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Incorporated Engineer (IEng) UK vs Engineering Technologist (ET) Pakistan

Hi / Assalam u Alaikum

I am registered with the EC as Incorporated Engineer (IEng) through the IET UK. Now i am very pleased to inform all of you that i am also registered with the National Technology Council (NTC) www.ntc-hec.org.pk Pakistan as Professional Engineering Technologist (PE.Tech).

Four Years B.Tech-Hons or BS Tech or BSc Engineering Technology Degrees (attested by the Higher Education Commission - HEC) are the primary requirement to get register with the NTC Pakistan as the Engineering Technologist. On the other hand, EC UK requires two years HND or three years Bachelors Engineering or Technology Degree for the title of Incorporated Engineer (IEng).

I would suggest that the EC UK should also upgrade the eligibility criteria for IEng as four years degree and change the title from IEng to Chartered Engineering Technologist (CET). Its my point of view. The Standards of other countries may also be compared other than Pakistan in this context.

Thank you.

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0 Roy Bowdler over 6 years ago

Hi Andy and sorry Nouman that we are drifting slightly away from your topic, but I think that how we define Technologists and Incorporated Engineers and how people understand them is important.

Following the Sydney Accord (about academic qualifications) a Technologist is defined by their degree. Incorporated Engineer was created around 50 years ago (as TEng) for those without a degree. Later this became, those not having a more academically selective/mathematical/scientific type degree (Washington Accord type). As now defined by UK-SPEC it is defined by competences as demonstrated in employment, with the necessary underpinning knowledge being benchmarked at “bachelors level”. Some UK professional institutions (including the IET) accredit degrees for Incorporated Engineer and these might fit the Sydney Accord model. However in practice, in the eyes of most employers of engineers, graduates of these programmes overlap in capability and potential with graduates from Washington Accord type degrees. In fact very few employers will even be aware of these accords or consider them relevant. This also applies to many academics, those who prioritise their students over their own research simply want to provide maximum added value to each of their students. For example a highly regarded UK university of my acquaintance, developed a flexible delivery model BEng programme for working engineers. Targeting employers in particular sectors (because they pay the fees). When they sought IET accreditation, it became clear that programme could also met the CEng (WA type) accreditation requirements (subject to “further learning to masters level”). What was actually far more important was that the employer’s and their employees (aka Students) got good value, enhancing the university’s already strong reputation and ensuring repeat business.

Many employer’s decision makers will have developed through experience an understanding of “what works for them” when selecting Engineers. If their business model requires a lot of fundamental design or research and development then a “WA type” degree should provide the most optimised preparation and they may prefer such graduates. Some are just prepared to offer a premium for the “brightest and the best” graduate talent, confident that such people will become “high-flyers” often climbing the corporate ladder to senior management. This link explaining “Career Path Appreciation” explains the concept very well http://www.edacen.com/portfolio/MCPA_Handout_Feb_2013.pdf

I’m not advocating the services of this organisation, but I have used a simplified version in career development discussions with Engineers (and others). I would also want to emphasise that we are not dealing here with binary outcomes but “shades of grey” with correlation not certainty. In this framework anything above the first two levels becomes “political”.

Coming back to a couple of Andy’s points.

Over my career span, pressure groups within many occupations areas have sought to become more “professionalised”. On the whole this hasn’t meant actually performing the role to a significantly higher standard or more productively, although there should be a gradual uplift by experience curve effect and technology gains, such as access to knowledge via the internet.

What has primarily occurred is a search for “higher status” which in the culture of the time, has been signified by being “degree educated”. Engineering was an “early adopter” but the reality is that is has always been necessary for a responsible engineer to be broadly of “degree level capability”, but many of them didn’t gain that capability at university and possess a degree certificate to prove it. I had two female relatives who were teachers (one a head teacher) both qualified at Teacher Training Colleges (1935 & 1950) for two years and were more than the equal of more recent degree qualified teachers. HR (aka “Personnel Management”) has followed the same trends, as I migrated into that field I gained the institution’s (ITD) Diploma and thanks to a supportive employer, when the first MSc in HRD was launched in the early 90s, I was admitted as of “graduate standard” but without a bachelors degree, in the first cohort. “Chartered Status” for HR was still some years away.

If an HR professional is advocating only recruiting people with certain qualifications they should have a robust justification and rationale, just like they should ensure that any form of discrimination involving protected characteristics (like age) is objectively justified. Like engineers they may distil this into simple advisory opinions, but opinions based on prejudice without evidence is “amateurism” nor “professionalism”.   I hope that they have read this report https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/work/skills/graduate-labour-market-report . Opportunities to attend university were far less for people over 50 than they are now. Therefore to require a degree, indirectly discriminates against older people, unless the requirement is objectively justified.

Several years ago, I conducted two studies of cohorts of Engineers, drawn from two employers, assessed for professional registration by the IET, using UK-SPEC. The total combined sample size was approximately 80 with age range of approximately 35-50. Both groups could be characterised as “mopping-up” experienced engineers who the employers wanted to be registered and the great majority achieved Chartered Engineer. Our assessment of the A&B competences of UK-SPEC was compared with academic qualifications held. The strongest scorers were HNC holders, just ahead of MSc/MEng with overlap between a small number of ONC holders and more Bachelors graduates. This was far from perfect science, but the perfectly reasonable conclusion could be proposed, that work-based learning is a much stronger determinant of competence in an experienced practitioner than academic preparation. I shared this data with Engineering Council who were sponsoring some research, but I don’t know if that concluded. I have in my many posts around this subject, proposed other hypotheses such as comparisons between apprenticeships and full-time undergraduate courses, all are evidence based , although I readily acknowledge my own bias.

To return to your proposition Nouman, I can only wonder how the situation of Engineers and Technicians in the UK would have been different, if we had introduced Chartered Engineering Technologist 15-20 years ago when it was being considered? It is the “Chartered” element that is crucial in the UK marketplace. So had CET (or CETech) been offered to the market in competition with CEng, then which would customers have preferred? Without the international dimension, perhaps CET could have become more popular, but in every place where Technologist is in use, it seems to designate something “less than an Engineer” and this would have poisoned the UK market. If it represents a different and distinctive set of skills that are widely understood and valued, then it has a legitimate place in that market, but if it merely causes confusion then it should have no place.

Personally I am warmly supportive towards those who choose IEng, or have Technologist chosen for them, by reason of their education. However in the UK and other jurisdictions where this proposition has not been successful over many years, we cannot continue to “buck the market”. I think a better way forward in the UK is “fair progression” for Engineers and further discussion about how we better recognise progression by career Technicians. If you looked at the Career Path Appreciation curves, they suggest that we all progress , albeit the rate of progress may slow and the graph “plateau”. If we tried using this model to set the threshold for CEng, then should it be level 2 or 3? Some CEng seem to be trying to argue for level 4 , which is anticipated around the age of 50 for the “example” person on page 1. I would argue that the current CEng threshold is actually 2 in this model. Perhaps 2 could be “REng” (aka “CEng lite”) and 3 “CEng” in future?
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0 Roy Bowdler over 6 years ago

Hi Andy and sorry Nouman that we are drifting slightly away from your topic, but I think that how we define Technologists and Incorporated Engineers and how people understand them is important.

Following the Sydney Accord (about academic qualifications) a Technologist is defined by their degree. Incorporated Engineer was created around 50 years ago (as TEng) for those without a degree. Later this became, those not having a more academically selective/mathematical/scientific type degree (Washington Accord type). As now defined by UK-SPEC it is defined by competences as demonstrated in employment, with the necessary underpinning knowledge being benchmarked at “bachelors level”. Some UK professional institutions (including the IET) accredit degrees for Incorporated Engineer and these might fit the Sydney Accord model. However in practice, in the eyes of most employers of engineers, graduates of these programmes overlap in capability and potential with graduates from Washington Accord type degrees. In fact very few employers will even be aware of these accords or consider them relevant. This also applies to many academics, those who prioritise their students over their own research simply want to provide maximum added value to each of their students. For example a highly regarded UK university of my acquaintance, developed a flexible delivery model BEng programme for working engineers. Targeting employers in particular sectors (because they pay the fees). When they sought IET accreditation, it became clear that programme could also met the CEng (WA type) accreditation requirements (subject to “further learning to masters level”). What was actually far more important was that the employer’s and their employees (aka Students) got good value, enhancing the university’s already strong reputation and ensuring repeat business.

Many employer’s decision makers will have developed through experience an understanding of “what works for them” when selecting Engineers. If their business model requires a lot of fundamental design or research and development then a “WA type” degree should provide the most optimised preparation and they may prefer such graduates. Some are just prepared to offer a premium for the “brightest and the best” graduate talent, confident that such people will become “high-flyers” often climbing the corporate ladder to senior management. This link explaining “Career Path Appreciation” explains the concept very well http://www.edacen.com/portfolio/MCPA_Handout_Feb_2013.pdf

I’m not advocating the services of this organisation, but I have used a simplified version in career development discussions with Engineers (and others). I would also want to emphasise that we are not dealing here with binary outcomes but “shades of grey” with correlation not certainty. In this framework anything above the first two levels becomes “political”.

Coming back to a couple of Andy’s points.

Over my career span, pressure groups within many occupations areas have sought to become more “professionalised”. On the whole this hasn’t meant actually performing the role to a significantly higher standard or more productively, although there should be a gradual uplift by experience curve effect and technology gains, such as access to knowledge via the internet.

What has primarily occurred is a search for “higher status” which in the culture of the time, has been signified by being “degree educated”. Engineering was an “early adopter” but the reality is that is has always been necessary for a responsible engineer to be broadly of “degree level capability”, but many of them didn’t gain that capability at university and possess a degree certificate to prove it. I had two female relatives who were teachers (one a head teacher) both qualified at Teacher Training Colleges (1935 & 1950) for two years and were more than the equal of more recent degree qualified teachers. HR (aka “Personnel Management”) has followed the same trends, as I migrated into that field I gained the institution’s (ITD) Diploma and thanks to a supportive employer, when the first MSc in HRD was launched in the early 90s, I was admitted as of “graduate standard” but without a bachelors degree, in the first cohort. “Chartered Status” for HR was still some years away.

If an HR professional is advocating only recruiting people with certain qualifications they should have a robust justification and rationale, just like they should ensure that any form of discrimination involving protected characteristics (like age) is objectively justified. Like engineers they may distil this into simple advisory opinions, but opinions based on prejudice without evidence is “amateurism” nor “professionalism”.   I hope that they have read this report https://www.cipd.co.uk/knowledge/work/skills/graduate-labour-market-report . Opportunities to attend university were far less for people over 50 than they are now. Therefore to require a degree, indirectly discriminates against older people, unless the requirement is objectively justified.

Several years ago, I conducted two studies of cohorts of Engineers, drawn from two employers, assessed for professional registration by the IET, using UK-SPEC. The total combined sample size was approximately 80 with age range of approximately 35-50. Both groups could be characterised as “mopping-up” experienced engineers who the employers wanted to be registered and the great majority achieved Chartered Engineer. Our assessment of the A&B competences of UK-SPEC was compared with academic qualifications held. The strongest scorers were HNC holders, just ahead of MSc/MEng with overlap between a small number of ONC holders and more Bachelors graduates. This was far from perfect science, but the perfectly reasonable conclusion could be proposed, that work-based learning is a much stronger determinant of competence in an experienced practitioner than academic preparation. I shared this data with Engineering Council who were sponsoring some research, but I don’t know if that concluded. I have in my many posts around this subject, proposed other hypotheses such as comparisons between apprenticeships and full-time undergraduate courses, all are evidence based , although I readily acknowledge my own bias.

To return to your proposition Nouman, I can only wonder how the situation of Engineers and Technicians in the UK would have been different, if we had introduced Chartered Engineering Technologist 15-20 years ago when it was being considered? It is the “Chartered” element that is crucial in the UK marketplace. So had CET (or CETech) been offered to the market in competition with CEng, then which would customers have preferred? Without the international dimension, perhaps CET could have become more popular, but in every place where Technologist is in use, it seems to designate something “less than an Engineer” and this would have poisoned the UK market. If it represents a different and distinctive set of skills that are widely understood and valued, then it has a legitimate place in that market, but if it merely causes confusion then it should have no place.

Personally I am warmly supportive towards those who choose IEng, or have Technologist chosen for them, by reason of their education. However in the UK and other jurisdictions where this proposition has not been successful over many years, we cannot continue to “buck the market”. I think a better way forward in the UK is “fair progression” for Engineers and further discussion about how we better recognise progression by career Technicians. If you looked at the Career Path Appreciation curves, they suggest that we all progress , albeit the rate of progress may slow and the graph “plateau”. If we tried using this model to set the threshold for CEng, then should it be level 2 or 3? Some CEng seem to be trying to argue for level 4 , which is anticipated around the age of 50 for the “example” person on page 1. I would argue that the current CEng threshold is actually 2 in this model. Perhaps 2 could be “REng” (aka “CEng lite”) and 3 “CEng” in future?
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Incorporated Engineer (IEng) UK vs Engineering Technologist (ET) Pakistan

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