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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               

 

 

 

  • 0
    Christopher,

    I don't disagree with you about what the Engineering Council needs to do (and there has been a lot of discussion on this matter elsewhere) but changing peoples perception is something that we can influence ourselves. If our own company recruiters don't see value, should we leave it to the Engineering Council or try to convince them ourselves?

    Alasdair
  • 0
    I suppose it depends at what level you sit in your company and the size of that company. But yes, it would be wonderful if there was an IET led drive to improve companies perceptions of professional registration. Something I'd like to note, and it's quite amusing for someone registering for it currently, everyone completely forgets EngTech, it's not even a blip on the radar.
  • 0
    We cannot change the past, all of my long-winded arguments are trying to make a case for some modest and sensible evolution based on the evidence before us. At the last opportunity to review our professional standards, there was “no appetite for change” at Engineering Council.  Without Government action seeking to revitalise apprenticeships and especially those with a degree included, there would probably once again have been the same calculation.


    I’m not speaking on behalf of the IET here, but I am seeking to advance the IET’s aspiration to be the professional home for Engineers and Technicians. Only a very small number of people carrying out engineering and technology in the UK have a compelling need to become a registered professional through affiliation to a professional body.  Therefore, we have to present them with an appealing set of benefits for doing so, ie a value proposition.


    There is a different but overlapping argument to be had about skills.  Some of the main issues in that argument could include; National industrial strategy, education and vocational training policy, including life-long learning , public safety, respect of the environment, productivity/wealth creation etc.  The IET enjoys some respect as a contributing stakeholder, because it isn’t a narrowly focussed elitist club. If it were, then its influence would be diminished.  Some members may feel that the primary benefit to them personally is enhanced recognition and status, but we exist for public benefit, as does the register and associated professional titles, intended in the words of Privy Council to “inform not aggrandise”.   


    I agree with David’s basic argument “It doesn't matter what piece of paper apprentices get, it matters that they are equipped with the tools to do the job” to some extent. After all, we are often reminded that that are skills shortages and that productivity in the UK is lower than is some comparable advanced countries. Many well-informed people have also bemoaned the imbalance between academic and vocational.  If anyone is as interested in these issues as I am, then you could do a lot worse than taking an interest in Ewart Keep’s work. https://www.centreforworkbasedlearning.co.uk/praxis-october/ . Perhaps a Great Aunt on my mother’s side will allow an application for a Scottish Passport?wink  

    I’m interpreting Christopher’s comment to be referring to the steady decline in numbers of registered engineers. The age profile of current registrants makes this inevitable, but numbers of new registrants have increased over recent years. CEng and Eng Tech numbers have been strong by historic standards, IEng is about half its 1980s peak.  However the challenge is important, because we shouldn’t be kidding ourselves that our current proposition is a great success. To be more successful we have to focus much more clearly on how we add value to those who are not already Chartered Engineers, or ideally placed to gain that recognition soon.  Irrespective of numbers we also have to maintain our professional integrity and standards. My argument is intending to raise standards. I place that in contrast to those who confuse professional standards with the height of any academic bar used to weed out “unsuitable types”.  These “unsuitables” are often well-trained, successful professionals who are perfectly suitable in the eyes of their employers. Obviously they don’t want to pay someone else to look down on them.surprise        


  • 0
    Roy,

    As ever, a well argued case. We should perhaps have spent more time chatting about this at the Registration and Standards Conference, but there are arguments used to promote CEng, but not so much to promote IEng (and nothing I am aware of to promote EngTech). These are representative of independent recognition of competence and so we should be promoting them, but the message isn't getting out there. We are not going to solve the problems this year, but we can't just sit back and say "someone should be doing something". We need to be doing something ourselves (and I know you are doing all you can with little support from elsewhere). Maybe next year we can get more people starting to take an interest.

    Merry Christmas to all and best wishes for the coming year.

    Alasdair
  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member
    When apprenticeship is discussed do we talk about 100% learning at work or there is a combination of academics, engineering formal education followed by or in parallel to apprenticeship?

    For example, as I pointed in the past the German State certified Technician/Engineer is someone who studied 2400 hours at a technical school and had approved apprenticeship of 2.5 years followed by passing State examinations.

    The qualification is at level 6 on DQF and EQF.

    NARIC UK published in the past that German staatlich geprüfter Techniker (when there were only 5 levels to NQF in UK = level 5) Today it's at level 6 and recognized as acceptable toward UK IEng registration. 

    The good part of combined formal education with an apprenticeship that the professional gets the more holistic formation.

    I think HND or similar may be the bare minimum to the entry into combined apprenticeship toward registration as an Engineer. 



  • 0
    https://www.instituteforapprenticeships.org/apprenticeship-standards/building-services-engineering-site-management-degree/


    An example is always the easiest way to explain and this is the current iteration of the apprenticeship that was developed in the early noughties to Bachelors Degree level under my leadership, from its earlier HNC and HND iteration. That version had been recognised by the UK Government sponsored National Training Awards. It was a revitalisation of a model from the 1950s, when the company supported a "National College" which become a "Polytechnic" then a "University". The additional opportunity arose through the introduction of “Foundation Degrees” by the UK Government. A Foundation Degree (FDSc) was aligned to HND or two-thirds of an honours degree, but awarded by a university and required to have a linked “top up” to the full bachelors.  The hard detailed work was then done by my Community College partner with me in support, to modify the programme and get a suitable partner university on board. The first negotiation broke down, but eventually a year later than initially hoped, we launched our “new” Student Engineer and Commercial Student Training Programme. We did not use the title "Apprentice" because it deterred some, due to the stigma attached to apprenticeships that I have previously described.  "Commercial" in this context referred mainly to Quantity Surveyors, but could embrace Estimating and Procurement. Most Student Engineers gravitated towards project engineering and management, but the option of specialising in design was also available.


    The programme employed young people including directly from school typically at 18, but also some slightly older who hadn’t found an optimum path, transfers from a Craft Apprenticeship, with a Degree that hadn’t launched their career, or having already “topped out” in retail. In each of the four years of training, up to 12 weeks were spent in 4-6 week chunks attending college and subsequently university, living in company provided accommodation. Team projects based around real work scenarios were a major element of the learning, with outputs reviewed by company managers as well as gaining academic credit. The company also provided an additional specialist residential course in each year.  The least committed participant would therefore undertake a combination of structured experience and learning of at least 7000 hours, the most committed significantly more, including private study.  A  salary and all expenses were paid.  The first year qualification for everyone was a BTEC National in Building Services Engineering, with teams remaining mixed between engineering and commercial through the following three years to degree, but some divergence occurring to provided specialism, such as more legal and financial for commercial students.  


    The aims of the programme were aligned to the company’s needs, although obviously the integrated degree met the standards of a proud university and the UK QAA. Some graduates have ended up as specialist design engineers, some as project managers, some as quantity surveyors, with a small number at Director level within ten years.  The PEI that I involved offered IEng accreditation for the Engineer stream leading to Associate Membership. This was a poor proposition that few took up, even with some employer encouragement, quickly recognising it as a stigma, before I did, in the context of their situation as graduate engineers. I was at the time a little embarrassed that the scheme I had established to get them IEng failed to gain their enthusiasm, but with hindsight the symptoms that I didn't recognise from my IIE/IET perspective, became the full scale disease of regarding IEng as an inferior pejorative, including sadly by some within the IET.


    An interesting post-script to the story is that the more recent “Chartered Building Engineer” looks potentially well aligned to my Commercial Stream.  It seems also from a distance that the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors who would have been snooty towards them, have a Degree Apprenticeship now as well.


    My proposition challenges the leadership of our profession to use the words "apprenticeship" and "chartered" in the same  breath without introducing caveats.  I can forgive some hesitancy because the new apprenticeship models haven't delivered yet except for a few early adopters.  Would this one perhaps offer an opportunity for enthusiastic endorsement?
    https://www.instituteforapprenticeships.org/apprenticeship-standards/postgraduate-engineer/




  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member
    I managed to achieve CEng after some debates, heated arguments, emails and meetings. It wasn't easy. The truth of the matter is that the academic snobs didn't want me to win despite my being able to run rings around the best of them. The old establishment crusties are still in existence, sadly and these are the same who would hate the institution to come into the 20th century.


    Bless. They don't know what time of day it is never mind the design intricacies of a monoconical dipole with a counter poise skirt or for that matter a biconical monopole.


    It's doable but it's hard. Bloody hard. The old guard still have the passwords and secret crystals.
  • 0
    Just a hint as to a password and secret crystal...for CEng candidates with an apprenticeship background the panels are likely to be particularly looking for evidence that rather than (or in addition to) being trained to do a set of tasks really well the candidate can show that they can work out how to address tasks they've never faced before.


    I'm not saying this is a right or wrong criteria or expectation for CEng (that's very complicated, and I've run out of energy to discuss it any further this year!). But if apprentice trained candidates can show panels some good examples of where their training (and their colleagues / staff's training) simply didn't apply and so they had to take charge and write new rules for their team - and used good engineering practice to do so - then that will really help show the panel that they have that particular engineering "oomph" that is being looked for for CEng. 

    That all said, I do also regularly see graduate (including Masters) candidates struggling with exactly the same issue - panels are most definitely looking for candidates who can demonstrate they both have and actively use their knowledge, which seems reasonable. 


    It's always a challenge to decide what type and level of "technical" knowledge a CEng should have to show they use in their everyday work - for example as we've discussed here many times before most of us are long way from using advanced maths (the most maths I personally do is adding up the costs when bidding for new work!) If anyone here has any good suggestions of successful examples they can post that may particularly help aspiring CEngs from apprenticeship backgrounds I'm sure that would be really helpful and appreciated.


    Cheers,


    Andy  


  • 0
    I had the good fortune this morning, to discuss with one of our Chartered Engineers his career story.  His family background and education was typical of those just above disadvantaged, but he was able to secure an Electrician’s Apprenticeship. He then had to take out a bank loan to finance his “C” certificate and over the next few years while working in contracting as an estimator and then engineer, gained by part-time study HNC and eventually BEng (Hons). Fortunately, this was an accessible option by then (late 1990s) and still the key to IEE chartership, pre UK-SPEC. Unless you accepted the penalty of waiting until the age of 35 and hoping to be accepted for the Technical Report Route. He became CEng aged 29. Had he come ten years later, then more value might have been given to his work-based learning, but the benchmark had moved to “masters level” and he might easily have “tripped over” someone’s interpretation of “creativity and innovation”, as many have done since.  In my opinion he was an excellent “role-model” engineer, who has enjoyed a strong mostly self-employed career. He could if necessary flex across the whole spectrum of practice from practical to intellectual, within his domain.       


    During a similar time frame, I was managing a “Student Engineer Training Scheme”. A form of apprenticeship with a HNC qualification when I first became involved, but later a  Bachelors Degree in the same four-year timescale. It won awards and became a model for today’s Degree Apprenticeships. Obviously, for a scheme of this nature you are seeking to recruit those with stronger academic potential than for a Craft Apprenticeship, although some transfer took place as potential emerged, as it so often does beyond school age in the different environments that are the workplace and college.  The degree became “IEng accredited” at my request, but some of the higher performers would comfortably outperform most MEng graduates that I have encountered in that sector.  As a result they tended to find pathways towards senior management, ignoring registration, since the  relevant PEI put them in "the second class box", because of their degree and focus on delivery not just front-end design.  A few eventually found their way into spaces where CEng was valued and have achieved ten years behind many MEng graduates.


    In the first example someone literally “fought their way up”, in the second someone had to work very hard early (much harder than a typical undergraduate), but benefited from a paid, structured and supported pathway to becoming a professional engineer (or Technologist is it?). Not everyone was a high-flyer and IEng could have been a fair reflection of their capability, if it added any value to them. However, I can only recall one individual who felt that value, despite my encouragement, as the negative connotations became apparent to them.  Ultimately, perhaps fewer than 5% of my former Student Engineer apprentices sit on the Engineering Council register, despite having been enrolled as members of a PEI as part of their training.  Something has therefore been seriously deficient in our proposition to this type of person and/or their employers.


    I hope that our proposition isn’t going to continue to be seriously deficient in future. If we believe that an apprenticeship is an equally valid potential pathway to Chartered Engineer, then we need to make sure that “fair progression” occurs on the basis of performance, rather than have a series of minefields that someone who didn’t gain maximum teenage academic advantages has to battle through, or just by-passes on their journey to senior management. Unfortunately, many of those influential within the engineering establishment would see this proposition as a threat to the status of the profession, since apprentice implies a “cloth cap or oily rag type” and we don’t have apprentice doctors and lawyers -or do we?  Perhaps we would be better off taking pride in how an engineering career can be an engine of social mobility, rather than inevitably losing a competition for social status with professions that are effectively “closed shops”.


    By coincidence, some of these issues were explored this week in the Radio 4 programme Thinking Allowed https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000281t

  • 0
    https://www.raeng.org.uk/publications/reports/engineering-skills-for-the-future

    However, despite the broad entry routes, for socio-economic participation the record on access for engineering higher education is not good compared to other subjects. In 2013, twice as many students (39%) from the most affluent socioeconomic group (POLAR 3 quintile 5) participated  in engineering degree programmes compared to lower socioeconomic groups (19%) (POLAR3 quintiles 1 and 2)112. Since 2012/13 engineering has also seen a very substantial 20% fall in part-time students. Traditionally, engineering has always had a smaller part-time intake than most other subject areas.  

    around 66% of engineering graduates enter full-time work compared with 58% for all higher education subjects. 56% of the engineering graduates entering full-time work, went into engineering occupations. This equates to 85% of the employed cohort taking on engineering jobs.


    “Traditionally” the majority of Engineers actually followed apprenticeships, involving a blend of work experience and formal learning.  This more recent “tradition” emerged out of  certain academics and bureaucrats gaining control over who should be called an “Engineer”. Having done so, they operated the usual academic competition for status and prestige, “weeding out” the majority of practitioners of Engineering and Technology and placing them into an “inferior” basket.  I am unaware of any evidence about why those from less advantaged social backgrounds, should have less latent potential or aptitude for technical work, but it seems that this evidence suggests it.


    I would actually consider myself a friend of universities and colleges, who worked very closely as an employer with academic partners and made significant levels of investment. In doing so I followed a well-established “tradition”, although by a fine margin, I could have followed the more popular recent trend of prioritising graduate recruitment. Some of the reasons are captured in the report and may come down to “perspiration versus inspiration” inherent in the business model being operated.


    With little or no employer involvement, the emphasis of Engineering programmes is always going to drift towards academic selectivity and theoretical science. More prestigious universities see their role as being to select, educate and research, not to train someone for a vocation. Accreditation by professional bodies has also tended to reinforce a more academic approach, treating anything “applied” as being “inferior”. Hence BEng (Hons) degrees of equivalent quality according to national standards, are regarded as “higher and lower” (CEng/IEng) by PEI accreditors. This encourages a preference for and the substitution of, theory over practice.


    Virtually 100% of those completing a suitable apprenticeship continue into employment as a Technician or Engineer. Where that apprenticeship blend includes a degree, they are usually able to perform immediately in a responsible engineer’s role, often well ahead of an age group peer graduating from a full-time programme.  This of course is only one factor and more academic attributes may offer advantages for certain types of career path. However, a few years later there will be no reliable basis, in most engineer’s roles to differentiate using current performance, categorising one an “Engineer” and the other a (lower) “Technologist”, unless the latter has been intentionally “nobbled”.


    The report concludes  

    Some engineering faculties and departments have developed innovative approaches, increasing design-based project work for students, improving industry collaboration and offering more work placements.


    So “innovation” is actually waking up to the fact that engineering is about practice not just theory. This is exactly what my company  and its academic partners were doing twenty years ago, which itself was built on a much longer apprenticeship tradition.  When with considerable efforts fifteen years ago we were able to offer a degree qualification that the programme deserved. I thought accreditation was a valuable addition, without realising that we got a “second class” ticket. Under PEI influence a “superior” more theoretical model, but practically less successful emerged. It is easy to be superior in theory! Apparently it is related to “innovation”!


    When we prioritise the productivity of Engineer’s training and subsequent performance, over our need to divide experienced competent practitioners of graduate calibre, into “the best and the rest” for status reasons, we may gain more relevance and value.  


    I welcome the report, which contains much that I would sympathise with, but is this still not a reasonably accurate reflection?
    https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2014/nov/21/university-engineering-departments-overalls-research

        

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