I gained an HND in Electrical Engineering at Teesside University in 2018 with Distinction. Sadly, I have been unable to gain a position with this qualification due to experience issues and I am now working in a job outside the engineering industry.
I have recently been looking into the training for Electricians, but there are a number of pitfalls to this training. You actually need a package of separate qualifications and experience to achieve skilled electrician status. Typically
NVQ 2 Electrical Installation
NVQ 3 Electrical Installation with work log
C&G 2391-52 Inspection & Test
IET Technology 18th wiring edition with Ammendment 4
Am2 practical assessment
My main problem is the cost in that taking all these different qualifications in a pathway would cost around £9,000. Another problem is getting an employer to set a student on as a worker for the logging off in work assessment for the NVQ 3 Installation. There is also the extra time that it would take to achieve this goal in a long pathway.
I can see why employers are not setting many apprentices on, especially smaller employers. They have to give time off for training and pay a wage which has increased over the years. There is the cost of the training courses which is high although the worker may pay the cost of the course in a deal with the employer to get trained. I am concerned about too many private trainers getting involved with training and pushing costs up for students. I also am concerned about the standards in these companies.
I feel that this training route is costly and difficult for people to access. There is a mixture of local colleges and private trainers with differences in cost and approach. Students will have difficulty in the current economic circumstances to get an employer who is capable of delivering the logging skills and experience that a student requires to gain the skills on the course. I am highly concerned that there are C & G and IET qualifications covering different topics and stages in this pathway. I feel that all the topics and practical assesment should be delivered in one single qualification making costs, time studying and administration simpler. I feel that the logging experience should be delivered at the end of the course when the student has passed the qualification and is in a better position to apply to an employer. Help should be given to gain employment for practical logging of skills. I feel there should be better structured pathways for students to gain employment. A better and more flexible support structure to help employers to support students needs Should be developed. Distance learning and part time options are limited anf have not been developed. They should be more flexibility and delivery options.
Another area of concern is that not all Electrical Engineering degrees are equal and the market is confusing to students and employers. I finished a HND in Electrical Engineering at the University of Teesside in 2018. They did offer a BEng Tech in Electronics Engineering, but this had limited choice of modules and was not acredited in any way like most Beng and Meng courses. This makes the degree not equal to the degree for full time students. The excuse for this is that BTEC students come from a less academic background than their full time students. There is a big diffence in the amounts of academic work from C & G to BTEC and I have half a garage full of work to prove it. The BTEC HND at the University of Teesside presented a vast amount of very indepth information that students had to process and because it was assignment based the students are constantly working on assignments, circuit builds and software. I would like the IET to have a rethink for the longer term and just have one Degree with the core modules for students to learn and then after this optional modules. I am concerned that students are further graded into Beng and Meng which cause further confusion in the market place.
There are problems in some industries with not being registered typically in bigger organisations such as the NHS, BAE Sysyems, Siemens and Rolls Royce. Also small to medium sized busineses are wanting students to be standing on their own two feet straight out of the box. Sadly, this is not the case and students are faced with lack of understanding about what the employer wants and matching issues particularly at interview where big HR dictate the question.
I hope this response has been a help and provided feedback.
Regards
Neil Bussey ( HND Electrical and Electronics Eng)
