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
I get the feeling that the majority of contributors to this discussion consider the status quo to be satisfactory.
If that's the feeling you're getting, then unfortunately that's the fault of some of us in not expressing ourselves clearly enough. Personally I don't get the impression that anyone here thinks the status quo is in the least satisfactory. And the figures for IEng registration (both pure numbers and age profile) make it, to me, very obvious there is clear evidence that it is not.
But that's not to say that we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. I fully agree with the views expressed above that what is needed is a serious investigation to consider what is needed (or indeed if anything is needed) and how (or if) EC and the IET should provide it - what this discussion has shown to me is that there are no simple answers. Unfortunately that's a bit beyond the scope of a forum...
Personally I do like IEng as it stands, and I don't find a problem in either defining it or justifying it, but it's apparent that something like 99.9% (or more) of industry disagrees with me so I'm certainly not going to say that either I'm right and they're wrong or say that nothing needs to change!
I get the feeling that the majority of contributors to this discussion consider the status quo to be satisfactory.
If that's the feeling you're getting, then unfortunately that's the fault of some of us in not expressing ourselves clearly enough. Personally I don't get the impression that anyone here thinks the status quo is in the least satisfactory. And the figures for IEng registration (both pure numbers and age profile) make it, to me, very obvious there is clear evidence that it is not.
But that's not to say that we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. I fully agree with the views expressed above that what is needed is a serious investigation to consider what is needed (or indeed if anything is needed) and how (or if) EC and the IET should provide it - what this discussion has shown to me is that there are no simple answers. Unfortunately that's a bit beyond the scope of a forum...
Personally I do like IEng as it stands, and I don't find a problem in either defining it or justifying it, but it's apparent that something like 99.9% (or more) of industry disagrees with me so I'm certainly not going to say that either I'm right and they're wrong or say that nothing needs to change!
