Have Faith in the IET

Well done Paul, I hope that your story inspires others.    

 

Mark it’s also great that you eventually had the confidence to seek recognition and have been successful.

 

I don’t know when your capability and performance first passed over a threshold appropriate for recognition by a professional body, but your post suggests that it was a long time ago. From the perspective of engineering as whole, it is unfortunate that you didn’t choose to engage then. As I see it, the role of a professional community should be to recognise professional  practitioners early, nurture their ongoing development and if necessary sanction those who step outside accepted standards.

 

As you describe, you were deterred (aka excluded) from engagement by the perfectly reasonable belief that your achievement would not be respected, because you didn’t follow school with a full-time undergraduate engineering degree. A member posting in one of these forums recently, expressed the (commonly articulated) view that we don’t want “unqualified” engineers, asking “who would want to be treated by an unqualified medical doctor”. Superficially this is isn’t unreasonable, but those who press this argument typically also presume that everyone else should follow the same “rights of passage” as they did.

 

Actual evidence of professional performance suggests that many engineers trained via an apprenticeship, perform to an equal or higher standard than an equivalent person from a full-time undergraduate background, especially in early career. However, the established system has had the effect of deeming them to be of “inferior status” relative to someone who was more academically successful in certain aspects of mathematics during their teenage years, for reasons either of aptitude or educationally advantaged circumstances. 

 

If we are to properly fulfil our collective potential, then we need to redouble our efforts to engage with all of those coming into engineering and technology. We also need to learn to respect equally all different types of professional contributions that fall within a reasonable definition of our interests (which for the IET is extremely broad).  

 

I take the view that The IET can add significant value to members, employers and  to society more widely by recognising standards of performance, including encouraging members to subject themselves to “peer review” with periodic re-validation.  As you describe, those who achieve Chartered recognition feel this value in particular, but the value added as felt by other types of registrant is generally less.  

 

The IIE (then the 4^th largest constituent of Engineering Council) promoted the proposition that each type of registrant was “different but equally valuable”, which was adopted by Engineering Council, but the position was subsequently reversed. To be more successful yet, we have to add more value to more people and organisations. The focus of much of the discussions in these forums seems to be on creating and emphasising difference, then apportioning relative status based upon these differences. I would prefer that the emphasis was on adding value through learning (in all its forms) and the enhanced performance of our (hopefully many more) members in all their variety.

 

PS to  Anthony

 

 Equivalence is in the eye of the beholder, in this case City & Guilds. This equivalence wasn’t reciprocated by Engineering Council. There have been various ways over the years to obtain a C&G Senior Award including for a time being Engineering Council registered and paying an additional fee. I wasn’t involved with C&G at that time, but I guess that the option was withdrawn through lack of interest. However, I recall Moshe posting at one time that C&G Senior Awards were on an American list of some kind, potentially offering some small advantage there?

 

When Tech Eng (later IEng) was established a Full Technological Certificate was considered an exemplifying qualification, it usually involved 5 or more years of day-release or evening-only college attendance and was similar to a HNC, but most colleges adopted TEC (later BTEC) awards instead from the late 70s. However a Full Technological Certificate in Telecommunications up to 1991 is recognised as a “standard qualification” for IEng and “International Technologist” on the (obscure) Engineering Council recognised courses database, which is open access on-line. Therefore since the post-1999 benchmark for IEng is “bachelors level”, the two qualifications could be considered equivalent, albeit from different eras. Rather than this being just a technocratic or legalistic point, having experience of both qualifications in both era’s, I would opine that they are of substantially similar standard. Does anyone disagree?   

 

I have seen examples of experienced engineers with Full Technological Certificates who have gained CEng. I have also seen examples of such engineers offered direct entry to masters degree programmes (on the basis of work-based learning deemed to be “bachelors level”) performing to a high academic standard.         

 

Well done Paul, I hope that your story inspires others.    

 

Mark it’s also great that you eventually had the confidence to seek recognition and have been successful.

 

I don’t know when your capability and performance first passed over a threshold appropriate for recognition by a professional body, but your post suggests that it was a long time ago. From the perspective of engineering as whole, it is unfortunate that you didn’t choose to engage then. As I see it, the role of a professional community should be to recognise professional  practitioners early, nurture their ongoing development and if necessary sanction those who step outside accepted standards.

 

As you describe, you were deterred (aka excluded) from engagement by the perfectly reasonable belief that your achievement would not be respected, because you didn’t follow school with a full-time undergraduate engineering degree. A member posting in one of these forums recently, expressed the (commonly articulated) view that we don’t want “unqualified” engineers, asking “who would want to be treated by an unqualified medical doctor”. Superficially this is isn’t unreasonable, but those who press this argument typically also presume that everyone else should follow the same “rights of passage” as they did.

 

Actual evidence of professional performance suggests that many engineers trained via an apprenticeship, perform to an equal or higher standard than an equivalent person from a full-time undergraduate background, especially in early career. However, the established system has had the effect of deeming them to be of “inferior status” relative to someone who was more academically successful in certain aspects of mathematics during their teenage years, for reasons either of aptitude or educationally advantaged circumstances. 

 

If we are to properly fulfil our collective potential, then we need to redouble our efforts to engage with all of those coming into engineering and technology. We also need to learn to respect equally all different types of professional contributions that fall within a reasonable definition of our interests (which for the IET is extremely broad).  

 

I take the view that The IET can add significant value to members, employers and  to society more widely by recognising standards of performance, including encouraging members to subject themselves to “peer review” with periodic re-validation.  As you describe, those who achieve Chartered recognition feel this value in particular, but the value added as felt by other types of registrant is generally less.  

 

The IIE (then the 4^th largest constituent of Engineering Council) promoted the proposition that each type of registrant was “different but equally valuable”, which was adopted by Engineering Council, but the position was subsequently reversed. To be more successful yet, we have to add more value to more people and organisations. The focus of much of the discussions in these forums seems to be on creating and emphasising difference, then apportioning relative status based upon these differences. I would prefer that the emphasis was on adding value through learning (in all its forms) and the enhanced performance of our (hopefully many more) members in all their variety.

 

PS to  Anthony

 

 Equivalence is in the eye of the beholder, in this case City & Guilds. This equivalence wasn’t reciprocated by Engineering Council. There have been various ways over the years to obtain a C&G Senior Award including for a time being Engineering Council registered and paying an additional fee. I wasn’t involved with C&G at that time, but I guess that the option was withdrawn through lack of interest. However, I recall Moshe posting at one time that C&G Senior Awards were on an American list of some kind, potentially offering some small advantage there?

 

When Tech Eng (later IEng) was established a Full Technological Certificate was considered an exemplifying qualification, it usually involved 5 or more years of day-release or evening-only college attendance and was similar to a HNC, but most colleges adopted TEC (later BTEC) awards instead from the late 70s. However a Full Technological Certificate in Telecommunications up to 1991 is recognised as a “standard qualification” for IEng and “International Technologist” on the (obscure) Engineering Council recognised courses database, which is open access on-line. Therefore since the post-1999 benchmark for IEng is “bachelors level”, the two qualifications could be considered equivalent, albeit from different eras. Rather than this being just a technocratic or legalistic point, having experience of both qualifications in both era’s, I would opine that they are of substantially similar standard. Does anyone disagree?   

 

I have seen examples of experienced engineers with Full Technological Certificates who have gained CEng. I have also seen examples of such engineers offered direct entry to masters degree programmes (on the basis of work-based learning deemed to be “bachelors level”) performing to a high academic standard.