers who grew into the profession via apprenticeships and workplace learning, having top class expertise in their engineering specialism, but being less well-developed in researching, weighing evidence and setting out an eloquent argument for a course of action.  I have also observed how some these Engineers have performed extremely well in mid-career part-time Masters Degree programmes, as these attributes have developed.

    A mythology has persisted from the time of slide rules and log tables, that mathematical ability was the key attribute. This is nonsense in the modern world, but it is an easy way to divide teenagers and give an impression of “academic rigour”.

    An understanding of mathematical techniques and how to deploy them is useful in many areas of engineering. However, for many Chartered Engineers, this mastery of complex mathematics was part of their “rite of passage” and academic text books often assume fluency in this language. In practice many Engineering students are just glad to pass the exams and move on, never needing most of it again.

    In the lost (or never achieved) world of “different but equally valuable” the Incorporated Engineer was a respected expert with the emphasis on “more practical” aspects of engineering, “getting the job done” rather than recommending or conceptualising. A Technician was a responsible trained professional with detailed understanding of how specific equipment functioned.  There was therefore no reason why a suitably trained and accountable Technician or IEng, should not “sign off” something as being in good order. 

    Chartered Engineers would argue that the right to sign of something novel or complex should be theirs, but many have overstepped into diminishing others and trying to use their dominance to set demarcations to their advantage.  This has contributed to another mythology that a CEng should “sign off”. Most engineering is in practice a team effort.   

                
    Returning to the potential value of IEng. “Different but equally valuable” was widely disliked and in informally disparaged. It was quickly “binned” once The IIE left the scene.  A decade later this cannot be resurrected, even if Engineering Council changed policy again which they haven’t. “Different but equally valuable” was parodied by Engineering Council as an imposter claiming “different but the same”, put to death and its memory purged wherever possible. Simple politics, successive governments do it all the time!

    In its place is supposed to be a “progressive philosophy”, but beyond the simplistic hierarchy of academic qualifications, which most people undertake before embarking on a career, how is “progression” enabled. There are people with "IEng type degrees" who will for their whole career from the age of 18 be ahead of others with a CEng Degree!

    UK-SPEC was created in the lost “different but equally valuable” era. We now have a totally confused situation where different policies are being applied; “competence first” or “academic qualifications first” depending on who you ask.   

    IEng has in effect been lost, except in a few pockets and confusion reigns about the role of the two overlapping types of engineer. All anyone understands is that IEng is an inferior version of CEng. All the tweaks in the world to UK-SPEC won’t assuage this confusion.

    We have to go back to first principles and set out clear and valuable career paths for every young person entering engineering. Trying to mop up spilt milk often 40+ years old, based on social class ideas that were looking old fashioned 50+ years ago, is a recipe for failure.

    How about an Apprenticeship for everybody, with progression in career?

    The current A level fiasco only further highlights the flaws in basing professional classification on teenage academic selection.                   

     

Reply
  • 0
    Some very valid points from Colin.  

    With apologies in advance to Andy if I am mischaracterising his argument. I would see some key characteristics of a Chartered Engineer as being able to investigate, evaluate, deliberate and report. These attributes are crucial to organisations (or individuals) that offer professional services, such as consulting engineers. This is reflected in the popularity of CEng in this area of activity.

    The attributes described are to some extent “academic”, although they can be acquired through experiential learning.  I have observed over the years, many Engineers who grew into the profession via apprenticeships and workplace learning, having top class expertise in their engineering specialism, but being less well-developed in researching, weighing evidence and setting out an eloquent argument for a course of action.  I have also observed how some these Engineers have performed extremely well in mid-career part-time Masters Degree programmes, as these attributes have developed.

    A mythology has persisted from the time of slide rules and log tables, that mathematical ability was the key attribute. This is nonsense in the modern world, but it is an easy way to divide teenagers and give an impression of “academic rigour”.

    An understanding of mathematical techniques and how to deploy them is useful in many areas of engineering. However, for many Chartered Engineers, this mastery of complex mathematics was part of their “rite of passage” and academic text books often assume fluency in this language. In practice many Engineering students are just glad to pass the exams and move on, never needing most of it again.

    In the lost (or never achieved) world of “different but equally valuable” the Incorporated Engineer was a respected expert with the emphasis on “more practical” aspects of engineering, “getting the job done” rather than recommending or conceptualising. A Technician was a responsible trained professional with detailed understanding of how specific equipment functioned.  There was therefore no reason why a suitably trained and accountable Technician or IEng, should not “sign off” something as being in good order. 

    Chartered Engineers would argue that the right to sign of something novel or complex should be theirs, but many have overstepped into diminishing others and trying to use their dominance to set demarcations to their advantage.  This has contributed to another mythology that a CEng should “sign off”. Most engineering is in practice a team effort.   

                
    Returning to the potential value of IEng. “Different but equally valuable” was widely disliked and in informally disparaged. It was quickly “binned” once The IIE left the scene.  A decade later this cannot be resurrected, even if Engineering Council changed policy again which they haven’t. “Different but equally valuable” was parodied by Engineering Council as an imposter claiming “different but the same”, put to death and its memory purged wherever possible. Simple politics, successive governments do it all the time!

    In its place is supposed to be a “progressive philosophy”, but beyond the simplistic hierarchy of academic qualifications, which most people undertake before embarking on a career, how is “progression” enabled. There are people with "IEng type degrees" who will for their whole career from the age of 18 be ahead of others with a CEng Degree!

    UK-SPEC was created in the lost “different but equally valuable” era. We now have a totally confused situation where different policies are being applied; “competence first” or “academic qualifications first” depending on who you ask.   

    IEng has in effect been lost, except in a few pockets and confusion reigns about the role of the two overlapping types of engineer. All anyone understands is that IEng is an inferior version of CEng. All the tweaks in the world to UK-SPEC won’t assuage this confusion.

    We have to go back to first principles and set out clear and valuable career paths for every young person entering engineering. Trying to mop up spilt milk often 40+ years old, based on social class ideas that were looking old fashioned 50+ years ago, is a recipe for failure.

    How about an Apprenticeship for everybody, with progression in career?

    The current A level fiasco only further highlights the flaws in basing professional classification on teenage academic selection.                   

     

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