Rules and Guidelines
Want to participate in the discussions? Please read our Community Rules and Guidelines. Need some help? Visit Support and Answers.

  • State Not Answered
  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 84 replies
  • Subscribers 14 subscribers
  • Views 6104 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
You may also be interested in
This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

Time for licenced Engineers?

Former Community Member
Former Community Member
As a result of a discussion within a Linkedin group. I had originally raised the issue of the EC UK or IET legally licencing Engineers and had agreed to bring this discussion from Linkedin to the IET members in an appropriate community for a frank and open debate.

​The circumstances surrounding this discussion was the tragedy of Grenfell Towers and my personal observation that some of the alleged decision makers, had no technical qualifications to make decisions on public safety. I am wondering how far the inquiry will go to reveal that issue. 

​

As I currently work in Canada we do have an act of law governing the conduct of its licenced Engineers and this makes the Engineer have some higher degree of responsibility for public safety.


​Questions

1)    Given the impact of Grenfell, does EC(UK) have to now start considering licencing? What are the perceived hurdles to achieve this?

​2)    If not. What can we do within our profession to improve pubic safety with an objective to prevent another 'Grenfell' ?


I am ​Interested to get IET members responses.

Parents
  • 0
    Jack,


    First of all, Hats off to George Gainsborough for his achievements!  


    It is important that we learn from history, because these issues are not new, they just pass through the generations

    “To understand the man you have to know what was happening in the world when he was twenty.” ( Napoleon Bonaparte).


    By coincidence The Finniston Report was published when I was that age and just completing my four year Apprenticeship. It didn’t therefore come to my attention other than in passing, even though I was interested these issues and the affairs of my union EETPU.  This archive from our IET predecessor institution The Production Engineers seems to offer a good summary  https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=4926497


    The Head of Department at our Training Centre was CEng MIEE and had explained how he had gained this via night school HNC + 3 endorsements, but that pathway had closed. Having developed ambitions to progress, I made further enquiries (by letter and telephone -remember the days before the internet).  The only viable option of a part-time degree was impractical and the syllabus very poorly aligned with my development needs. A colleague warned me off the CEI/EC exams which he was attempting as apparently they had a very high failure rate. I was interested to find The Institution of Industrial Managers in the article above, because I embarked on their certificate at my local Polytechnic, becoming a member in the process.  

    However, despite the opinion that I have heard so many times over the years since from some Chartered Engineers, that “engineering isn’t management”, my HNC was acceptable for Tech Eng/IEng so I joined that institution as well and became IEng some years later. 


    I  don’t use my own example for self-indulgence, but for ease of explanation. Many others from an apprenticeship or “imperfect” degree pathway became IEng simply because it was all they could get. Equally those who stayed on for A levels and studied Engineering at University often became entitled to CEng instead.  Although the system placed people into these silos at the age of twenty (ish) for at least the next fifteen years, most employers just promoted high performers. For example, almost the whole of the senior technical leadership team of a world-leading technology business, were former apprentices with HNC. Only in recent years was the IET able to fairly evaluate their obvious CEng capability and reassure them that they would not be “black-balled” on academic grounds. There never was at any time in their careers anything "inferior" about them relative to a university graduate. Some had gained mid-career and part-time degrees as these became more accessible and appropriate to their current needs, such as an industry relevant MSc or MBA.   


    It would help my understanding and I’m sure that of others if you were able to explain why you were motivated to complain to the BBC about BT calling “Technicians”, “Engineers”. As it stands I’m with the Producer and wondering whether you live in Tunbridge Wellswink. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disgusted_of_Tunbridge_Wells


    I have myself argued in several contexts , about inconsistent descriptors, for example within a trade association, about calling one type of “craftsperson” an “engineer” and another an “operative” for no reason except that it was what they preferred wasn’t particularly sensible. My own use of the term “craftsperson” could be controversial but I hope understood here in a positive way. An IET predecessor institution that I was a member of was the “executive engineers”. I don’t know what proportion fitted that description, but in some sectors now “manager” is a first job and “executive” the first promotion. In the public domain all of this easily seems petty, divisive and potentially snobbish.        


    As I hope that I have made clear, I wish no disrespect towards any Engineer, Technician or other semantic form of technology practitioner, acting professionally and I offer my admiration to those who have through any valid combination of education and experience gained CEng.  However, I haven’t found a fully reliable, robust and accurate justification for the divisions that we create in the continuum between a craftsperson and a scientist at work; they overlap. What I can observe is a sociological process of “us and them” creating groups or “tribes”.  My tribe is probably in this context, the “ex-engineer moved into management but still likes to get involved”. There are two branches, the dominant one who continue to wear their CEng insignia with pride and the marginalised dying off one who have to take care to avoid negative prejudice in many situations.    


    The article I linked from 1980 states “although the IEE calls for generous arrangements to be made for registering the existing stock of engineers, it believes that new engineers should not be automatically registered on completion of their education and training; candidates should also have proven success 'in the field”. For the next nearly thirty years it wouldn’t welcome engineers like those who I mentioned above without them being over the age 35, effectively having to grovel and write some academically orientated technical dissertation “because they were deficient”. Were these “Chief Engineers”, “Heads of Engineering” etc, supposed to call themselves “Technicians”.


    What lessons can we learn from 1980 that will put is in a better place in 2020? I hope that those of us who were around then aren’t motivated by personal advantage or status, but by the needs of those who were born this century, both professionals and the wider needs of society. Will those coming into engineering now still be having the same arguments in 40 years’ time as we are now? After all, the leaders in 1979 reflected (according to Napoleon) 1939 attitudes.  Another commission anyone, what did the 1851 version think?     
     

Reply
  • 0
    Jack,


    First of all, Hats off to George Gainsborough for his achievements!  


    It is important that we learn from history, because these issues are not new, they just pass through the generations

    “To understand the man you have to know what was happening in the world when he was twenty.” ( Napoleon Bonaparte).


    By coincidence The Finniston Report was published when I was that age and just completing my four year Apprenticeship. It didn’t therefore come to my attention other than in passing, even though I was interested these issues and the affairs of my union EETPU.  This archive from our IET predecessor institution The Production Engineers seems to offer a good summary  https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=4926497


    The Head of Department at our Training Centre was CEng MIEE and had explained how he had gained this via night school HNC + 3 endorsements, but that pathway had closed. Having developed ambitions to progress, I made further enquiries (by letter and telephone -remember the days before the internet).  The only viable option of a part-time degree was impractical and the syllabus very poorly aligned with my development needs. A colleague warned me off the CEI/EC exams which he was attempting as apparently they had a very high failure rate. I was interested to find The Institution of Industrial Managers in the article above, because I embarked on their certificate at my local Polytechnic, becoming a member in the process.  

    However, despite the opinion that I have heard so many times over the years since from some Chartered Engineers, that “engineering isn’t management”, my HNC was acceptable for Tech Eng/IEng so I joined that institution as well and became IEng some years later. 


    I  don’t use my own example for self-indulgence, but for ease of explanation. Many others from an apprenticeship or “imperfect” degree pathway became IEng simply because it was all they could get. Equally those who stayed on for A levels and studied Engineering at University often became entitled to CEng instead.  Although the system placed people into these silos at the age of twenty (ish) for at least the next fifteen years, most employers just promoted high performers. For example, almost the whole of the senior technical leadership team of a world-leading technology business, were former apprentices with HNC. Only in recent years was the IET able to fairly evaluate their obvious CEng capability and reassure them that they would not be “black-balled” on academic grounds. There never was at any time in their careers anything "inferior" about them relative to a university graduate. Some had gained mid-career and part-time degrees as these became more accessible and appropriate to their current needs, such as an industry relevant MSc or MBA.   


    It would help my understanding and I’m sure that of others if you were able to explain why you were motivated to complain to the BBC about BT calling “Technicians”, “Engineers”. As it stands I’m with the Producer and wondering whether you live in Tunbridge Wellswink. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disgusted_of_Tunbridge_Wells


    I have myself argued in several contexts , about inconsistent descriptors, for example within a trade association, about calling one type of “craftsperson” an “engineer” and another an “operative” for no reason except that it was what they preferred wasn’t particularly sensible. My own use of the term “craftsperson” could be controversial but I hope understood here in a positive way. An IET predecessor institution that I was a member of was the “executive engineers”. I don’t know what proportion fitted that description, but in some sectors now “manager” is a first job and “executive” the first promotion. In the public domain all of this easily seems petty, divisive and potentially snobbish.        


    As I hope that I have made clear, I wish no disrespect towards any Engineer, Technician or other semantic form of technology practitioner, acting professionally and I offer my admiration to those who have through any valid combination of education and experience gained CEng.  However, I haven’t found a fully reliable, robust and accurate justification for the divisions that we create in the continuum between a craftsperson and a scientist at work; they overlap. What I can observe is a sociological process of “us and them” creating groups or “tribes”.  My tribe is probably in this context, the “ex-engineer moved into management but still likes to get involved”. There are two branches, the dominant one who continue to wear their CEng insignia with pride and the marginalised dying off one who have to take care to avoid negative prejudice in many situations.    


    The article I linked from 1980 states “although the IEE calls for generous arrangements to be made for registering the existing stock of engineers, it believes that new engineers should not be automatically registered on completion of their education and training; candidates should also have proven success 'in the field”. For the next nearly thirty years it wouldn’t welcome engineers like those who I mentioned above without them being over the age 35, effectively having to grovel and write some academically orientated technical dissertation “because they were deficient”. Were these “Chief Engineers”, “Heads of Engineering” etc, supposed to call themselves “Technicians”.


    What lessons can we learn from 1980 that will put is in a better place in 2020? I hope that those of us who were around then aren’t motivated by personal advantage or status, but by the needs of those who were born this century, both professionals and the wider needs of society. Will those coming into engineering now still be having the same arguments in 40 years’ time as we are now? After all, the leaders in 1979 reflected (according to Napoleon) 1939 attitudes.  Another commission anyone, what did the 1851 version think?     
     

Children
No Data

Community Rules & Guidelines