The number of newly registered incorporated engineers continues to decline. The strategy of the Engineering Council is clearly not aligned to supporting the engineering technologist professional. Given the governments commitment to technical education the IET should create their own professional register to provide a relevant standard. It is obvious the current UKSPEC standard lacks credibility in terms of the IEng grade
1/ a person will obtain his ECUK registration - for life at an early career stage (I had HNC) to be registered IEng or later CEng. Then there is never a review of his experience. Technology changes very quickly. Most of what I studied (thermionique valves) do not even exist today. People with CEng BSc 1975 call them selves CEng even though they moved into management, or finance. They are not representative Professional Engineers. They can no longer engineer, but they can be presidents of PEIs and government advisors on subjects they have no experience of.
2/ Under the UK ECUK system you have to be one of the club, you have to be sponsored and have references. You can be a world technology leader witj thtee or more MSc s and be a consultant to Heads of Industry, but you will not get past the goal post of CEng if your face does not fit.
That is the main objection to the UK CEng system, it is simply subjective. It is not professional.
It has to change.
If we want to be democratic, we have to respect the 70% of PEs in the UK who are not ECUK PE registered.
Unfortunately the UK is not democratic, it is locked in a time warp, and it has an exclusive club culture which is both snobbish and elitist.
Just look at these blogs, IEng with CEng Plus credentials are locked out by CEng who do not have modern degrees or have no MSc.
We can no longer justify such an archaic system.
We have 170K members, I would say that Over 165K of them have no interest in this elitist battle.
IET is being manipulated by a few who have huge psychological status problems.
Most of us need tickets to work (CEng or IEng) and look for information and guidance in our real professional journals, Internet and general technical communication.
IET, PEIs and ECUK need revising.
Good on the 3 Million PEs that are not ECUK registered. let's make a General PE registration then IET can carry on with its elitist game, except that no one would stay if there was not title benefits.
Solution Keep CEng for PEis and open up a professional registration system which is not biased or subjective.
Employers will employ the most competent person (at the lowest price) ; a CEng who has passed his sell by date will not be of much interes to them, that is why they hange around in PEIs.
I think Prof Uff has a good solution for a UK Hornets nest problem.
