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

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?                      

Dear Roy


Your such an elaborative comments are highly appreciable.  Thank you.

Hi Roy,


Two really interesting links, thank you - I hadn't come across CPA before.

Therefore to require a degree, indirectly discriminates against older people, unless the requirement is objectively justified.

And, indeed, to require a "1st or 2.1" - when I graduated maybe 1 or 2 people per cohort got a 1st (in any subject), and handful got 2.1s. In any case, as I've often said before, by 10 years after graduation your track record says far more about you than your degree does. However, when I was in my 40s I was being turned down at CV submission stage for R&D jobs because I didn't have a 1st or 2.1 - despite having run two highly successful and high profile R&D teams by then. I don't, of course, know whether the policy in these cases was set be the recruiter or by the engineering manager.


For anyone who still hasn't seen it - it's probably a couple of years since I last posted it - I've yet again attached my favourite (apocryphal) story on this below.


I'd better not comment too much on your last paragraph or I'll start ranting  I think we're on the same page here. As a PRA and as a competence assessor for safety critical systems I'd just add that the main thing I want to see is reliability and validity - irrespective of where the levels are set and what they're called. Two people who are equally competent in comparable roles should be able to achieve the same registration level, irrespective of their backgrounds. And that registration level should tell any third party why they can be trusted to work at that level - whatever it is decided "that level" is.


Cheers,


Andy

 

John Kallam graduated with a BA in criminology and entered the US Army. He served for 20 years beginning in the late 1930s. He was an investigator during the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals, and stayed in Germany for many years organising civilian police forces in the post-war era. He also wrote numerous books on criminal justice. He retired from military service in the late 1950s at the rank of full colonel.


Returning to Fresno, California, he began teaching criminology at what was then Fresno State College (later to become the California State University, Fresno). His work was well respected, but after about ten years of service, he was called to see the president of the college.


He was informed that he could no longer teach with just a bachelor's degree. Times were changing, he was told, and the school demanded that faculty members hold a graduate degree. Merely having 20 years of distinguished experience was no longer considered sufficient qualification to teach. All new faculty were being required to hold a doctorate, it was explained, and the school was actually doing him a favour by letting him keep his job by getting 'only' a master's degree.


So John enrolled in a summer program at an out of state college. Three months of intensive seminars and then nine months of home study would get him his MA.


On the first day of class, the instructor was taking roll. He stopped when he read John's name.


"Are you related to the John Kallam who wrote the textbook we'll be using?" he asked.


"I am the John Kallam who wrote the textbook you're using," came the dry response.

The constant and never ending comparisons between academic qualifications (HNC BEng, and MEng); and registrations awards (IEng, and MEng); suggests that the IET, EC, engineers, and industry (or HR to be precise) treat all engineers as having the same level of intelligence, or IQ. 


It is perfectly possible for an BEng IEng member to be capable of educating themself by reading text books and technical manuals; and elevatating their knowledge to Masters level or even higher, in a matter of days. On the other hand, a CEng with masters degree may need to attend courses to help them understand new knowledge. And of course, it can be the other way round. It's really down to the individual's intelligence.


So this concept, or belief, that an BEng IEng is always below an MEng CEng fails to considers the IQ level of the individual BEng IEng holder compared to the individual MEng CEng holder.


We're now in a world where engineers have to face with newer computer systems; an array od operating systems, and programming languages. And there's more of it, that requires employing more engineers with technology skills; and of course the WWW provides a limitless access to knowledge and networking. Dealing with all the continuing varied and changing knowledgw, and handling the added responsibilities are far more important to the reputation of the individual engineer, and employer, than just engineering titles.


The obsession with being called an engineer, as opposed to an engineering technologists, is rather antiquated and out of touch with the times. We're much more engineer and technologists and plain engineers.


We really need to modernise our identity to fit the responsibilities in front of us in this new world.


Sorry about the rambling. I am less talented than others in communicating my thoughts in a fluid manner than others in these forums.

I forgot to add. In the case of John Kallam, it is quite clear that the California State University should have awarded him an honorary masters, or doctorate degree, in recognition of his vast contribution to criminology. An administrative oversight on behalf of the university I think.

Mehmood,


Your posting about IQ is really interesting. There's two further issues - some areas of engineering require huge levels of "trained" diligence and knowledge of previous best practice, and some require the sort of complete new imagination this suggests. (Not necessarily exactly IQ: as an occasional member of Mensa, when I can be bothered to pay my fees, I'm very well aware that IQ measures a pretty narrow and specific type of problem solving ability. This is absolutely relevant to engineering innovation - or at least, problem solving - but certainly isn't the whole story.)


For me this is the centre of the challenge that is currently being faced over who should be eligible for CEng - "safe and experienced and steady" or "imaginative and innovative (and steady!)". My personal view is either. After all, my job (and interest) is to encourage innovation in safety critical environments, and we need both types at senior levels - working together and respecting each other - to achieve this.


Back when I were a lad the guideline used to be that if you worked hard you got a 2.2, if you were brilliant you got a 2.1, and if you worked hard and were brilliant you got a 1st. I'm not sure how much that still applies - but I do 100% agree that it is much harder than many would suggest to correlate with absolute certainty that "spark" (call it IQ or whatever) with any particular qualification level.


And I could not agree with you more about continue learning. This is an odd thing, it seems to be related to attitude rather than ability. Some people decide that they've worked to graduation and that's it, they've finished studying. Others, irrespective of their underlying formal education, are just fascinated by what's around them and keep learning. I - at the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man - don't see how you can be an effective engineer with that first attitude. I would love to see CPD tightened up as a really stringent requirement for maintaining professional registration, at any level. (As discussed elsewhere, not CPD through turning up to, and sleeping through an IET seminar, but often just through doing different things in the day job, talking to peers about what they're doing, etc etc etc)


How we measure and evaluate any of this remains the big challenge...


Cheers,


Andy