Your answers Gentlemen, please. This is indicating a serious problem in the Industry. Trust is now zero. I am disgusted with the behavior of these alleged "inspectors" who are dim, dumb, deaf and blind, and cannot read the BBB. It is not good enough is it?
Interesting points from Gaston. The fundamental problem in my view is that education has changed over the last 40 years or so to be all about money. Qualifications are now sold by so-called providers, and to make this work everyone must pass, probably at the highest level. When I was at University (quite a few years ago it must be admitted) getting a first in Engineering required a level of brains, effort, and dedication which very few managed (3 out of about 100 if I remember). Now both the local Universities in Bristol seem to find enough "clever" students from somewhere to make this 25%. Along with the fact that something like 50% go to university, rather than 5%, a miraculous gain in brain power has come from somewhere. Course content is now a fraction of that which it was, and 40hrs a week of contact time (which I had) has now become a few hours between social functions. I knew what I had to do, and I expected to get marks in proportion to my ability and effort. This is no longer the case, Universities are now so all about the money that even seeing a member of the academic staff is restricted because they are so occupied with "research", mostly finding people to give them money!
Even C&G has done something similar, open-book, multiple-choice, distance learning, etc. has reduced real qualifications to something close to rewarding for application and payment. To me this is horrific, and I think the IET is probably suffering the same too, it is ever so keen to sell "training" courses. The Electrical free webinars are a push back against this, but they do not have tests at the end!
Back to the OP, somehow we have to make the EICR more objective. Suggesting that "someone" audits the reports is not going to fly, it is far too difficult and expensive. John Peckhams EICR guide is very good, but needs the addition of separation between inspector and repairs to work. This is essentially the key and applies to industry generally, the inspector or quality control person must be independent of the production management, so that quality is maintained. Usually, these two areas report to the highest level of business management completely independently, we need to separate the two functions.
Interesting points from Gaston. The fundamental problem in my view is that education has changed over the last 40 years or so to be all about money. Qualifications are now sold by so-called providers, and to make this work everyone must pass, probably at the highest level. When I was at University (quite a few years ago it must be admitted) getting a first in Engineering required a level of brains, effort, and dedication which very few managed (3 out of about 100 if I remember). Now both the local Universities in Bristol seem to find enough "clever" students from somewhere to make this 25%. Along with the fact that something like 50% go to university, rather than 5%, a miraculous gain in brain power has come from somewhere. Course content is now a fraction of that which it was, and 40hrs a week of contact time (which I had) has now become a few hours between social functions. I knew what I had to do, and I expected to get marks in proportion to my ability and effort. This is no longer the case, Universities are now so all about the money that even seeing a member of the academic staff is restricted because they are so occupied with "research", mostly finding people to give them money!
Even C&G has done something similar, open-book, multiple-choice, distance learning, etc. has reduced real qualifications to something close to rewarding for application and payment. To me this is horrific, and I think the IET is probably suffering the same too, it is ever so keen to sell "training" courses. The Electrical free webinars are a push back against this, but they do not have tests at the end!
Back to the OP, somehow we have to make the EICR more objective. Suggesting that "someone" audits the reports is not going to fly, it is far too difficult and expensive. John Peckhams EICR guide is very good, but needs the addition of separation between inspector and repairs to work. This is essentially the key and applies to industry generally, the inspector or quality control person must be independent of the production management, so that quality is maintained. Usually, these two areas report to the highest level of business management completely independently, we need to separate the two functions.
