Master plan

To avoid incurring further debt, BEng (Hons) graduates are increasingly opting to find employment rather than continue their studies. This is having an impact on the number of such graduates who hold the additional academic qualification - typically an MSc – that would normally be required for them to register as Chartered Engineers (CEng). Student concern over costs has had a similar effect on the numbers qualifying for the Incorporated Engineer (IEng) award.

Affordability is at the heart of an innovative collaborative venture between ECUK, professional engineering institutions, industry and higher education. Being coordinated by ECUK, in partnership with Kingston University and the University of Northumbria, the government-backed project will develop and pilot routes to registration that integrate education and supervised work-based professional development. It will take as its starting point Kingston’s existing work-based MSc and its Foundation Degree with Honours top-up, which is relevant to IEng candidates. The programmes developed from these could potentially satisfy all the requirements for registration. The project has funding from the DfES under its Gateways to the Professions initiative*.

The project’s overall aim is to create a flexible, work-based learning ‘escalator’ that enables pre-technician entrants to progress to IEng or CEng registration, maximising their employment and earnings prospects but without them having to incur large debts. This should prove a particular incentive to those groups who are currently under-represented in engineering, including women and ethnic minorities, as well as those wishing to return to the sector. The initiative’s ultimate objective is to tackle shortages of professional engineers and technicians by encouraging more people both to enter and stay in the profession.

During an initial 18-month phase Kingston and Northumbria Universities will work with ECUK and three of its licensed institutions (IET, IMechE and RAeS) to develop, validate and launch the IEng/CEng work-based programmes. These will be rolled out nationwide during a second, 3-year phase, when it is intended that the majority of licensed engineering institutions and at least ten HEIs will adopt them. The project will benefit from the Knowledge Transfer Partnerships and other links that already exist between universities and industry; Kingston for instance has links with BA, KLM, Eurostar and Laing O’Rourke.

It is envisaged that in five years time over 20,000 engineers will be following the work-based route to IEng or CEng status, which would make it one of the main pathways to professional registration.

For further information contact Paul Bailey: pbailey@engc.org.uk

*More on ‘Gateways to the Professions’ can be found at:
www.dfes.gov.uk/hegateway/hereform/gatewaystotheprofessions/index.cfm

Registrants’ rights

Anyone registered as a Chartered Engineer (CEng), Incorporated Engineer (IEng) or Engineering Technician (EngTech) is automatically eligible to apply for the Construction Skills Certification Scheme’s newly launched Professionally Qualified Persons’ (PQP) card, which is aimed at architects, engineers and other professionals who need to visit construction sites.

ECUK has lobbied long and hard for such a card and the full, multiple site access rights that it gives to those who hold it. Until now, non-site based professionals have had to apply for a Regular Visitor’s Card or be escorted by site staff. Such restrictions represented a failure to recognise that professional engineers and architects can have a significant influence over site health and safety.

To be issued with a PQP card an individual must pass a health and safety test that has been specially devised by CSCS, CITB-ConstructionSkills and the Construction Industry Council (CIC) in conjunction with professional institutions, consultancies and ECUK. Costing £42.50, inclusive of the fee for taking the test, the card is renewable every five years, subject to successful re-testing. The scheme is backed by 40 institutions, the majority of them ECUK licensed members.

There are currently more than 900,000 people working in the construction industry who hold CSCS cards, which were first introduced in 1995 to raise competence levels and health and safety standards. By extending the scheme beyond site operatives, the PQP card represents a further major step towards the goal of a fully qualified and safe workforce. The professionals it is targeted at will be encouraged to specify CSCS in the tenders and contracts in which they are involved.

ECUK’s Executive Director, Andrew Ramsay, sees the new card’s development as highly significant: “Today’s high pressure construction process demands a fully professional workforce. It also requires everyone involved from design to commissioning to understand and be up to date with his or her health and safety responsibilities and best practice. The Engineering Council UK therefore welcomes the introduction of the PQP card, with its twin requirement for regular assessment of health and safety knowledge and evidence of professional qualifications. The latter underlines the importance of professional registration.”

For further information about the PQP card phone 0870 4178777, or to book a test phone 0870 8505262.

Professional pride

As an ECUK-licensed institution, the Institute of the Motor Industry (IMI) places a high value on professional registration. So do a rapidly growing number of its members, more than 1000 of whom now boast the title Engineering Technician (EngTech).

According to the IMI, the registration of this number of its members lends considerable weight to the institute’s ‘Proud to be Professional’ campaign launched at this year’s Motor Show. The campaign’s aim is to raise awareness of the importance of ‘ethical competence’ in delivering long-term business success.

In the first ten months of this year, 196 IMI members were successful in their bid to achieve Engineering Technician status. In the same period only the Society of Operations Engineers (SOE) saw more of its members – a total of 283 – attain the same award. Like last year, overall EngTech numbers have continued to climb, reaching 13,677 by the end of October.

The IMI is the professional association for individuals working in the retail motor industry and an awarding body for vocational qualifications. At present it is licensed by ECUK to assess applicants for EngTech registration only, though it has recently applied for an IEng licence.

Entente cordiale, again….

After an absence of several years, France’s CNISF will next month rejoin the European Federation of National Engineering Associations (FEANI). Alongside it will be two brand new members - the Union of Engineers and Technicians of Serbia (UETS) and the Russian Union of Scientific and Engineering Associations (RUSEA), the latter being given provisional membership status. This will take the number of countries within FEANI to 29.

The re-admittance of France, one of the federation’s founder members, will be significant for both parties. FEANI will naturally enjoy a strengthening of its credibility, while CNISF will once again be able to influence negotiations over the future of Europe’s engineering profession and help to shape new European legislation.

CNISF has also recently expressed a desire to work with ECUK to revive the Paris Accord, a bi-partisan agreement that, for the short period it was in force, facilitated the mutual recognition of French and UK professional engineers.

…..looking to be an outCAST no more

Another country seeking closer ties with the UK is China. In October, ECUK hosted a visit by a delegation from the China Association for Science and Technology (CAST), the authority responsible for accrediting Chinese engineering degree programmes. Out of this meeting has come a decision to negotiate a memorandum of understanding, which would see the two bodies sharing knowledge and understanding of education and accreditation. It is also possible that ECUK may assist CAST in its efforts to become part of the Washington Accord, whose signatory nations agree to recognise each other’s accredited engineering degrees.

Less than warm welcome for EIT

Despite a widespread lack of enthusiasm, the European Commission has agreed proposals to create a European Institute of Technology (EIT). There is particular concern in the academic community that the new body – which will basically be a framework for building partnerships between universities and industry – will simply take money away from the numerous collaborative ventures that already exist.

In 2000 the EU established the ’Lisbon Agenda’, whose 10-year goal is to make Europe “the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy in the world”. The concept of an EIT stems from this ambition. It is seen by the commission as one of the main means of boosting R&D spending to the levels seen in the US and Japan. However, it could actually threaten R&D if, as is feared, it diverts funding from other research budgets. Though the EIT is modelled on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), there are some that believe it will never be able to emulate the success of its American counterpart, partly because it will lack the latter’s independence.

As originally conceived, the EIT was rather more concrete in form than the decidedly ‘virtual’ entity that is now emerging. This will comprise a number of “knowledge and innovation communities” – joint venture partnerships drawn from universities, research bodies and business – whose work will be directed by a 19-strong governing body. There will be just 60 scientific and support staff employed directly by the institute.

What’s in a name?

It might be thought that the simplest part of creating a new educational qualification would be giving it a name. Yet for the Sector Skills Councils charged with developing one of the latest 14-19 Specialised Diplomas, the question of what it should be called is proving no easy matter. ECUK, which is part of the wider partnership involved in its development, is not alone in urging that the title chosen should be a true reflection of course content.

Assigned the working title of Manufacturing Diploma, it is one of the 14 skills-specific diplomas that are due for launch over the next seven years. The first five – which include the Engineering Diploma (see Register News issues 32 and 33) – are scheduled to become available in September 2008. ‘Manufacturing’ will be among a second group of five, which are due to come on-stream the following year.

The diploma will cover a total of 35 manufacturing sub-sectors, a very broad range that includes fields as diverse as the automotive industry, brewing and clothing production. In its current form there is a strong focus on business management, from a global perspective, which provides an eminently sensible basis for the generic approach clearly demanded by such a subject. Assuming its content does not change greatly, this emphasis on the business aspects of manufacturing needs to be clear from the diploma’s title.

However, since there is a Business, Administration and Finance Diploma also under development, there are concerns that the obvious desire for accurate labelling will conflict with government’s wish that each award is seen as having its own distinct identity – even though it acknowledges that there will be a degree of overlap. (Under the Qualifications and Credit Framework, diplomas can share common modules.)

At the end of the day it is paramount that the young people who commit to a diploma are fully aware of what it is and where it will take them. A prerequisite for this is that course developers are free to avoid titles that are in any way ambiguous.

More at: http://www.manufacturingdiploma.co.uk

Academy award

With £10,000 going to the winner, there should be no shortage of entrants for the Royal Academy of Engineering’s 2007 Education Innovation Prize, sponsored by Nexia Solutions. This will be only the second year that the award has been made.

The prize is open to individuals and organisations that have made a significant contribution to engineering education through an innovative approach to teaching the subject. Submissions are invited from a wide range of sectors, including schools, colleges and universities, e-learning organisations, company and industry training programmes, privately or publicly funded award schemes, institution IPD and CPD programmes, and training providers.

The Academy’s 2006 Education Innovation Prize, sponsored by BNFL, went to the University of Southampton’s Faculty of Engineering for its ‘Design, Build, Test, Float and Fly’ initiative, which involves school students building a balsa wood glider, a radio-controlled racing car and an electric speed boat. The aim is to give participants a taster of engineering at university and as a career.

Applications for the 2007 prize can be made either on forms available from the Academy or on-line at www.raeng.org.uk/prizes/eip. Submissions, which have to be supported by letters from two independent referees, must be received by 1st March. Enquiries and applications to Ian Bowbrick, The Royal Academy of Engineering, 29 Great Peter Street, London SW1P 3LW. Tel: 020 7227 0500. Email: ian.bowbrick@raeng.org.uk.

1851 and all that

In 1851, over 6 million people visited London’s Hyde Park to see the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations. Though over a century and a half have passed since this first ever international exhibition of manufactured goods, the royal commission that was set up to organise it is still going strong. Far from having outlived its usefulness, the ‘1851 Commission’ is now an important source of fellowships and grants to allow developments in science and technology and their profitable exploitation by British industry.

The commission is currently inviting applications for its 2007 Industrial Fellowships. As in previous years the awards will go to graduates working in British industry who have a good first degree in engineering, science or medicine. An established link with staff at a British university is another requirement. Each Fellow will receive 50% of their annual salary (up to an annually reviewed maximum), plus payment of university fees and overseas travel costs. Associated universities get a final cash award of £10,000. Naturally the Fellows’ parent companies can also expect significant benefits.

Further details of the 1851 Royal Commission Industrial Fellowships and how to apply for one can be found at: http://www.royalcommission1851.org.uk/ind_fellow

Closing date for applications is 25th January 2007.

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