Interesting stuff.

I have to say recreating an I Eng/ Eng Tech organisation would probably never get traction.

Being from the aviation world and buildings (electrical) it is interesting to note that a UK Licenced Aircraft Engineer - with type ratings for specific aircraft- is an I Eng.

What that individual signs for - day in / day out - is something called a CRS (Certificate of Release to Service)

The next time (One day!!) you zoom down the runway off to Alicante, a good old I Eng signed for that ship - good to go.

The people mentioned, that sit within the C Eng club, and do look down from on high with disdain, should think on that perhaps?

I work with several C Eng folk, and most probably have never come near to that level of actual responsibility. 

Even as a mere Technician I routinely signed for my bit of an aircraft, and latterly for pre-departure checks completed. 


Happy Flying!!


Colin

Hi Guys


Once again Roy nails it right right on the head - "IEng has in effect been lost" - okay if that's how its going be provision must be put in place for those IEngs who do not want to be lost but recognised for what, in the main, was and has been an enormous contribution to all sectors of engineering.

Regards Jim W

It’s obvious the clarifications on the difference between IEng and CEng, will emphasis the IEng competencies are a weaker subset of those for chartered engineer. You don’t need to wait for publication of the new UKSpec.       The ones involved in drafting the new standards would exclusively been chartered engineers so what can you expect. It’s a complete shambles.

Peter

I trust, that if that is the case, the IET, at the highest level, will object. The IEng must not be diminished further! But I know I’m just flying my kite!

Regards Jim W

Whether we like it or not the Board of Engineering Council, with “IET representation at the highest level” decided in 2008 to treat the three categories of registration as “progressive”.  This could be described as “gold silver and bronze”.  The IET executive involved defended that decision on the basis that it “reflects the academic qualifications involved”.  

We need to understand that at the time, new IEng registrations had collapsed to a pitifully low level.  We should also understand that The International Engineering Alliance (Including The Washington, Sydney and Dublin Accords) uses a three tier system of “Engineer”, “Technologist” and “Technician”. This is largely about academic qualifications, but it is the system in most countries.

My understanding (without further detailed research) is that European Directives recognised IEng as a “fully qualified professional”, but in practice hardly anyone would be interested in the small print of such directives and we are about to leave the EU anyway.

My understanding is also that UK-SPEC was developed to describe the “threshold” capabilities of three different types of competent Engineering practitioner. For someone following an “ideal” pathway of learning and training, an Eng Tech can pass that threshold by the age of around 20-21, an IEng 23-25, and a CEng 25-26.

 
The “ideal” pathway for each trainee would be different, suggesting a different blend of practical capability (or “know how”) versus more “intellectual” attributes needed to investigate, evaluate, deliberate and report. I should reiterate that mathematical fluency is only one “intellectual attribute”, that has long been greatly overemphasised.  I think that this emphasis is because it is a very convenient and superficially rigorous way of dividing people.


However, as the current UK controversy over A level results and competition for the “best” university places illustrates, the “cultural obsession”, especially amongst the middle classes, of academic competition for advantage, is somewhat dysfunctional.  The correlation between a person’s school examination grades and subsequent performance in career isn’t reliable. This certainly shows in engineering where there are many examples of progression in career, that bear little relation to the "silo" pathways supposedly set by school examination grades.  

Engineering Council certainly failed experienced IEng by downgrading them a decade ago. A “user friendly”, scheme could have been put in place to facilitate transfers to CEng, or to retain a “retired title”.   Many simply left the register, some (like me) fought a rearguard action. A significant number take little active interest and just pay the extra few pounds on their IET membership. A high proportion of registered engineers (mostly CEng) are retired and keep it mainly for sentiment anyway.

Those who have registered as IEng, in the last decade should have been properly informed that the category was “CEng lite” and if so, they may be content with that.  If they were misinformed or misled about “progression” as some have been, then they have legitimate grounds for complaint.   

I have over the years come reluctantly to the conclusion that, the harms of IEng “brand” are probably greater than the benefits. This isn’t because the standard itself is unsuitable for a “mainstream engineer” or that there are not some benefits to some IEng registrants. There must also be a calculation by those PEIs with an IEng interest and by Engineering Council, that the risk/price of change is too high.  Sadly, some with influence in the profession actually find it useful as an convenient inferior pejorative.

My proposal to Engineering Council , which I have posted in these forums was.

• Engineering Technician, Engineer (“Professional”/”Registered” or similar) and Chartered Engineer.  

• All registered Engineers should demonstrate “Bachelors level” capability, including through Work Based Learning. All Chartered Engineers should demonstrate “masters level” capability (WBL also included) and having worked as a “registered/professional” engineer for a significant period under monitoring.  

• PEIs should move away from “CPD” as a bureaucratic bean counting exercise, towards encouraging voluntary periodic review, intended to support and nurture registrants. Employers and others should be educated to ask “when did you last have a review”.   

• Every person entering engineering as an apprentice or full-time student should be treated as being on an “equally valuable” professional journey. If Engineering Council cannot achieve this (which it hasn’t to date) then it should be deemed to have failed in its mission and reformed.

• The equal engagement of employers and of further education is essential. Governance by an "engineering establishment" of the "great and the good" from Academia, The Armed Forces, Civil Service and a few senior blue chip executives has led us to where we are.  I accept that an organisation like the Royal Academy of Engineering has modernised and done some good work, even perhaps admitting one or two people who are not Chartered Engineers in recent years! However, there still seems an overriding smell of status seeking and little empathy for the typical working engineer or enterprise.   

Alasdair's last message is refreshing to read. If a registered engineer is in a job role that is not related to the role they were in when they first obtained registration, then their registration status isn't relevant. But this also applies to retired members; they can retain registration for sentimental reasons, but they cannot be said to be up to date with current practice.


Roy, as you know this topic is of such interest, and long running that it deserves to be up there alongside East Ender's, and Coronation Street. ????


If you remember way back to the good old days in the years 2007-2008 - and Peter Miller can vouch for this - the Engineering council setup the IEng working party -  sorry I can't remember the names involved in the EC - they sent out letters to all IEng registrants on the EC register; asking them to vote online for their preferred title amongst an array of titles. The result published in June 2008 by all relevant PEIs to their members showed a majority voted for Chartered Certified Engineer CCE. Then suddenly they pulled the plug on the the results, declared the results as just an excersise; but what really happened was they [EC and PEIs] panicked.


Today the world of Science, Engineering and Technology has moved in leaps and bounds. We're nolonger using slide rulers; log books, and pocket calculators; but super computers and artificial intelligence capabilities. An IEng specialist working in a high performance arena and managing a number of technologies can be considered equal to a CEng working in a smaller unit on limited technology devices. So it is about time the EC put away it's 1950s view of the world and bring IEng into the 21st century transferring all IEngs over to CCE status. The CEng will still be regarded as holding the senior status; IEng is no longer fit for purpose.


Given your senior position (IEng FIET) and access to senior figures in the IET, I would say that you are best placed to dig out the published events of 2007-2008 and put it to the IET and EC that they need to carry out the results of the June 2008 votes and setup a new register of CCE. I mention CCE instead of CCEng which some IEng members preferred, because it is important to emphasise that CEng is the senior title and CCE the junior title. The 'certified' label does not limit it to the CCE title; it also applies to CEng by default; and that is something the EC can promote for both titles. CEng are the innovators, and CCE are certified to manage the the technology, but can also provide some level of design work where required; exactly the same relationship as is between CEng and IEng today.

Mehmood,

I probably first got involved with this to ensure that “troublemakers” like you didn’t have a “free run”. 

?

I worked for the IET from 2009 until the start of this year, but I didn’t act as an “IET spokesperson”, only as an informed member trying to explore and explain. I was asked and agreed to act informally as an IEng “champion”, something I described as a “hospital pass”.  I interacted cordially with Engineering Council staff, but felt “let down” by the subsequent treatment of IEng and began to took a more critical view.

I didn’t particularly think of myself as “an IEng”, just a mid-career manager who trained via an Apprenticeship, gained IEng at 27 and was offered Fellowship at 35. As a Chartered Fellow in HR (via MSc). I had been responsible for all my organisation's technical training from C&G craft work to Degree level Apprentices.  I was aware of registration issues and ran an institution (not the IET) accredited degree training scheme for IEng.

I have little memory of the “vote” you describe, but probably voted. I recall some years earlier writing to Peter Wason (IIE CEO) stating that I was open-minded about “Chartered Engineering Technologist”, after my opinion was sought.  This seemed to disappear, although Andrew Ramsay (former EC CEO) mentions it in his “History of IEng” which was on the EC website when last I looked. I don’t know Andrew personally, although he is FIET.     

    
I agree that the debate is a long running soap opera (a genre I don’t watch) and am glad that you have kept some lightness of spirit over such a long time.? Some are quite bitter, sometimes with just cause.

I think its important that people coming to this debate understand the background. As I see it the Incorporated Engineer title of itself isn’t the main problem, although much negative baggage has sadly become attached to it.

A change would simply provide an opportunity to rethink the current system, which isn’t even engaging younger potential CEng particularly well. It seems that we limp from five-year review to five-year review applying a new patch each time, to a system that was designed to recognise three early career thresholds, not invidiously divide veteran engineers into "the best and the rest”.                   

Hi,


Just realised something important about 4th edition I forgot to mention - one of the aims is to tone down the "innovation" part of CEng (in the examples, not in the standard itself) to make it clearer that "technical accountability for complex systems with significant levels of risk" is a valid criteria for CEng. This is really important in this debate - at present the focus on "innovation" appears to have led to a number of applicants for CEng being turned down and advised to apply for IEng. So actually yes, 4th edition could see a decline in IEng numbers - due to a corresponding increase in CEng numbers. 


To clarify what I meant by "sign off", since this does seem to have caused confusion, I am not referring to "sign off against a standard". What I am referring to is being the final signatory when there is no standard to follow (or the standard says "it shall be sufficiently safe"!), where it's down to your professional judgement.


Totally agree with Roy re maths. At the extreme end of this, quite a few of the engineers I'm currently helping through CEng applications are safety engineers, they are often taking huge levels of personal responsibility based on their engineering experience and judgement, but they're often not doing any calculations or mathematical analysis - and in fact they're not doing the design or implementation. Engineering's a very broad church. (I seem to remember that when I got my IEng and CEng in the mid '90s there were a lot of old school engineers who said you shouldn't be CEng MIEE - or maybe even just MIEE - if you didn't understand Maxwell's equations. I didn't then, and still don't. I've managed to successfully do a lot of highly innovative and safety critical analogue design without that knowledge!) Once again, this is why I would like to see a much wider range of assessors and interviewers to be confident that candidates are getting a peer review - remembering what the definition of "peer" is.


Incidentally, I remember when I got my IEng (MIEEIE) in 1995ish the interview panel asked if I was planning to move to CEng, I probably said I was thinking about it, what I definitely remember was them saying that they were all using IEng as a way to get to CEng, which I found rather depressing.I couldn't see the point of it "just" being a stepping stone then, and certainly can't now.


Oh, and Mehmood - I think it's generally safest to assume that no-one who posts on these forums has any influence over the IET at all ? Not entirely a joke, Roy for example was always clear that he posted as a member and volunteer not a staff member, equally any committee / council etc member would have to be very careful about mixing this "pub" talk with official IET business - and quite right too, we're a self selecting group who may well only represent a tiny minority of members who like grumbling on forums. I'm no great fan of rule by social media...


Cheers,


Andy