You don't need practical skills to be an engineer

My early education emphasised knowledge of facts rather than analysis or the presentation of ideas/concepts

When I was making career choices, I didn’t know anyone in my social circle who had attended university and I aspired to independent adulthood, earning my own keep etc. asap

Operations and maintenance of high value intensively used assets requires a “bias for action”, much of the time that we might call “practical”.

Perhaps research development and fundamental design begin with a “bias for analysis” first which we might call “intellectual”.

Within the “Engineering Council family” an analytical or conceptual approach is considered to be “of an intellectually higher order” or “academic”. It is therefore held in higher esteem, than a “more practical” or “vocational” approach.

 

What many employers are really complaining about is the graduate lacking sufficient usable skills to make a productive contribution quickly.

Andy, thanks for picking up on some of my reflections with some excellent thoughts of your own. I didn’t share my own story for the self-indulgence of “everyone’s favourite story –themselves” but to create debate.

 

Readers can form a judgment about my career story, during which I didn’t meet the requirements of CEng at any time. Some would probably opine that I'm not a "proper engineer" but a Technician with added management or an "associate professional". That's fine, but fortunately, I have some other achievements to counterbalance any negativity that this might imply. Others who have continued to work as “engineers” may feel diminished and insulted by such a judgment. Their sense of grievance being stoked by the large numbers of CEng registrants who retain the designation as an "honour" often based on meeting academic+experience requirements of decades ago. Those who have been evaluated against UK-SPEC are actually a small minority. I see no benefit in taking CEng off anyone except for malpractice, but PEI "supervision" of registrants (such as voluntary supportive review) has historically been virtually nil.

 

When the IET came into being, it chose an "inclusive" approach to membership, IMechE and ICE have eventually followed a similar path. However, other influential PEI constituents of Engineering Council want to maintain a much more "exclusive" model, intended to promote Chartered Engineers as being a "superior highly intellectual elite". I can empathise with that position, since most have studied hard, developed to a high standard, been sold “superior status”and are naturally resistant to diluting it. A significant proportion of our own members may feel similarly, but have accepted that suitably competent people should be registered as CEng using UK-SPEC.

 

My main concern is what proposition are we offering to those who develop "engineering" careers. Arguably, to all of those except entrants to CEng accredited (Washington Accord type) Degrees it is a confused, inconsistent, potentially unfair and often partly negative one.

 

The IET and some other PEIs have begun to offer more support to Apprentices or Undergraduates studying "different but equally valuable" (according QAA at least) types of technical degrees. Unfortunately,however, as they begin to progress their careers they may discover that they have been placed on to the "second class" pathway to start with. A Degree Apprentice for example, may be placed at a disadvantage in the Engineering Council world, even if their workplace contribution is much greater than peer colleague with “more maths” from the first year of their course.

 

They may also find that if they progress into project engineering or management then, “that isn't chartered", unless you have the right degree, in which case it is. If your work is mainly the application of established technologies “that isn't chartered either”, unless you have the right degree then it is, likewise how do we define "creativity and innovation" - having the right degree!

 

Is there good evidence about the usefulness of “good” and “not so Good” types of degree and are there proven correlations with relative performance across a reasonable range of engineering roles? If there isn't any proof of a strong correlation, then the education system is just deciding preemptively about the performance of engineers practice some years later. This isn't valid or fair! A childhood IQ test might have similar predictive validity?

 

I'm not seeking to discourage academic excellence, but diminishing and excluding other engineers with slightly different optimisation, isn't “excellence”, it is naïve and counter-productive to the common good. Fine for bureaucrats, rule makers, box tickers and status seekers, but of very little value to most engineers, which may be a reason why many of them don't engage. Incidentally I have very strongly supported programmes such as Engineering Gateways, which help to develop and give academic value to work-based learning once it has been acquired.

 

My suggestion to help bear down upon this “academic 1^st class, vocational 2^nd class” attitude which drives some of this snobbery and counter snobbery, is just to decide that as professional Engineers and Technicians we don't want to be Snobs or Counter-Snobs. Just like we don't want to be Sexists or Racists. We just want to develop our collective contribution to society. This is my interpretation of “Working to Engineer a Better World”.

 

We can and should add value by supporting the registration of competent Technicians & Engineers committed to professional conduct. Defining that distinction isn't easy, but we have UK-SPEC to start with. The idea that Engineers beyond graduate level sit in different “silos” via academic selection is “artificial” and I think discredited.

 

When HNC/HND engineers were excluded from CEng decades ago, they had to form a new category of their own and they adopted the “more practical” value statement. However this distinctive proposition and the market that it served has been in decline for decades. Once the academic benchmark was moved to bachelors level, it became what CEng was, with CEng supposedly moving to become a “masters level elite”. However, to avoid misunderstanding, I don't think that this didn't happened, although some people might disagree.

 

Where this leads me, is that if professional engineers of graduate standard are on the same pathway then there is no “us and them”, everyone should be a “registered engineer”first. Then after a significant period of monitoring by their institution, they may be transferred to CEng.


 

Perhaps before we leave the EU, we can borrow the Eur Ing criteria for our “Registered Engineer”? https://www.feani.org/feani/eur-ing-title/what-eur-ing-title.

A couple of key extracts

Education and experience together is less than the minimum seven years' formation required, the balance to seven years should be covered by education (U), experience (E), or training (T) monitored by the approved engineering institutions, or by preliminary engineering professional experience.

The duration of professional engineering experience shall be at least two years and include the following:

• 
  

  The solution of problems requiring the application of engineering science in the fields such as research, development, design, production, construction, installation, maintenance, engineering sales and marketing, and Management or guiding of technical staff or The financial, economical, statutory or legal aspects of engineering tasks, or Industrial and/or environmental problem solving.

  
  

My underlining is mine, illustrating where I have have frequently encountered opinions that this is “not CEng, but IEng work”, based on interpretation of UK-SPEC. Of course Engineering Council barred Incorporated Engineers from Eur Ing registration, even if they met the requirements.

 

If we adopted something around Eur Ing as our “mainstream” standard with CEng on top (beyond most UK charterships) some adaptation would be needed to avoid blocking those on the underlined career paths from progression. Would that be possible or acceptable - does anyone have an opinion?

1. I'd sort of like to agree with the idea behind these definitions, not out of "elitism" (an engineering technologist to these definitions could be organisationally superior to a professional engineer) but out of clarity.

• However, I can't see - to take just a couple of examples - that in the UK a senior engineering officer in the forces or the senior engineer on an oil rig will accept being potentially recategorised as an "engineering technologist" rather than a "professional engineer". Just as they would currently object (rightly or wrongly) to being IEng rather than CEng.

I hope that I’m not drifting off topic, but I think that the various themes around “what is an Engineer or Technician”, “how are they trained” (or educated if you prefer) and "what do they do", are at the heart of The IET mission and the raison d'etre of Engineering Council. The IET seeks to serve a very wide range of people with an interest in Engineering & Technology. This includes Engineers and Technicians committed to professionalism, who are encouraged to join the voluntary Engineering Council register. Unfortunately the registration proposition has not proved compelling to many. Designation as a Chartered professional is potentially quite an attractive prospect, but access to the Chartered Engineer is intentionally highly restricted. This restriction has long been by academic selection prior to a career, or more recently under UK-SPEC as operated by IET and some major UK institutions, professional contribution of “competence” within career.

 

The international consensus developed by academics over the last 25 years, uses academic selection to assume by extrapolation, that three different types of academic preparation leads to three different career paths. Legislators and regulators in some jurisdictions have adapted this framework.

The following justification is offered here http://www.ieagreements.org/assets/Uploads/Documents/History/IEA-History-1.1-Final.pdf

 

During the Industrial Revolution a division of labour took place between engineers, who, while still essentially practical were responsible for the conception and design of machinery and those skilled in their construction – who we today call technicians. While scientific discoveries continued engineering remained practical into the early twentieth century before science-based-engineering became established. As the science base of engineering developed a further division occurred in the second half of the twentieth century, the emergence of the engineering technologist, skilled at applying established technology as distinct from the science-based professional engineer.

 

This interpretation will naturally find favour amongst those who it advantages, such as those who deliver the most academically selective, mathematically orientated, longest degree programmes and those who have participated in them. Those professional engineers including a large proportion of UK Chartered Engineers who might by this definition be deemed “Technologists”, also acquiesce because their status has been protected. There is no reason for such professionals, on average in their late 50s to “rock the boat”. Whereas those placed at a disadvantage by the interpretation will naturally have an incentive to highlight its serious flaws. The social psychology/sociology creates divisiveness, jealousy and incessant squabbling, but I don’t want to focus on that in this forum intended to address the value of “practical” ability, that I am interpreting as “applying established technology” from the definition above. What I do want to consider is an employer’s perspective.

 

There is an almost infinite variety of contexts in which technical knowledge and skill are deployed in employment. By “employment”, I also include individuals who offer specialised services. Most employers will adopt a rational approach on the basis of perceived benefits from engaging with systems for professional recognition, or in some cases potentially negative consequences. There is no point in me discussing here, those employers who don’t value or understand technical skills and professionalism. However of those that do, many have clearly not recognised the academic distinction between Engineers & Technologists, or for that matter the potential value of the proposition. Where legislators have joined in, there seems to be a strong counter movement for employer’s exemption.

 

I’m very encouraged by IET efforts over recent years to engage much more effectively with employers of Engineers and Technicians. We are well-placed to support partnership working between higher education and employers, exemplified by programmes like Degree Apprenticeships or the “Gateways” and similar degree programmes using work-based learning by practicing professionals. Such pathways can be equally if not more effective in developing engineers than lengthy science based undergraduate programmes of career preparation. Unfortunately however those who control the profession are unwilling to accept this proposition, perhaps because of vested interests and preconceptions about certain teenage rites of passage?

 

We have the privilege to host the International Engineering Alliance this summer. I trust that we will do so with exceptional hospitality and the great respect that they deserve. I would then like us to discuss with them the somewhat artificial separation of “Engineers” & “Technologists” as reflected by the Washington & Sydney accords. We should point out that “the emergence of the engineering technologist, skilled at applying established technology as distinct from the science-based professional engineer” never occurred in the UK. The chance of “Chartered Engineering Technologist” came and went 15-20 years ago. We can’t speak for other countries but it seems perhaps that even where it has been embraced it was with Hobson’s choice?

 

We should consider replacing our Incorporated Engineer “The Practical Engineer” (from which a handful of people hold International Engineering Technologist) with a new category of Engineer benchmarked nominally at Bachelors Level. Reference points would be UK-SPEC IEng and Eur Ing descriptor underpinned by a Technology or Engineering degree. Chartered Engineer intentionally set higher than the UK minimum Chartered requirements, should require a period of supervised practice and further development as a registered engineer.

 

We should probably retain our membership of the Washington Accord and facilitate academic accreditation in accordance with its guidance, to ensure that overseas students in the UK or UK based students migrating get such credit as they deserve in other countries. I am not aware of anyone benefiting significantly from the Sydney or Dublin Accords, is anyone else?

 

Just in case anyone hasn’t read my earlier post, I’m an Engineering Technician who became an Incorporated Engineer when that changed from Technician Engineer, because Managing “Engineers” didn’t want to be called “Technicians” but weren’t allowed to become “Chartered” any more without the right degree. We need to redouble our efforts to value Technicians and nurture their equally valuable “more practical” contribution, there are more frames of reference than an academic one.