Rules and Guidelines
Want to participate in the discussions? Please read our Community Rules and Guidelines. Need some help? Visit Support and Answers.

  • State Not Answered
  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 158 replies
  • Subscribers 9 subscribers
  • Views 4995 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
You may also be interested in
This discussion is locked.
You cannot post a reply to this discussion. If you have a question start a new discussion

Is an Apprenticeship an equally valid pathway to Chartered Engineer - a historical anachronism or the future?

Roy Bowdler
This is National Apprenticeship Week.  

 

An unintended and unfortunate consequence of UK government policies and wider economic changes in the 1980s and 1990s was a very substantial decline in apprenticeships which had served previous generations so well.  They didn’t die completely because employers (like the company that I was Training Manager of) understood their value, not just for skilled craft trades, but also as an alternative option to “Graduate Training Schemes” for Engineers and Managers, traditionally leading to HNC type qualifications, but from the mid-2000s increasingly degrees. Initiative was eventually picked up by Government, turning it into a “flagship” policy.  This has had an effect, but policy is not implementation and typically the brewery visit has not been well organised (with apologies to those unfamiliar with British vulgar slang). However, changes like this can take years if not decades to “bed in”, so I hope that we will keep trying.

 

Engineering Council has always been dominated by the academic perspective and relatively poorly connected with employers, therefore it has associated Apprenticeships with Technicians and not with Chartered Engineers, although it accepted that it was possible "exceptionally via bridges and ladders” for a Technician to develop into a Chartered Engineer. Incorporated (formerly Technician) Engineer was also drawn from the Apprenticeship tradition. However, once the qualification benchmark was adjusted to bachelors level, it was also intended to become the “mainstream” category for graduates, with CEng being “premium” or “elite”.  Unfortunately the Incorporated category has not been successful and its international equivalent “Technologist” defined as it is by degree content (i.e. less calculus than an “engineer”) also seems equally poorly regarded or even legally restricted in other countries.

 

Now we have Degree Apprentices coming through, the profession has responded by offering Incorporated Engineer recognition at an early career stage. This should in principal be a good thing and I have advocated it in the past. However, I am seriously concerned that this may also stigmatise them as a “second class” form of professional, as has been the tradition to date.

 

Over the last few years Engineering Council has adopted a policy encouraging younger engineers to consider the Incorporated Engineer category as a “stepping stone” to Chartered Engineer. Some professional institutions have promoted this often with a particular focus on those “without the right degree for CEng” with some success. However the approach “kicks the can down the road” to the question of how they should subsequently transfer to CEng.  There are potentially likely to be some frustrated, disillusioned and even angry engineers, if they find that “progression” is blocked and that they are stuck on a “stepping stone”.  We don’t need more unnecessary “enemies” amongst them, we have created enough already. 

 

A further problem is that those with accredited degrees do not expect to require a “stepping stone” and consider IEng to have no value for them or even perhaps at worst insulting. Many employers of Chartered Engineers and the professional institutions are steeped in the tradition of recruiting those with accredited degrees and developing them to Chartered Engineer in around 3-5 years. Other graduate recruiters may be less academically selective, but share similar traditions and expectations.

 

Is therefore a Degree Apprenticeship an equally valid pathway compared to a CEng accredited (BEng or MEng) full-time undergraduate degree course?  Is performance and current capability (aka “competence”) the appropriate frame of reference for comparison, or should those from each pathway be separated academically and considered to be different “types”, or on “fast” and slow tracks”?

 

As Degree Apprenticeships develop further, there will be those who gain CEng accredited degrees and have work experience via an “even faster track”. My concern is that those graduates from Degree Apprenticeships who are more competent and productive than their age group peers from full-time degree programmes, but disadvantaged in academic recognition terms, may find themselves in a seemingly unfair and anomalous situation.  

 

In addition, those employers who primarily “exploit existing technology” may continue to feel that the Engineering Council proposition is contrary to their interests and discourage engagement. Employers who invest in apprenticeships state that they experience greater loyalty from former apprentices, relative to graduate trainees and often a better return on investment.  Whereas the professional institution proposition emphasises different priorities, which may align quite well with Research & Development or Consultancy type business models, but not with Operations and Maintenance or Contracting. My experience as an employer trying to encourage professional engagement was that the Professional Institution concerned advised employees informally to “move on if you want to become Chartered”, because they valued Project Engineering less than Design Engineering. As for management, this was definitely “chartered engineering” if you held the right type of engineering degree and valued if it was “prestigious”. If you didn’t hold the right type of engineering degree and weren’t “highly prestigious” then it wasn't valued much.

 

If Degree Apprenticeships become more strongly established, do we want to accept them as an equally valid pathway to a range of excellent careers including Chartered Engineer, or do we wish to continue our long-standing policy of treating them as useful but second or third class pathways? Will weasel words of platitude be offered ,whilst existing attitudes and practice are allowed to prevail?    


If the answer is we that want to give apprentices equal value, then in the current climate of retribution, should those who have enthusiastically encouraged the stigma and snobbery against them consider falling on their swords? Enthusiasm for excellence in engineering, especially in stretching academic circumstances is a virtue not a crime and I strongly support it. Unfortunately however many around the Engineering Council family, perhaps motivated by a neediness for “status”, seem to have been mainly concerned with rationing access to the Chartered category by other “graduate level” practitioners, and disparaging those drawn from the apprenticeship tradition. 

 

Further Reading

 
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/a-new-apprenticeship-programme-kicks-off-national-apprenticeship-week-2018

 
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-law-will-end-outdated-snobbery-towards-apprenticeships

 
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/further-education/12193128/Theres-been-an-apprenticeship-stigma-for-far-too-long.html

 
http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/theres-still-a-stigma-around-apprenticeships-people-look-down-on-you-3622353-Oct2017/

 
https://www.fenews.co.uk/featured-article/14816-overcoming-the-apprenticeships-stigma-not-before-time

 
https://www.bcselectrics.co.uk/news/pushing-back-against-stigma-apprenticeships

 
‘Stigma against apprenticeships must end,’ says Network Rail boss. Mark Carne, Network’s Rail’s chief executive (Rail Technology News)

   
https://www.standard.co.uk/tech/national-apprenticeship-week-young-women-stem-apprenticeship-a3781606.html

 
http://www.aston.ac.uk/news/releases/2017/july/uks-first-degree-apprentices-graduate/

 
https://www.stem.org.uk/news-and-views/opinions/apprenticeships-better-skills-better-careers          

 
http://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/blog/Pages/Why-I-chose-the-degree-apprenticeship-route.aspx               

 

 

 

  • 0
    That's not my experience Moshe. I have been Technical Director and Professional Head in two well renowned International Engineering Consultancies, a member of the International Professional Board (the board responsible for professional practice) of one of those and am now in high demand as an independent engineering consultant in my specialist field, generally regarded as one of the most senior in my field. I don't have an engineering degree. And that's not only because I'm now one of the oldest practicing engineers in my field - my first Professional Head position was when I was 47. And given I know you regularly make the point about difference in acceptance within the UK as against the rest of the world, I'd point out that I was head of the 750 strong Middle East Division of one of those engineering consultancies for 3 years (before ill health caused a hiatus in my career).
    The perception you describe is exactly what we need to fight to overcome, and I'm glad to say that the IET is championing that cause. That is precisely the point several of us here are trying to make - the Institute and it's Registration process provides the path for all who hold the knowledge and understanding, together with the Professional standards and ability to apply their engineering ability to innovate and benefit the community, to achieve senior engineering status. The battle we need to win is against the very academic prejudice you describe. As so many have pointed out, simply getting a degree does not, of itself, make a good professional engineer.
    Let's not quote such prejudice as a reason to roll over and give into it. Let's join battle to change those attitudes
  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member
    The thing that I'm picking up in this - and previous - thread is the different messages that are given off by representatives of the IET when it comes to CEng registration. On the one hand, youngsters at school are being encourage to take up STEM subjects, to becoming an Engineer as an exciting career; on the other hand, mature and experience Engineers are being told that a degree and apprentiship followed by experience aren't necessarily sufficient to achieving CEng status; leaving millions - according to some EC report - of engineers not even bothering to take up registration. Now if children are discouraged from pursuing academic studies by their teachers, that could be seen as holding children back from achieving their full potential; when an employer discourages a qualified and experienced employee by suggesting they're not good enough for promotion, that could be interpreted as discrimination; in the sporting world, competitors put each other down to gain some sort of a mental advantage over each other; in championship boxing, it's referred to as 'trashtalk mind games'; in the financial world, miss selling products such as PPI is considered a scam. Those CEngs giving what they believe are mature interptetation of the UKSpec - and from their personal experiences of what it takes to be a CEng to both children and adult engineers, need to be aware that they're sitting on a fine fence of giving what they believe is an honest advice, and a selling a scam.
  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member
    Roy, I respect your opinion and experience. 

    In my opinion, there are many anecdotal success stories and yours is definitely a positive one, I know successful engineers who achieved highest levels and never had more than a technician certificate. Yet these are not the norm and more than that and being in hiring decisions in the past I can say these are the exceptions.
    In my humble opinion, the independent engineering consultant no degree vs independent engineering consultant with a degree are not treated as equals when it comes to competing for jobs. 

    Today's candidate's CV may not even get to the hiring managers review if it failed the screening process and a lot of times not having the right degree sends the CV to a secondary folder.

    Giving other candidates are as competent and experienced as the nondegreed one. So we compare Engineers who demonstrate achievement and other qualities but also hold a degree, especially if the degree is from name recognized university.

    I didn't have a study on this but from observations, I will never forget an eye-opening situation, when we had an opening for an Engineer.

    The first week we got 200 CV's then and the week after even more, CV's of applicants who didn't have a degree in the required discipline or comparable one didn't get into the first batch of CV's that hiring manager and the team reviewed. 

    Highly capable and experienced candidates competed against highly capable and experienced candidates, the difference was formal academic education.

    If I had a child who wanted to enter Engineering profession I would want him/her to have a good education from name recognized school and good training and chances to be employable. I would support apprenticeship rout if it led to a respectful academic degree. 

    Just my opinion and I respect what others.






  • 0
    Moshe and Mahmood, I can answer you both with much the same response. I agree with both of you. Except the very last part of Mshmood's post. There's no scam. The point that we're all agreeing violently on is that the problem is employers' attitudes in placing degrees - which do not, of themselves, a professional engineer make - as their selection criteria, rather than the whole consideration of a well-rounded professional, regardless of what has brought that professional to that position.
    I'll tell one more anecdote. I briefly mentioned my time in the Middle East. When I started building the business, I talked to "informed clients" - senior representatives of the client who all proudly proclaimed the 'Doctor' in their title and expected that it would precede their name, even when referring to them by first name in informal, friendly conversation. They had all obtained their qualifications in the USA. They were amongst the strongest believers in academic snobbery I have ever encountered. I presented them with some of the world's leading engineers, specialists in their field - my company had the recruiting power to do that - and they immediately looked at academic qualifications, which were not always what they were used to seeing - they even had difficulty with C.Eng or Eur.Eng, focusing totally on degrees and the US Registered Engineer status, utterly unaware that the latter if utterly inconsistent, varying from state to state, and is far less demanding, generally, than C.Eng.
    I pushed on, spending time to educate them, showing them International acclaim for the C.Eng Gold Standard, walking them through illustrations of how superior the requirements are to those of most States Reg. Eng requirements and most degrees, showing them the profile of individuals' being offered - people who had been responsible engineers on huge, prestigious engineering projects, Internationally - and gradually brought them round to realising that, by widening their views, they would get the best the world has to offer. Eventually, they eased back into trusting our selection criteria, criteria mostly unrelated to academia, but focused on evidence of professional competence and achievements.
    This is the challenge, the task, I think most of us on this thread are saying needs to be met by both the IET as a whole and us as individuals - the IET recognises it in both the Registration process and it's overall support to members. The uphill battle - but one not to shy away from - is to bring employers round to that way of thinking, and that is for both the IET, and individuals - especially those who can claim to be senior professionals - Fellows, etc. - to take on. I believe it is one of the biggest responsibilities of Fellows.
    On the positive, I don't believe that what you both describe is as universal as you perceive - I've encountered many employers, and client organisations who have moved into a more enlightened position.
    Reference was made in an earlier post to other PEIs, and I commented on my experience with the ICE - not recent and probably not the only PEI of which it's true - that suggested they may not be as open minded on this as the IET. I think it may be no coincidence that the heftiest resistance to this viewpoint, in my experience, tends to be from those recruiters from a Civil Engineering background. Ironic that, when I talk to Civil Engineering colleagues, they are the ones that most often perceive their subs to their Institute as delivering them no value and as being no more than entry fees to practice their profession.
    So, as well as tackling employers, maybe the IET needs a renewed attack on persuading its fellow PEIs to become more enlightened?
  • 0
    I only have time for a quick comment at the moment, but just to add: About 15 years ago I was very seriously job hunting. I had 20 years VERY successful postgraduate R&D and management experience in two very different, and very "high end" industries. (And I had CEng.) I really struggled to get through recruitment agencies' and HR departments' CV sifting processes because I only had a third class BEng. I don't see any evidence that this situation has changed, with so many UK engineering graduates around recruiters believe they can afford to draw this arbitrary line under not just degrees, but 2.1 degrees. And then employers (who are sometimes complicit, or sometimes don't see this filtering) complain that they're not getting enough applicants...


    Cheers, Andy
  • 0

    Mehmood Birdi:

    Those CEngs giving what they believe are mature interptetation of the UKSpec - and from their personal experiences of what it takes to be a CEng to both children and adult engineers, need to be aware that they're sitting on a fine fence of giving what they believe is an honest advice, and a selling a scam.




    I typed a long reply but the forum system lost it, so as I must get back to work I've only time for a short reply:


    1. As UK Spec stands not all engineers can be CEng. Which, as I've explained extensively, is really useful as one small part of a justification for those who can personally sign off major projects. 

    • It's not a "scam" to say that not everyone entering a profession will end up in the same position. Telling every new recruit to the army that they were all going to end up as generals would be a scam.

    • You can have an exciting and fulfilling career in engineering without being CEng. 99% of the profession does. (Actually I made that percentage up, but it's probably not far off.)

    • If anyone out there is telling all school children that if they become an engineer then they will automatically become CEng then they need to stop. I have never heard anyone say this, if I did I would immediately contradict them.

    • You know all this already. We've had many good conversations over very many years now, and so I'm a bit surprised and  - to be honest - hacked off with this post. You know very well that I go to far to the other extreme sometimes (i.e. boring people to death with my long explanations) to rigourously avoid "scamming" or in any way misleading anyone. Whether on these forums or in my voluntary work in schools.


    Andy
  • 0
    One more point I forgot to add back in: When I do talk to school children about professional registration (which I very very rarely do) I always mention all three grades: EngTech, IEng and CEng. I never discuss them much, just mention they are there, and that for certain areas of engineering the student may want to find out more about them as they go through their training and higher level education. Much more commonly I will discuss different pathways into engineering, mainly apprenticeship or degree, which at that age they are - quite rightly in my view - far more interested in. One of the really great things about this profession is that there are so many ways in. As I think we've all agreed above, it's very frustrating (when you're on the job applicant side) that some employers still don't appreciate this - on the other hand, those that are the more open minded get the better choice of staff.


    Cheers,


    Andy
  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member
    Appreciate your balanced reply Andy. Scam is too strong a word, an really only applies where financial gain is the objective. There is no evidence of financial gain when it comes to PEIs and the EC. However, there are bits that I'm uncomfortable with; things like there being the largest concentration of CEngs lecturers in universities and colleges, and of course IEE/IET made big advertising on its website encouraging accredited engineering teachers to apply for CEng registration. Now teachers and lecturers don't sign off design work. So why are they exempt compared to engineers working in industry. We had two examples on IET discussion forums where a Substation design engineer and Nuclear decommissio engineer had their CEng application rejected. Seems one rule for teachers and another rule for engineers - working in safety critical roles. It has to be appreciated that IET accredited MEng graduates invest around £140k on their education - £60k in education and cost of living, and £80k in loss of earnings over 4 years (20k starting salary). You give good balanced advice to studenrs, but I'm not convinced that other IET reps do!
  • 0
    This is an interesting thread and I have been thinking about this for a while.


    i originally left school at 16 and joined the army and did my apprenticeship (NVQ level 3 in providing a communications service), after 7 years of installing, fixing and maintaining telephone systems, fibre optic & data cabling, cable containment etc. I left and did my electrician training. A further 5 years ‘in trade’ and I achieved my EngTech.


    At the time I was really happy with my achievement, but there where a few at work who encouraged me to look at IEng, and after discussions with a PRA (if my memory is right I think it was Roy) I decided to complete a FdEng in Electrical Engineering. I new that this wasn’t fully IEng accredited, and would have to do a top-up to a BEng(hons) Professional Engineering (power systems) degree which is fully IEng accredited and partial CEng (I assume the main thing it does not meet is competence A1, we states postgraduate). I am now on my last module and dissertation, and have started to draft my evidence for IEng and expect to apply by the end of the year.


    my main surprise was I can not upgrade my TMIET membership to MIET untiI graduate, despite the FdEng (240 credits) & the four modules I have already passed on the BEng (80 credits). Which together are over the 300 credits for an ordinary BEng degree.


    i am already looking at postgraduate courses (particularly MBA) to do in the future so I can meet competence A1 for CEng.


    i think it’s important for everyone to realise there are THREE separate levels who each have different roles/skills.someone in the IET recently gave a good presentation in my local area regarding professional registration and described them simply as:-


    EngTech = the fixers, those ‘on the tools’

    IEng = the now, managers / designers  etc.

    CEng = the future, innovators 


    Stewart


    Stewart Russell FdEng EngTech TMIET TechIOSH



  • 0
    Yes, I agree Andy, I think that pinpoints the whole divide on this issue between a process that is both inclusive (taking education level as an additional inclusivity factor to those formally defined by legislation) yet rigorous against the unreasoned and arbitrary selection criteria of employers influenced by HR departments who ignore the bedding tenets of good selection criteria - only using those that are really needed for the job role.
    This is where the work is required, and as with so much relating to our profession, it's a constant uphill battle - but one worth mounting - to adjust perceptions and expectations among those who are not directly part of our profession - and as you say, in many cases, those who are and should know better, who take the path of least resistance.
    When I was operating as a professional discipline head, I regularly took HR head on in insisting it was not for them to define professional standards of engineering personnel, it was for professional heads. Unfortunately, as I have found in other respects, it's a very easy screen to hide behind to say that it's "not my choice, it's HR policy".
    Ultimately, it seems to me that we have one main front of activity to engage with both for this particular reason and for adjusting the wider perceptions of our profession and the effect they have in attracting new entrants you the profession - employers. We have to engage with them full on to adjust perceptions and prejudices.

Join us to get the best from IET EngX.

Joining EngX lets you personalise your experience so you stay up to date on the topics that interest you, plus you’ll be able to make connections who are looking to collaborate, exchange ideas and more.

Join us Not now

Community Rules & Guidelines