Clearly in our small circle of enthusiastic contributors a good technical Apprenticeship is valued rather than stigmatised and is considered a viable pathway to CEng.  However, it is also clear that from a broader sociological perspective “a professional” is taken to mean of “graduate standard” and the UK designation “Chartered” in use by many different professions, adopts this this benchmark. Part of the problem is that for the overwhelming majority of people, education systems select and stream them onto various pathways ending at the age of approximately 18-23. It becomes of limited relevance to most of them thereafter.

 

Within a generation university attendance has increased hugely. We should remember that the generation of engineers who came through in the 1960s and arguably “built the modern world”, in the UK at least, mostly left full-time education by the age of 16 and followed apprenticeships. University participation was less than 10% until the late 1980s only passing 15% in the early 90s. There is no reliable evidence to my knowledge that the performance of the latest generations has “improved”. Although clearly there is a “standing on shoulders” effect.

 

The “employment problem” shared by employers and by engineering graduates is partly supply and demand, but also skills mismatch. https://www.cipd.co.uk/Images/over-qualification-and-skills-mismatch-graduate-labour-market_tcm18-10231.pdf  (The report isn’t focussed on engineering as such).


Blue-chip employers who recruit graduates can be very choosy, often just seeking the “cream of potential”.  Some have also switched investment towards degree apprenticeships. Often hundreds of applicants are chasing a few  training positions, so many good engineering graduates are left disappointed and frustrated. Smaller employers with less wherewithal, naturally prefer someone “job ready” if possible, or they may be reluctant to train a graduate “only to lose them”. Having invested time money and personal commitment these graduates probably deserve even more of our support than an apprentice, who may suffer some snobbery but at least has a job and career. Just like I became an apprentice because I didn’t know anyone who had been to university, the reverse applies to many of today’s engineering students who might have considered an apprenticeship if they had the option.

 

On the employers side, I am critical of lazy (and in Andy’s example plain stupid) assumptions made by recruiters/HR professionals, sometimes encouraged by influential members of our own community. I’m also unsympathetic to many of those who bemoan a lack of suitable talent, without investing in training. However, on the whole employers will act rationally based on their interests, as likewise will Universities but with different priorities, driving a different business model.       

 

I’m happy to accept Roy Pemberton’s comparisons based on his experience, which is more relevant than mine to the CEng category.  Andy Millar similarly, to paraphrase (I hope fairly?) it is ultimately “performance that matters not how you get there”. I agree with much of this, but a significant reason for the discussion, is comparison and categorisation of different engineers. Much of what has occupied the IET Registration & Standards Community over recent years has been interpreting UK-SPEC in the context of experienced professionals (average age 35-50), which is when those who didn’t get on the “golden pathway” at an early stage, start to become interested, often becoming aware for the first time that CEng might be a possibility having previously believed that not having “the right degree” was a “show stopper”.              

 

As I see it the professional engineering community (including PEI’s, Engineering Council, Engineering UK, Royal Academy etc.) has a duty to encourage and to value (aka “nurture”) those who pursue careers in Engineering & Technology. The most relevant age range is around 13-23 when career pathways are being established. Therefore it is this age group that I want us to focus on. 


As a matter of wider social policy, I would see it as a huge waste of talent, energy and national productivity not to have people in their early twenties pursuing careers. In the UK we have benefited considerably from overseas engineering graduates, unable to find suitable employment in their home countries, with graduate unemployment being especially pernicious in some places.  This has perhaps helped to obscure the gap created by the decline in apprenticeships and underlying assumption that they would be “replaced” by full-time undergraduate degrees.

 

Where I consider the “leadership” of the profession to be culpable, is that it has seemed far too “comfortable” with anything  that might lead to “higher status for engineers” (like themselves) and largely disinterested in the “sharp end” of mainstream practice by most Engineers and Technicians (mere “foot soldiers”).

 

There has to be a clear positive proposition to those interested in engineering and technology. With clarity, support and guidance for those pursuing professional careers from an early stage. Instead what we have is a muddled, flawed and often negative proposition to many of them.  We raise the expectations of many undergraduate engineering students unrealistically, before inevitably disappointing quite a few. We insult the graduates of “IEng” or “Technologist” degrees as “second class”, even if the academic standard is the same, because in our eyes, mathematics is more valuable than “applications”(robots are also good at mathematics).  We subject Apprentices, Technicians or Incorporated Engineers (often drawn from the apprenticeship tradition) to snobbery and barriers, either explicit or implicit.

 

Turning this around isn’t a “five minute job” it’s a ten year one.  There has been some modest progress with IET at least trying, boosted perhaps by government apparently being committed to revitalising apprenticeships that include a higher education element.  I think that we need to build a fresh consensus, with a stronger perspective from employers and those universities drawn from the “polytechnic tradition” of building academic understanding around work practices.  For example I met an Apprentice last year following this innovative programme that I hope becomes successful.  http://courses.wlv.ac.uk/course.asp?code=MA001U31UVD  (we had another thread about this subject but it was locked following some disruptive contributions).  I have also enthusiastically supported this initiative  http://www.engineeringgateways.co.uk/  which hasn’t grown beyond a “niche”.  

 

My argument isn’t an “anti-academic” one. We are fortunate to possess some world-class research led universities and a substantial amounts of high quality academic provision in Engineering and Technology disciplines.  Unfortunately the competition for prestige that helps to drive academic excellence, has a potentially negative effect of the perfectly competent but less prestigious “mainstream” of practice. What we need is an attractive achievable terminal threshold for developing engineers to aim for.

 

This leads me to the perhaps unpopular conclusion that achieving the current UK-SPEC CEng standard is often more difficult to demonstrate than it needs to be. Some of a more academic persuasion want to exclude those without a “Washington Accord” degree, whilst some senior professionals want to interpret some of the competences in a more demanding or “difficult” way. Therefore, we have a confusing and inconsistent situation depending on how and where you touch the system. Mehmood suggests one type of inconsistency, but there are others including between PEI's towards similar individuals. For example there is recent evidence of the IET being found more "difficult" than another institution where direct comparison is possible.  “You’ll find out when you get there” isn’t very helpful to those classed as “individual route”. Albeit that the process of professional peer review is a good one.     

                               

On the basis that the idea of a distinctively different “Chartered Engineering Technologist” *, has never made any progress in the UK, I think that we should consider replacing it, with a category of "mainstream" Engineer, benchmarked at “graduate level” taking into account appropriate work-based learning. Anyone seeking further recognition should have to undertake a significant period of monitored professional development first. However, I would envisage if that progression was to Chartered Engineer, a far higher proportion of engineers would progress smoothly into it, than is currently the case, with a good apprenticeship offering no significant disadvantage.  Anything being rationed to only a small percentage of engineers should sit beyond Chartered, if such a category is deemed necessary at all.                 

 

* The original specification for UK-SPEC envisaged Chartered Engineering Technologist as a
new title for Incorporated Engineers. Ramsay Andrew : The History of The Incorporated Engineer: Engineering Council December 2011.     

 

Clearly in our small circle of enthusiastic contributors a good technical Apprenticeship is valued rather than stigmatised and is considered a viable pathway to CEng.  However, it is also clear that from a broader sociological perspective “a professional” is taken to mean of “graduate standard” and the UK designation “Chartered” in use by many different professions, adopts this this benchmark. Part of the problem is that for the overwhelming majority of people, education systems select and stream them onto various pathways ending at the age of approximately 18-23. It becomes of limited relevance to most of them thereafter.

 

Within a generation university attendance has increased hugely. We should remember that the generation of engineers who came through in the 1960s and arguably “built the modern world”, in the UK at least, mostly left full-time education by the age of 16 and followed apprenticeships. University participation was less than 10% until the late 1980s only passing 15% in the early 90s. There is no reliable evidence to my knowledge that the performance of the latest generations has “improved”. Although clearly there is a “standing on shoulders” effect.

 

The “employment problem” shared by employers and by engineering graduates is partly supply and demand, but also skills mismatch. https://www.cipd.co.uk/Images/over-qualification-and-skills-mismatch-graduate-labour-market_tcm18-10231.pdf  (The report isn’t focussed on engineering as such).


Blue-chip employers who recruit graduates can be very choosy, often just seeking the “cream of potential”.  Some have also switched investment towards degree apprenticeships. Often hundreds of applicants are chasing a few  training positions, so many good engineering graduates are left disappointed and frustrated. Smaller employers with less wherewithal, naturally prefer someone “job ready” if possible, or they may be reluctant to train a graduate “only to lose them”. Having invested time money and personal commitment these graduates probably deserve even more of our support than an apprentice, who may suffer some snobbery but at least has a job and career. Just like I became an apprentice because I didn’t know anyone who had been to university, the reverse applies to many of today’s engineering students who might have considered an apprenticeship if they had the option.

 

On the employers side, I am critical of lazy (and in Andy’s example plain stupid) assumptions made by recruiters/HR professionals, sometimes encouraged by influential members of our own community. I’m also unsympathetic to many of those who bemoan a lack of suitable talent, without investing in training. However, on the whole employers will act rationally based on their interests, as likewise will Universities but with different priorities, driving a different business model.       

 

I’m happy to accept Roy Pemberton’s comparisons based on his experience, which is more relevant than mine to the CEng category.  Andy Millar similarly, to paraphrase (I hope fairly?) it is ultimately “performance that matters not how you get there”. I agree with much of this, but a significant reason for the discussion, is comparison and categorisation of different engineers. Much of what has occupied the IET Registration & Standards Community over recent years has been interpreting UK-SPEC in the context of experienced professionals (average age 35-50), which is when those who didn’t get on the “golden pathway” at an early stage, start to become interested, often becoming aware for the first time that CEng might be a possibility having previously believed that not having “the right degree” was a “show stopper”.              

 

As I see it the professional engineering community (including PEI’s, Engineering Council, Engineering UK, Royal Academy etc.) has a duty to encourage and to value (aka “nurture”) those who pursue careers in Engineering & Technology. The most relevant age range is around 13-23 when career pathways are being established. Therefore it is this age group that I want us to focus on. 


As a matter of wider social policy, I would see it as a huge waste of talent, energy and national productivity not to have people in their early twenties pursuing careers. In the UK we have benefited considerably from overseas engineering graduates, unable to find suitable employment in their home countries, with graduate unemployment being especially pernicious in some places.  This has perhaps helped to obscure the gap created by the decline in apprenticeships and underlying assumption that they would be “replaced” by full-time undergraduate degrees.

 

Where I consider the “leadership” of the profession to be culpable, is that it has seemed far too “comfortable” with anything  that might lead to “higher status for engineers” (like themselves) and largely disinterested in the “sharp end” of mainstream practice by most Engineers and Technicians (mere “foot soldiers”).

 

There has to be a clear positive proposition to those interested in engineering and technology. With clarity, support and guidance for those pursuing professional careers from an early stage. Instead what we have is a muddled, flawed and often negative proposition to many of them.  We raise the expectations of many undergraduate engineering students unrealistically, before inevitably disappointing quite a few. We insult the graduates of “IEng” or “Technologist” degrees as “second class”, even if the academic standard is the same, because in our eyes, mathematics is more valuable than “applications”(robots are also good at mathematics).  We subject Apprentices, Technicians or Incorporated Engineers (often drawn from the apprenticeship tradition) to snobbery and barriers, either explicit or implicit.

 

Turning this around isn’t a “five minute job” it’s a ten year one.  There has been some modest progress with IET at least trying, boosted perhaps by government apparently being committed to revitalising apprenticeships that include a higher education element.  I think that we need to build a fresh consensus, with a stronger perspective from employers and those universities drawn from the “polytechnic tradition” of building academic understanding around work practices.  For example I met an Apprentice last year following this innovative programme that I hope becomes successful.  http://courses.wlv.ac.uk/course.asp?code=MA001U31UVD  (we had another thread about this subject but it was locked following some disruptive contributions).  I have also enthusiastically supported this initiative  http://www.engineeringgateways.co.uk/  which hasn’t grown beyond a “niche”.  

 

My argument isn’t an “anti-academic” one. We are fortunate to possess some world-class research led universities and a substantial amounts of high quality academic provision in Engineering and Technology disciplines.  Unfortunately the competition for prestige that helps to drive academic excellence, has a potentially negative effect of the perfectly competent but less prestigious “mainstream” of practice. What we need is an attractive achievable terminal threshold for developing engineers to aim for.

 

This leads me to the perhaps unpopular conclusion that achieving the current UK-SPEC CEng standard is often more difficult to demonstrate than it needs to be. Some of a more academic persuasion want to exclude those without a “Washington Accord” degree, whilst some senior professionals want to interpret some of the competences in a more demanding or “difficult” way. Therefore, we have a confusing and inconsistent situation depending on how and where you touch the system. Mehmood suggests one type of inconsistency, but there are others including between PEI's towards similar individuals. For example there is recent evidence of the IET being found more "difficult" than another institution where direct comparison is possible.  “You’ll find out when you get there” isn’t very helpful to those classed as “individual route”. Albeit that the process of professional peer review is a good one.     

                               

On the basis that the idea of a distinctively different “Chartered Engineering Technologist” *, has never made any progress in the UK, I think that we should consider replacing it, with a category of "mainstream" Engineer, benchmarked at “graduate level” taking into account appropriate work-based learning. Anyone seeking further recognition should have to undertake a significant period of monitored professional development first. However, I would envisage if that progression was to Chartered Engineer, a far higher proportion of engineers would progress smoothly into it, than is currently the case, with a good apprenticeship offering no significant disadvantage.  Anything being rationed to only a small percentage of engineers should sit beyond Chartered, if such a category is deemed necessary at all.                 

 

* The original specification for UK-SPEC envisaged Chartered Engineering Technologist as a
new title for Incorporated Engineers. Ramsay Andrew : The History of The Incorporated Engineer: Engineering Council December 2011.