Videos of EICRs on Youtube

At the last Elex show in Coventry two years ago I was walking up an aisle and there was a group of four keynote speakers stood talking to each other, three of them recognised me and said hello,  I knew who the fourth person was despite not having spoken to him before as it was Tony Cable.

I stood chatting to them for a few minutes and Tony Cable told us that he failed his exams at college whilst he was an apprentice and had to drop back a year, redo the year and retake the exams. He said that as a teenager it was a wake up call that he needed to stop messing about and take college seriously.

There are some people who fail exams for a variety of reasons, but it doesn’t mean they are not capable or competent , they just need to get their act together and have another go.

Regards the Wiring Regulations exams, I have done the course and exams four times having done the 16th Edition as ten weeks of evening classes , 17th Edition as a one day course, 17th Edition update as a one day course and the 18th Edition as a three day course, so I should have the hang of it by now. When I did the 17th update course the lecturer said to me you will pass this exam easily if you’re the sort of person who can look things up quickly in the Argos catalogue, bearing in mind it was multiple choice on a screen rather requiring a handwritten answer like the 16th Edition exam.

When I did the 18th the invigilator checked our regs books for notes and prompts, she said mine was the cleanest regs book she had ever seen with a minimal amount of highlighting, unlike a couple she confiscated and swapped for a training centre copies. I finished the exam early and having been back through my answers twice signed out, but as I was in a corner I stayed the full time so as not to disturb anyone else despite others leaving. I sat and watched the remaining people, most of them were obviously not used to handling a physical book, the younger guys who are used to looking things up on electronic devices such as phones and tablets cannot physically handle a book and don’t have the ability to “thumb through a book” looking for the page they want, books are alien to them, they don’t have dog eared reference books with the top corners bent over from thumbing through. 

You either understand that or you don’t depending on your age and how accustomed you are to reading physical books, the guys who aren’t used to handling physical books are now at a disadvantage.

Sparkingchip: 
 

At the last Elex show in Coventry two years ago I was walking up an aisle and there was a group of four keynote speakers stood talking to each other, three of them recognised me and said hello,  I knew who the fourth person was despite not having spoken to him before as it was Tony Cable.

I stood chatting to them for a few minutes and Tony Cable told us that he failed his exams at college whilst he was an apprentice and had to drop back a year, redo the year and retake the exams. He said that as a teenager it was a wake up call that he needed to stop messing about and take college seriousl

When I did the 18th the invigilator checked our regs books for notes and prompts, she said mine was the cleanest regs book she had ever seen with a minimal amount of highlighting, unlike a couple she confiscated and swapped for a training centre copies.                                    I sat and watched the remaining people, most of them were obviously not used to handling a physical book, the younger guys who are used to looking things up on electronic devices such as phones and tablets cannot physically handle a book and don’t have the ability to “thumb through a book” looking for the page they want, books are alien to them, they don’t have dog eared reference books with the top corners bent over from thumbing through. 

I can not see the reason to disallow marked or highlighted Regs. books in an open book Regs' exam.

Not being able to use a book for reference shows a lack of manual dexterity, which will be needed later in life and at work. Didn't the young people get any dry runs or mock exams to practice before the real thing? We seem to have walked parallel paths Sparkingchip.

Z.

What is this box?

Some of the guys had regs books that looked like Christmas trees with multicoloured labelled tabs taped onto the edges of pages and highlights in every available colour. 

That is allowed. But you cannot write equations and other information in the book which are basically the answers to questions.

Sparkingchip: 
 

Some of the guys had regs books that looked like Christmas trees with multicoloured labelled tabs taped onto the edges of pages and highlights in every available colour. 

That is allowed. But you cannot write equations and other information in the book which are basically the answers to questions.

 

For the 18th edition I had my regs. book removed and a totally “clean” one issued to me before the exam. All the necessary info. is in the book anyway, highlighted, underlined or not.

Z.

Sparkingchip:

I sat and watched the remaining people, most of them were obviously not used to handling a physical book, the younger guys who are used to looking things up on electronic devices such as phones and tablets cannot physically handle a book and don’t have the ability to “thumb through a book” looking for the page they want, books are alien to them, they don’t have dog eared reference books with the top corners bent over from thumbing through.

I suppose that the time will come when the .pdf version is the norm.

In the mean time, I have heard of puzzled young folk who spread their index finger and thumb and pinch them back again over a picture in a book and wonder why it won't zoom in and out.

Does using a searchable copy of the regs book on a tablet to do an open book exam dumb it down to the lowest level?

Actually, no it doesn’t. It’s a long and involved story, I did the BPEC Water Regulations course and exam at a private training school in Birmingham, there were ten of us me and nine plumbers, I passed they all failed, but you were guaranteed a pass by the training centre so the trainer said they would just have to sit there retaking it until they passed even if they were there all night.

On the way out I said the the trainer “I wonder how long it will take them to twig that the numbers after the questions are the page and paragraph number in the book telling them where the answer is?” he just put his head in his hands.

The trainer said he had been watching us doing the exam and that it was obvious that as an electrician I was the only person taking the exam who actually had any experience of looking things up in a regs book.

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In the mean time, I have heard of puzzled young folk who spread their index finger and thumb and pinch them back again over a picture in a book and wonder why it won't zoom in and out.

I have moved my Dad into a care home a few weeks ago and set his DAB radio up in his room, a button was presumably pressed by mistake and I had to press it to go back to digital from analogue, one of the careers said it hadn’t worked for a couple of days, but none of them had ever used a radio so didn’t know how to tune it.

That Water Regulations exam was multiple choice with the page and paragraph numbers after each question, except for two that required a written answer of just one line of around six words.

The answer sheet was a single A4 sheet with answer grids and you had to put an X in the correct box for each question, this was then marked by putting a plastic sheet over the top with holes cut in it so the guy running the course could count the X’s, there were also two slots cut in the sheet so so he would read the two one line written answers.

I enquired why I had only got 99%? He laughed and said one of the written answers didn’t have one of the correct words in it, but then said “Actually no one gets 100%, that’s why there are two written answers, you will never actually get the correct wording” then said don’t worry about it, you’re the only person going home I could be here for hours with the rest of them.

That is absolutely disgusting! I am shocked to the core. That is not an examination and the “qualification” is totally worthless. This box-ticking attitude is now so bad that it seems that everyone has to be “qualified” but they know nothing. Just what use is that to anyone? As an opposite to start to correct this problem, I suggest that “Inspectors” should now have to have Honours Degrees and be Chartered members of the IET, and possibly PhDs in electrical engineering of course, as well. At least even the least qualified of them will have some small ability to think slightly, and possibly to spell too as this is a requirement to write a thesis!

Personally I wouldn't say the wiring regs qualification confers a level of competency. I know several people who have passed it and don't have a clue regarding install or inspection.

Equally I know people with degrees who you wouldn't want inspecting anything. I also know people with no qualifications at all who are brilliant installers and inspectors.

Realistically I would suggest that this needs to be addressed via people being assessed specifically for inspection. Not all electricians are good inspectors and vice versa.