18th Edition training is it only for electricians?

This “qualifications” thing is greatly misunderstood. The 18th exam is very simple and to pass one needs to know very little of actual electrical installation work. It is completely useless as a basis for design. It is open book, and one needs to only know enough to find the right regulation in the index and to understand the answer the question asks. I have taught many people for this “update only” exam, assuming they know enough to pass, and although they nearly all did after following a fairly strict discussion of how to find the answers, in many cases the underlying knowledge was very poor. I had one candidate who had fairly serious dyslexia, but with some instruction passed. I think he was a perfectly satisfactory installer.

However, the problem is that all these people had probably passed other exams, but the level of real understanding of the regulations was poor. If it were a closed book exam, very few would have got a reasonable mark and probably failed. As most of them generally did domestic or small commercial work this probably does not matter too much, they have a standard set of designs and just repeat these, it is simple wiring and fixing of accessories.

The problem comes when they then try to inspect and test an unknown installation. If it does not match these design points, they are lost. You will see this from many of the questions here, and mostly a satisfactory answer may be found in the onsite guide, but they cannot identify it or have not got the OSG or the copy of BS7671. The big book is difficult to use if one does not have the underlying knowledge, but it is not expected to be a textbook. There are a few textbooks, but understanding these takes some effort, and they tend to become out of date fairly quickly. How do we solve this problem, it is certainly not via the 18th exam or anything like it.

This “qualifications” thing is greatly misunderstood. The 18th exam is very simple and to pass one needs to know very little of actual electrical installation work. It is completely useless as a basis for design. It is open book, and one needs to only know enough to find the right regulation in the index and to understand the answer the question asks. I have taught many people for this “update only” exam, assuming they know enough to pass, and although they nearly all did after following a fairly strict discussion of how to find the answers, in many cases the underlying knowledge was very poor. I had one candidate who had fairly serious dyslexia, but with some instruction passed. I think he was a perfectly satisfactory installer.

However, the problem is that all these people had probably passed other exams, but the level of real understanding of the regulations was poor. If it were a closed book exam, very few would have got a reasonable mark and probably failed. As most of them generally did domestic or small commercial work this probably does not matter too much, they have a standard set of designs and just repeat these, it is simple wiring and fixing of accessories.

The problem comes when they then try to inspect and test an unknown installation. If it does not match these design points, they are lost. You will see this from many of the questions here, and mostly a satisfactory answer may be found in the onsite guide, but they cannot identify it or have not got the OSG or the copy of BS7671. The big book is difficult to use if one does not have the underlying knowledge, but it is not expected to be a textbook. There are a few textbooks, but understanding these takes some effort, and they tend to become out of date fairly quickly. How do we solve this problem, it is certainly not via the 18th exam or anything like it.