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EC UK Quality Assurance Committee on CPD requirement

Former Community Member
Former Community Member

Quality Assurance Committee on CPD requirement



Published: 01/11/2018

 



All Engineering Council registrants are committed to maintaining and enhancing their competence, which means undertaking Continuing Professional Development (CPD).

From 1 January 2019, licensed members will be required to sample their registrants’ CPD and sampling activity will become part of the licence review process.
Professionally active registrants who persistently do not respond to or engage with requests for CPD records from their institution risk removal from the Engineering Council Register.


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  • 0
    I’m supportive of David Parr’s comments. The IET is trying to do the right thing. Did I read somewhere that the IET expects CPD of all members, I’m unsure if this is being monitored? I interpreted this thread to concern Engineering Council registrants. Therefore, my criticism is mainly aimed at this strategic level, which is a collective “parliament” of PEIs.


    I’m not interested in "blame-games" and "witch-hunts", because it is easy to be wise with the benefit of hindsight. However, the primary concern of the majority of PEI’s has been to create a hierarchy of value in which CEng is held to be “elite” with the other two types of registrant being, subsidiary, “junior” or de-facto excluded.  The model perhaps fits well with those Golf Clubs that have Artisan Sections. Scratch the surface and from a sociological perspective the comparison has some validity.


    Private clubs should quite reasonably have freedom within the law and some good may come from it. For example Muirfield Golf Course is excellent, but the franchise for holding the Open Championship, was under threat of withdrawal because of its sexist policies. To pursue the analogy a little further, I understand that anyone with a handicap of 18 or better is eligible to play there.  As a golfer who hasn’t maintained “CPD” over recent years, that would rule me out just now. However for interest, I sought a statistical distribution curve of golf handicaps and the one that I found (USGA) placed approximately 66% of the total at 18 or better, which is this particular interpretation of a “good golfer”; or should it be a “competent one”, with higher handicappers dismissed as “hackers”? Some clubs have a (good natured) “rabbits” section for them to compete amongst each other, rather than just be potential “bandits” in the monthly medal.


    I appreciate that Golf is a greatly simplified and imperfect metaphor for our enormously varied profession, but if members of the artisan’s section aren’t allowed on the practice ground and have their handicap restricted, then it isn’t a fair game. It seems that only those with a particular type of swing approved by the committee can have their score counted as valid. Only certain people teach that swing and the committee has no, or only token representation from the Artisan Section.   


    I found this newspaper article from last year

    Golf has been going through a steady and steep decline for a decade, with some arguing that the sport urgently needs to undergo a drastic reinvention to avoid a slow slide into obscurity. Membership of clubs in England has fallen from 850,000 to 652,000 in since 2006. So what’s the problem with golf? There are three, according to England Golf’s participation director Richard Flint: time, cost and perception. In other words, playing a round of golf takes forever, costs a fortune and remains, in the mind of many, a pastime enjoyed overwhelmingly by chaps over a certain age sporting Argyle sweaters and pastel-coloured slacks.


    Registration as an Engineer has suffered a similar decline for slightly different reasons, although efforts to get younger people interested have recovered Eng Tech numbers somewhat in recent years, ongoing commitment and progression into "full membership" is less clear. To touch on the question about numbers, at the last count there were circa 28 000 IEng of which the IET has circa 11000 (for CEng the numbers are 176000 and 44000). However it should be noted that close to 40% of registered Engineers and Technicians are over 60 with fewer than 10% under 35. Technicians tend on average to be younger and leave the register within 10 years. IEng and CEng tend to be of similar age at first registration (37) but on average CEng stay on for longer, currently by 5 years. I don’t have enough detailed data to quantify it accurately, but quite a number of IEng, resigned “early”, citing loss of value and disrespect over recent years.    


    Our challenge if we think registration (including CPD) is a good thing, is for it to add value.  A culture has been created over many years that CEng is a “qualification”, rather than on-going annual request to be included on a register. It would be difficult and potentially painful to change this, so we don’t want to. 


    This same culture has positioned the IEng category as being  “part-qualified”, so as I stated in an earlier post, my own CPD over the last 25+ years is now without value in the eyes of Engineering Council. Those who are Eng Tech registered are either “juniors”, or have accepted “the Artisan’s section” as being fit for their needs. Some of them are perhaps the most exposed to statutory regulation.  So most CEng are “sitting pretty” and may resent being “nagged” by their institution. Some Eng Tech and IEng are trying to “progress” but face a minefield in doing so , lacking a recognised  pathway, with even some marked paths having been mined.


    Therefore to strike a topical note, our "International Trade Deals", de-facto only cover academic qualifications and seem to have benefitted just a few migrants.  If a future government wanted to disadvantage inbound skilled migration, they could look towards Engineering Council, but both elements of this seem unlikely to me?  Some people can see clear benefits in membership, others see the whole thing as a “stich up” by elites to exclude them,  the great majority just want a benign and supportive environment in which they can conduct their careers and lives successfully.  If we want to serve that majority, then that is where we need to be.

Reply
  • 0
    I’m supportive of David Parr’s comments. The IET is trying to do the right thing. Did I read somewhere that the IET expects CPD of all members, I’m unsure if this is being monitored? I interpreted this thread to concern Engineering Council registrants. Therefore, my criticism is mainly aimed at this strategic level, which is a collective “parliament” of PEIs.


    I’m not interested in "blame-games" and "witch-hunts", because it is easy to be wise with the benefit of hindsight. However, the primary concern of the majority of PEI’s has been to create a hierarchy of value in which CEng is held to be “elite” with the other two types of registrant being, subsidiary, “junior” or de-facto excluded.  The model perhaps fits well with those Golf Clubs that have Artisan Sections. Scratch the surface and from a sociological perspective the comparison has some validity.


    Private clubs should quite reasonably have freedom within the law and some good may come from it. For example Muirfield Golf Course is excellent, but the franchise for holding the Open Championship, was under threat of withdrawal because of its sexist policies. To pursue the analogy a little further, I understand that anyone with a handicap of 18 or better is eligible to play there.  As a golfer who hasn’t maintained “CPD” over recent years, that would rule me out just now. However for interest, I sought a statistical distribution curve of golf handicaps and the one that I found (USGA) placed approximately 66% of the total at 18 or better, which is this particular interpretation of a “good golfer”; or should it be a “competent one”, with higher handicappers dismissed as “hackers”? Some clubs have a (good natured) “rabbits” section for them to compete amongst each other, rather than just be potential “bandits” in the monthly medal.


    I appreciate that Golf is a greatly simplified and imperfect metaphor for our enormously varied profession, but if members of the artisan’s section aren’t allowed on the practice ground and have their handicap restricted, then it isn’t a fair game. It seems that only those with a particular type of swing approved by the committee can have their score counted as valid. Only certain people teach that swing and the committee has no, or only token representation from the Artisan Section.   


    I found this newspaper article from last year

    Golf has been going through a steady and steep decline for a decade, with some arguing that the sport urgently needs to undergo a drastic reinvention to avoid a slow slide into obscurity. Membership of clubs in England has fallen from 850,000 to 652,000 in since 2006. So what’s the problem with golf? There are three, according to England Golf’s participation director Richard Flint: time, cost and perception. In other words, playing a round of golf takes forever, costs a fortune and remains, in the mind of many, a pastime enjoyed overwhelmingly by chaps over a certain age sporting Argyle sweaters and pastel-coloured slacks.


    Registration as an Engineer has suffered a similar decline for slightly different reasons, although efforts to get younger people interested have recovered Eng Tech numbers somewhat in recent years, ongoing commitment and progression into "full membership" is less clear. To touch on the question about numbers, at the last count there were circa 28 000 IEng of which the IET has circa 11000 (for CEng the numbers are 176000 and 44000). However it should be noted that close to 40% of registered Engineers and Technicians are over 60 with fewer than 10% under 35. Technicians tend on average to be younger and leave the register within 10 years. IEng and CEng tend to be of similar age at first registration (37) but on average CEng stay on for longer, currently by 5 years. I don’t have enough detailed data to quantify it accurately, but quite a number of IEng, resigned “early”, citing loss of value and disrespect over recent years.    


    Our challenge if we think registration (including CPD) is a good thing, is for it to add value.  A culture has been created over many years that CEng is a “qualification”, rather than on-going annual request to be included on a register. It would be difficult and potentially painful to change this, so we don’t want to. 


    This same culture has positioned the IEng category as being  “part-qualified”, so as I stated in an earlier post, my own CPD over the last 25+ years is now without value in the eyes of Engineering Council. Those who are Eng Tech registered are either “juniors”, or have accepted “the Artisan’s section” as being fit for their needs. Some of them are perhaps the most exposed to statutory regulation.  So most CEng are “sitting pretty” and may resent being “nagged” by their institution. Some Eng Tech and IEng are trying to “progress” but face a minefield in doing so , lacking a recognised  pathway, with even some marked paths having been mined.


    Therefore to strike a topical note, our "International Trade Deals", de-facto only cover academic qualifications and seem to have benefitted just a few migrants.  If a future government wanted to disadvantage inbound skilled migration, they could look towards Engineering Council, but both elements of this seem unlikely to me?  Some people can see clear benefits in membership, others see the whole thing as a “stich up” by elites to exclude them,  the great majority just want a benign and supportive environment in which they can conduct their careers and lives successfully.  If we want to serve that majority, then that is where we need to be.

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