ECUK urges more action to protect MEng degrees

The Engineering Council UK (ECUK) is pressing for greater government action to protect the status of UK integrated master's degrees from threats posed by the 'Bologna process', under which forty-five European countries have agreed to align their higher education systems. ECUK is especially concerned that MEng degrees will be placed at an unfair disadvantage by the mechanism proposed for comparing qualifications. Its concerns are spelt out in a recent submission to a House of Commons Select Committee enquiry into Bologna. This was prepared in consultation with the UK's professional engineering institutions.

Launched in 1999, the Bologna process aims to create a European Higher Education Area (EHEA) with a common structure for HE systems. This is scheduled to happen by 2010. The intended results are that obstacles to student mobility across Europe will be removed and the worldwide appeal of European higher education will be enhanced.

While fully supporting these aspirations, ECUK believes they will come to nothing if the necessary framework for comparing the signatory nations' degree awards is overly rigid. Worryingly the signs are that it will be. ECUK's submission to the select committee identifies two problems with the European Higher Education Qualifications Framework (EHEQF), the name given to the proposed mechanism. First, it is based on a three-cycle model (bachelor's, master's and doctorate). Second - and potentially more serious - is the European Credit Transfer Scheme (ECTS) that it uses for assessing awards.

The integrated MEng degree - which is now the preferred option of a third of home students who study engineering and is the only award that by itself satisfies all the academic requirements for Chartered Engineer (CEng) registration* - does not fit the three cycle model, under which it would need to be separated into bachelor's and master's components. This would effectively destroy its unique characteristics, as well as increasing university and student costs. A possible solution - though one that is not entirely satisfactory - would simply be to award both honours and master's degrees at the end of the programme, the latter remaining unchanged.

The ECTS is regarded as a more onerous problem. Under this 'time-served' system of assessment the 4yr MEng does not earn sufficient credits to be recognised as a full second-cycle qualification. In contrast, the 5yr MEng available in Scotland does accrue the necessary score, though its learning outcomes are identical to those of the 4yr programme that is offered in the rest of the UK. This is clearly illogical and highlights the flawed nature of the ECTS, the use of which tends to favour the 5yr programmes that are the norm elsewhere in Europe.

Advice has been issued** on how universities might accumulate more credits in the final year of an MEng - such as extending it to a full calendar year or running projects and work placements over the summer vacation, remedies that would of course require additional public funding. Moreover it would only be possible to earn enough extra credits to take the MEng into the lower end of the second cycle degree range, leaving it vulnerable to the accusation that it is an inferior product. (It is believed that MSc degrees, which usually last 12 months, would find themselves in a similar position.)

As ECUK's report to the select committee makes clear, a true measure of the integrated MEng's worth can only be achieved through reform of the ECTS. This needs to move away from its current emphasis on workloads and take far greater account of learning outcomes. As well as being the basis for accrediting UK engineering degrees, the latter provide the main reference point for comparing degrees under various other international agreements of which ECUK is a part, most notably the Washington Accord. Also, although the outcomes-based approach is far less common elsewhere in Europe, it is central to the recently initiated, EC-funded EUR-ACE project on accreditation of engineering degrees.

According to ECUK's deputy director Richard Shearman: "The UK government, which has voiced strong support for the MEng and other master's degrees, has a key role to play in helping universities and others to address the issues raised by the Bologna process. In particular, it must press for the changes to the ECTS proposed by ECUK and the engineering institutions. The Bologna Ministerial meeting in May, which the UK will be hosting, presents the perfect opportunity to do this.

"It is certainly in the UK's interests for the MEng and other degrees to be 'Bologna compliant'. However if the only way of achieving this is by lengthening programmes and notching up more credits under the current system of assessment, the price of compliance would be a high one. Government, universities and students would bear substantial additional costs, for no obvious educational advantage. Costlier and longer degree programmes could well deter those considering a career in engineering, which in turn could lead to skills shortages. Clearly this would be too high a price to pay."

• An accredited integrated MEng degree or
• An accredited bachelor's degree with honours in engineering or technology together with an accredited or approved master's degree or appropriate further learning to master's level.

**Guidance on the issues confronting UK HEIs running integrated master's degree programmes has been published by the Europe Unit of Universities UK:
http://www.europeunit.ac.uk/bologna_process