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Time to create a new professional registration for Engineering Technologists

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
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  • Roy Bowdler:

    ... 

    Our efforts and this discussion are focussed in the wrong place to achieve what should be our primary objective. Simply put, this is to nurture the knowledge skills and commitment of our members. Recognition in the form of registration is an important element including an obligation of ongoing mutual engagement and support.

     ...




    Roy,

    Absolutely. I like your other ideas, and in fact would endorse your whole post, but I suspect that, human nature being what it is, any system where there are different awards will result in one being seen as the gold standard and everyone wanting that particular award, with the result that the remainder are seen as second class, thus leaving us in the same situation we are in now.

    What it seems we need is a realignment of industry's understanding of registration so that the current system is used as intended (or at least as I understand it was intended - I don't make any claim to be certain of the original intentions), with "equal but different" registration categories based on the work roles and capabilities of the individuals.

    I remember at a forum at Savoy Place a number of years ago being told that as a persons role changed they would be able to move between categories, e.g. IEng to CEng or alternatively CEng to IEng. The way the categories are viewed at the present would mean that no-one would wish to trade CEng for IEng, but once we have the situation where this can be considered an acceptable move, whether with the current titles or with any new system, then perhaps we can say we are making headway.

    The first step certainly seems to be wider recognition for IEng (and EngTech) registrants, whether under that title or 'Engineering Technologists', or whatever. This is the biggest challenge and probably revolves around understanding by the wider populace rather than just the engineering profession itself, but that might need re-education of the man in the street to explain that the man who comes to fix the washing machine is not an 'engineer', which is a discussion that has been done to death already.

    Regards,

    Alasdair

Reply

  • Roy Bowdler:

    ... 

    Our efforts and this discussion are focussed in the wrong place to achieve what should be our primary objective. Simply put, this is to nurture the knowledge skills and commitment of our members. Recognition in the form of registration is an important element including an obligation of ongoing mutual engagement and support.

     ...




    Roy,

    Absolutely. I like your other ideas, and in fact would endorse your whole post, but I suspect that, human nature being what it is, any system where there are different awards will result in one being seen as the gold standard and everyone wanting that particular award, with the result that the remainder are seen as second class, thus leaving us in the same situation we are in now.

    What it seems we need is a realignment of industry's understanding of registration so that the current system is used as intended (or at least as I understand it was intended - I don't make any claim to be certain of the original intentions), with "equal but different" registration categories based on the work roles and capabilities of the individuals.

    I remember at a forum at Savoy Place a number of years ago being told that as a persons role changed they would be able to move between categories, e.g. IEng to CEng or alternatively CEng to IEng. The way the categories are viewed at the present would mean that no-one would wish to trade CEng for IEng, but once we have the situation where this can be considered an acceptable move, whether with the current titles or with any new system, then perhaps we can say we are making headway.

    The first step certainly seems to be wider recognition for IEng (and EngTech) registrants, whether under that title or 'Engineering Technologists', or whatever. This is the biggest challenge and probably revolves around understanding by the wider populace rather than just the engineering profession itself, but that might need re-education of the man in the street to explain that the man who comes to fix the washing machine is not an 'engineer', which is a discussion that has been done to death already.

    Regards,

    Alasdair

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