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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               

 

 

 

Parents
  • 0
    Moshe and Mahmood, I can answer you both with much the same response. I agree with both of you. Except the very last part of Mshmood's post. There's no scam. The point that we're all agreeing violently on is that the problem is employers' attitudes in placing degrees - which do not, of themselves, a professional engineer make - as their selection criteria, rather than the whole consideration of a well-rounded professional, regardless of what has brought that professional to that position.
    I'll tell one more anecdote. I briefly mentioned my time in the Middle East. When I started building the business, I talked to "informed clients" - senior representatives of the client who all proudly proclaimed the 'Doctor' in their title and expected that it would precede their name, even when referring to them by first name in informal, friendly conversation. They had all obtained their qualifications in the USA. They were amongst the strongest believers in academic snobbery I have ever encountered. I presented them with some of the world's leading engineers, specialists in their field - my company had the recruiting power to do that - and they immediately looked at academic qualifications, which were not always what they were used to seeing - they even had difficulty with C.Eng or Eur.Eng, focusing totally on degrees and the US Registered Engineer status, utterly unaware that the latter if utterly inconsistent, varying from state to state, and is far less demanding, generally, than C.Eng.
    I pushed on, spending time to educate them, showing them International acclaim for the C.Eng Gold Standard, walking them through illustrations of how superior the requirements are to those of most States Reg. Eng requirements and most degrees, showing them the profile of individuals' being offered - people who had been responsible engineers on huge, prestigious engineering projects, Internationally - and gradually brought them round to realising that, by widening their views, they would get the best the world has to offer. Eventually, they eased back into trusting our selection criteria, criteria mostly unrelated to academia, but focused on evidence of professional competence and achievements.
    This is the challenge, the task, I think most of us on this thread are saying needs to be met by both the IET as a whole and us as individuals - the IET recognises it in both the Registration process and it's overall support to members. The uphill battle - but one not to shy away from - is to bring employers round to that way of thinking, and that is for both the IET, and individuals - especially those who can claim to be senior professionals - Fellows, etc. - to take on. I believe it is one of the biggest responsibilities of Fellows.
    On the positive, I don't believe that what you both describe is as universal as you perceive - I've encountered many employers, and client organisations who have moved into a more enlightened position.
    Reference was made in an earlier post to other PEIs, and I commented on my experience with the ICE - not recent and probably not the only PEI of which it's true - that suggested they may not be as open minded on this as the IET. I think it may be no coincidence that the heftiest resistance to this viewpoint, in my experience, tends to be from those recruiters from a Civil Engineering background. Ironic that, when I talk to Civil Engineering colleagues, they are the ones that most often perceive their subs to their Institute as delivering them no value and as being no more than entry fees to practice their profession.
    So, as well as tackling employers, maybe the IET needs a renewed attack on persuading its fellow PEIs to become more enlightened?
Reply
  • 0
    Moshe and Mahmood, I can answer you both with much the same response. I agree with both of you. Except the very last part of Mshmood's post. There's no scam. The point that we're all agreeing violently on is that the problem is employers' attitudes in placing degrees - which do not, of themselves, a professional engineer make - as their selection criteria, rather than the whole consideration of a well-rounded professional, regardless of what has brought that professional to that position.
    I'll tell one more anecdote. I briefly mentioned my time in the Middle East. When I started building the business, I talked to "informed clients" - senior representatives of the client who all proudly proclaimed the 'Doctor' in their title and expected that it would precede their name, even when referring to them by first name in informal, friendly conversation. They had all obtained their qualifications in the USA. They were amongst the strongest believers in academic snobbery I have ever encountered. I presented them with some of the world's leading engineers, specialists in their field - my company had the recruiting power to do that - and they immediately looked at academic qualifications, which were not always what they were used to seeing - they even had difficulty with C.Eng or Eur.Eng, focusing totally on degrees and the US Registered Engineer status, utterly unaware that the latter if utterly inconsistent, varying from state to state, and is far less demanding, generally, than C.Eng.
    I pushed on, spending time to educate them, showing them International acclaim for the C.Eng Gold Standard, walking them through illustrations of how superior the requirements are to those of most States Reg. Eng requirements and most degrees, showing them the profile of individuals' being offered - people who had been responsible engineers on huge, prestigious engineering projects, Internationally - and gradually brought them round to realising that, by widening their views, they would get the best the world has to offer. Eventually, they eased back into trusting our selection criteria, criteria mostly unrelated to academia, but focused on evidence of professional competence and achievements.
    This is the challenge, the task, I think most of us on this thread are saying needs to be met by both the IET as a whole and us as individuals - the IET recognises it in both the Registration process and it's overall support to members. The uphill battle - but one not to shy away from - is to bring employers round to that way of thinking, and that is for both the IET, and individuals - especially those who can claim to be senior professionals - Fellows, etc. - to take on. I believe it is one of the biggest responsibilities of Fellows.
    On the positive, I don't believe that what you both describe is as universal as you perceive - I've encountered many employers, and client organisations who have moved into a more enlightened position.
    Reference was made in an earlier post to other PEIs, and I commented on my experience with the ICE - not recent and probably not the only PEI of which it's true - that suggested they may not be as open minded on this as the IET. I think it may be no coincidence that the heftiest resistance to this viewpoint, in my experience, tends to be from those recruiters from a Civil Engineering background. Ironic that, when I talk to Civil Engineering colleagues, they are the ones that most often perceive their subs to their Institute as delivering them no value and as being no more than entry fees to practice their profession.
    So, as well as tackling employers, maybe the IET needs a renewed attack on persuading its fellow PEIs to become more enlightened?
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