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Is an Apprenticeship an equally valid pathway to Chartered Engineer - a historical anachronism or the future?

Roy Bowdler
This is National Apprenticeship Week.  

 

An unintended and unfortunate consequence of UK government policies and wider economic changes in the 1980s and 1990s was a very substantial decline in apprenticeships which had served previous generations so well.  They didn’t die completely because employers (like the company that I was Training Manager of) understood their value, not just for skilled craft trades, but also as an alternative option to “Graduate Training Schemes” for Engineers and Managers, traditionally leading to HNC type qualifications, but from the mid-2000s increasingly degrees. Initiative was eventually picked up by Government, turning it into a “flagship” policy.  This has had an effect, but policy is not implementation and typically the brewery visit has not been well organised (with apologies to those unfamiliar with British vulgar slang). However, changes like this can take years if not decades to “bed in”, so I hope that we will keep trying.

 

Engineering Council has always been dominated by the academic perspective and relatively poorly connected with employers, therefore it has associated Apprenticeships with Technicians and not with Chartered Engineers, although it accepted that it was possible "exceptionally via bridges and ladders” for a Technician to develop into a Chartered Engineer. Incorporated (formerly Technician) Engineer was also drawn from the Apprenticeship tradition. However, once the qualification benchmark was adjusted to bachelors level, it was also intended to become the “mainstream” category for graduates, with CEng being “premium” or “elite”.  Unfortunately the Incorporated category has not been successful and its international equivalent “Technologist” defined as it is by degree content (i.e. less calculus than an “engineer”) also seems equally poorly regarded or even legally restricted in other countries.

 

Now we have Degree Apprentices coming through, the profession has responded by offering Incorporated Engineer recognition at an early career stage. This should in principal be a good thing and I have advocated it in the past. However, I am seriously concerned that this may also stigmatise them as a “second class” form of professional, as has been the tradition to date.

 

Over the last few years Engineering Council has adopted a policy encouraging younger engineers to consider the Incorporated Engineer category as a “stepping stone” to Chartered Engineer. Some professional institutions have promoted this often with a particular focus on those “without the right degree for CEng” with some success. However the approach “kicks the can down the road” to the question of how they should subsequently transfer to CEng.  There are potentially likely to be some frustrated, disillusioned and even angry engineers, if they find that “progression” is blocked and that they are stuck on a “stepping stone”.  We don’t need more unnecessary “enemies” amongst them, we have created enough already. 

 

A further problem is that those with accredited degrees do not expect to require a “stepping stone” and consider IEng to have no value for them or even perhaps at worst insulting. Many employers of Chartered Engineers and the professional institutions are steeped in the tradition of recruiting those with accredited degrees and developing them to Chartered Engineer in around 3-5 years. Other graduate recruiters may be less academically selective, but share similar traditions and expectations.

 

Is therefore a Degree Apprenticeship an equally valid pathway compared to a CEng accredited (BEng or MEng) full-time undergraduate degree course?  Is performance and current capability (aka “competence”) the appropriate frame of reference for comparison, or should those from each pathway be separated academically and considered to be different “types”, or on “fast” and slow tracks”?

 

As Degree Apprenticeships develop further, there will be those who gain CEng accredited degrees and have work experience via an “even faster track”. My concern is that those graduates from Degree Apprenticeships who are more competent and productive than their age group peers from full-time degree programmes, but disadvantaged in academic recognition terms, may find themselves in a seemingly unfair and anomalous situation.  

 

In addition, those employers who primarily “exploit existing technology” may continue to feel that the Engineering Council proposition is contrary to their interests and discourage engagement. Employers who invest in apprenticeships state that they experience greater loyalty from former apprentices, relative to graduate trainees and often a better return on investment.  Whereas the professional institution proposition emphasises different priorities, which may align quite well with Research & Development or Consultancy type business models, but not with Operations and Maintenance or Contracting. My experience as an employer trying to encourage professional engagement was that the Professional Institution concerned advised employees informally to “move on if you want to become Chartered”, because they valued Project Engineering less than Design Engineering. As for management, this was definitely “chartered engineering” if you held the right type of engineering degree and valued if it was “prestigious”. If you didn’t hold the right type of engineering degree and weren’t “highly prestigious” then it wasn't valued much.

 

If Degree Apprenticeships become more strongly established, do we want to accept them as an equally valid pathway to a range of excellent careers including Chartered Engineer, or do we wish to continue our long-standing policy of treating them as useful but second or third class pathways? Will weasel words of platitude be offered ,whilst existing attitudes and practice are allowed to prevail?    


If the answer is we that want to give apprentices equal value, then in the current climate of retribution, should those who have enthusiastically encouraged the stigma and snobbery against them consider falling on their swords? Enthusiasm for excellence in engineering, especially in stretching academic circumstances is a virtue not a crime and I strongly support it. Unfortunately however many around the Engineering Council family, perhaps motivated by a neediness for “status”, seem to have been mainly concerned with rationing access to the Chartered category by other “graduate level” practitioners, and disparaging those drawn from the apprenticeship tradition. 

 

Further Reading

 
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/a-new-apprenticeship-programme-kicks-off-national-apprenticeship-week-2018

 
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-law-will-end-outdated-snobbery-towards-apprenticeships

 
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/further-education/12193128/Theres-been-an-apprenticeship-stigma-for-far-too-long.html

 
http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/theres-still-a-stigma-around-apprenticeships-people-look-down-on-you-3622353-Oct2017/

 
https://www.fenews.co.uk/featured-article/14816-overcoming-the-apprenticeships-stigma-not-before-time

 
https://www.bcselectrics.co.uk/news/pushing-back-against-stigma-apprenticeships

 
‘Stigma against apprenticeships must end,’ says Network Rail boss. Mark Carne, Network’s Rail’s chief executive (Rail Technology News)

   
https://www.standard.co.uk/tech/national-apprenticeship-week-young-women-stem-apprenticeship-a3781606.html

 
http://www.aston.ac.uk/news/releases/2017/july/uks-first-degree-apprentices-graduate/

 
https://www.stem.org.uk/news-and-views/opinions/apprenticeships-better-skills-better-careers          

 
http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/blog/Pages/Why-I-chose-the-degree-apprenticeship-route.aspx               

 

 

 

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  • 0
    A well written and thought provoking piece, Roy. I'm with you on this all the way. I feel, as you are suggesting, that we need to put an extra special effort into ensuring that we offset the 'academic snob' factor for C.Eng registration by illustrating and promoting the equal (or possibly greater in some cases) merits of advanced professional engineering qualities that a less academic route can provide.
    I think there are two distinctly but subtly different components you've mentioned, both of which are very important.
    The first one is the progression path. As someone who attained C.Eng back in the days of the mature candidate route with my highest engineering qualification being HNC, I am definite testimony to the validity and relevance of this path to C Eng. Whilst I was not in a formal apprenticeship, my carry had started with something very similar with full time engineering work supplemented by day release. In this day and age of further polytechnics being rebadged as universities, if this had been nw, I world surely have attained B.Eng. But that's not the point - the point is that, in my Engineering work, I steadily increased the dominance of those important professional factors of my practice that are, in my view (as a PRI) the true defining ones that put C.Eng at the head of the profession, and evolved all of the qualities required of a C.Eng "on the job". The key factors were not academic - they were practice/application related. Yes, by the very nature of the mature candidate route, I did have to submit a paper you demonstrate my academic ability - and the then President of the Institute, who shared the same specialism as me so ended up in discussion with me about it, commented that it was far more onerous than a degree course as I used a study into traction interference into parallel telecoms cables developed from first principles, using calculus and Fourier analysis to identify harmonic content in earnest, but, in my view, reinforced by my experience as PRI, this was the least important component in demonstrating that I was worthy of C Eng. I am now, and have been for some considerable time, considered a "senior" in the profession, and this all from the lowly roots I describe. We are truly missing a trick if we don't encourage others to take a similar progression.
    The other distinct component of this argument is the possibly controversial one that many people who have evolved in the way I've described, or through formal apprenticeships, demonstrate the most important qualities required for C.Eng (innovation, professionalism, managerial qualities) more strongly than many (but by no means all) from an academic background. Academic education will rarely, if ever, develop those components of the professional engineer profile and, from my experience, many from an academic background simply don't have that understanding of applying their knowledge to achieving good Engineering outcomes that is inherently learnt by many who go through the apprenticeship (or my approximation to it) route. Cost/safety, cost/value, creativity and innovation are rarely natural products of an academic education.
    The irony of the focus on R&D and design roles is that most of those in these roles need the wider ranging engineer to draw on their inputs to apply their outputs to a well rounded engineering outcome. I was reminded of this only this week when discussing potential roles for myself with potential clients when more than once commented that a designer or R&D role would be a gross failure to draw on my true value, that it was relatively easy to find design or R&D capability but far harder to find the ability to draw on the input of designers and researchers to produce a well rounded engineering outcome, one that achieves the joint goals of innovation and cost/value balance. In my experience, many of those from an academic background really do see things in black and white, and hold very limited ability to innovate or to achieve the 'right', pragmatic and city effective engineering solution required. Designers often lack innovation whilst researchers often lack realism.
    I must stress that the are far from universal observations - there are, of course, many from an academic background who go on to be highly innovative, professional engineers well worthy of the C.Eng status and equally, the are many from an apprenticeship or other more hands on route who never progress to a level where C.Eng is awardable, but I agree that we really need to promote the idea that all routes to registration are worthy of consideration.
    I don't believe that there is any obstacle to this in the assessment and interview process - I feel it allows for this diversity of candidate profiles, but what is needed is to promote and encourage the pursuance of these diverse routes to registration, and the wider recognition that less academic routes are highly worthy of pursuing.
    With regard to the distinctly separate matter of the attitude to I.Eng and the view that it is a second class status, thus hehe been that has already been the registration,
Reply
  • 0
    A well written and thought provoking piece, Roy. I'm with you on this all the way. I feel, as you are suggesting, that we need to put an extra special effort into ensuring that we offset the 'academic snob' factor for C.Eng registration by illustrating and promoting the equal (or possibly greater in some cases) merits of advanced professional engineering qualities that a less academic route can provide.
    I think there are two distinctly but subtly different components you've mentioned, both of which are very important.
    The first one is the progression path. As someone who attained C.Eng back in the days of the mature candidate route with my highest engineering qualification being HNC, I am definite testimony to the validity and relevance of this path to C Eng. Whilst I was not in a formal apprenticeship, my carry had started with something very similar with full time engineering work supplemented by day release. In this day and age of further polytechnics being rebadged as universities, if this had been nw, I world surely have attained B.Eng. But that's not the point - the point is that, in my Engineering work, I steadily increased the dominance of those important professional factors of my practice that are, in my view (as a PRI) the true defining ones that put C.Eng at the head of the profession, and evolved all of the qualities required of a C.Eng "on the job". The key factors were not academic - they were practice/application related. Yes, by the very nature of the mature candidate route, I did have to submit a paper you demonstrate my academic ability - and the then President of the Institute, who shared the same specialism as me so ended up in discussion with me about it, commented that it was far more onerous than a degree course as I used a study into traction interference into parallel telecoms cables developed from first principles, using calculus and Fourier analysis to identify harmonic content in earnest, but, in my view, reinforced by my experience as PRI, this was the least important component in demonstrating that I was worthy of C Eng. I am now, and have been for some considerable time, considered a "senior" in the profession, and this all from the lowly roots I describe. We are truly missing a trick if we don't encourage others to take a similar progression.
    The other distinct component of this argument is the possibly controversial one that many people who have evolved in the way I've described, or through formal apprenticeships, demonstrate the most important qualities required for C.Eng (innovation, professionalism, managerial qualities) more strongly than many (but by no means all) from an academic background. Academic education will rarely, if ever, develop those components of the professional engineer profile and, from my experience, many from an academic background simply don't have that understanding of applying their knowledge to achieving good Engineering outcomes that is inherently learnt by many who go through the apprenticeship (or my approximation to it) route. Cost/safety, cost/value, creativity and innovation are rarely natural products of an academic education.
    The irony of the focus on R&D and design roles is that most of those in these roles need the wider ranging engineer to draw on their inputs to apply their outputs to a well rounded engineering outcome. I was reminded of this only this week when discussing potential roles for myself with potential clients when more than once commented that a designer or R&D role would be a gross failure to draw on my true value, that it was relatively easy to find design or R&D capability but far harder to find the ability to draw on the input of designers and researchers to produce a well rounded engineering outcome, one that achieves the joint goals of innovation and cost/value balance. In my experience, many of those from an academic background really do see things in black and white, and hold very limited ability to innovate or to achieve the 'right', pragmatic and city effective engineering solution required. Designers often lack innovation whilst researchers often lack realism.
    I must stress that the are far from universal observations - there are, of course, many from an academic background who go on to be highly innovative, professional engineers well worthy of the C.Eng status and equally, the are many from an apprenticeship or other more hands on route who never progress to a level where C.Eng is awardable, but I agree that we really need to promote the idea that all routes to registration are worthy of consideration.
    I don't believe that there is any obstacle to this in the assessment and interview process - I feel it allows for this diversity of candidate profiles, but what is needed is to promote and encourage the pursuance of these diverse routes to registration, and the wider recognition that less academic routes are highly worthy of pursuing.
    With regard to the distinctly separate matter of the attitude to I.Eng and the view that it is a second class status, thus hehe been that has already been the registration,
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