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U.K. ENGINEERING 2016 REPORT

Former Community Member
Former Community Member
​I have noted in another discussion, several comments of my own, but there seems to be a lack of interest or it takes too long to read and digest the report.

​Apart from Roy's original comments and direction to be able to read the report, it would be great to find out if IMechE, ICE and the IET have had any official comments on the report and if not, when can we expect any.?


​Daniel


P.S. Just had to get away from CEng v IEng status discussion.
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    Brian Robertson:
    engineering requires a combination of theoretical knowledge and its practical application


    I agree with the above, the theoretical knowledge  PART comes from education e.g. Washington Accord degree.

    In Aus, USA and other countries you need both.     I think its a great idea. UK needs to adopt a similar path.

    Would you want to see a doctor or dentist, with no education and only an experienced path?

    I wonder how would insurance companies would like this.

     




    Brian,


    I do understand and appreciate your point, but realistically we know that there are many leading professionals in engineering who have managed to reach that level despite not being degree / higher degree qualified; and to say "I don't care if you are the founder of Microsoft, we're not having you in our club" seems a bit odd.


    Engineering is a strange profession in having other routes to expertise. But, of course, there has to be stringent proof that applicants for registration are showing the same degree of technical knowledge, expertise, and ability to learn as those with the exemplifying qualifications. Personally I think the current registration review is reasonably good at this (probably as good as it could be given the resources available), although I'm sure others would disagree. But in my mind what is more important is whether this review would lead to any improvement in the robustness for this process. We cannot afford to rule out non-graduate engineers from professional roles (and I don't see any advantage in doing so), but Prof Luff is - to me - quite right in saying that we need to look hard at the registraion process.


    On your specific question "would you want to see...": as I've mentioned here before, anyone who travels by train in southern UK has been trusting their life for many years to highly safety-critical software software developed by a non-graduate ex-colleague of mine. Jolly good software it is too according to the independent assesments of the development process. This engineer may not be the rule, but he is certainly one of the many exceptions that test it. Insurance companies are fine with this, they just want to know that the company that employs engineers takes responsibility for its staff. And for safety-critical work assessors want to see evidence of competence, for which - for a 40-50 year old engineer - a degree barely registers.


    So on this point I think it's a very pragmatic report.


    (P.S. None of this devalues degrees, those without already have to work much harder to prove their worth, and find it very much harder in the job market. But that's been discussed to death elsewhere.) 


    Cheers, Andy

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  • 0

    Brian Robertson:
    engineering requires a combination of theoretical knowledge and its practical application


    I agree with the above, the theoretical knowledge  PART comes from education e.g. Washington Accord degree.

    In Aus, USA and other countries you need both.     I think its a great idea. UK needs to adopt a similar path.

    Would you want to see a doctor or dentist, with no education and only an experienced path?

    I wonder how would insurance companies would like this.

     




    Brian,


    I do understand and appreciate your point, but realistically we know that there are many leading professionals in engineering who have managed to reach that level despite not being degree / higher degree qualified; and to say "I don't care if you are the founder of Microsoft, we're not having you in our club" seems a bit odd.


    Engineering is a strange profession in having other routes to expertise. But, of course, there has to be stringent proof that applicants for registration are showing the same degree of technical knowledge, expertise, and ability to learn as those with the exemplifying qualifications. Personally I think the current registration review is reasonably good at this (probably as good as it could be given the resources available), although I'm sure others would disagree. But in my mind what is more important is whether this review would lead to any improvement in the robustness for this process. We cannot afford to rule out non-graduate engineers from professional roles (and I don't see any advantage in doing so), but Prof Luff is - to me - quite right in saying that we need to look hard at the registraion process.


    On your specific question "would you want to see...": as I've mentioned here before, anyone who travels by train in southern UK has been trusting their life for many years to highly safety-critical software software developed by a non-graduate ex-colleague of mine. Jolly good software it is too according to the independent assesments of the development process. This engineer may not be the rule, but he is certainly one of the many exceptions that test it. Insurance companies are fine with this, they just want to know that the company that employs engineers takes responsibility for its staff. And for safety-critical work assessors want to see evidence of competence, for which - for a 40-50 year old engineer - a degree barely registers.


    So on this point I think it's a very pragmatic report.


    (P.S. None of this devalues degrees, those without already have to work much harder to prove their worth, and find it very much harder in the job market. But that's been discussed to death elsewhere.) 


    Cheers, Andy

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