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David Wilson
Wilson’s world
David Wilson is editor of Engineeringtalk and Electronicstalk and associate editor of The Engineer
Levelling the playing field
The young student truly believed that the more qualifications he obtained, the more successful he would be in life. So, after working long and hard to obtain his first-class honours degree in engineering, he enrolled on another four-year course to acquire his doctorate, after which he became a member of several prestigious learned societies.
Having acquired a plethora of qualifications, the engineer set up his own engineering consultancy, assured that he had enough knowledge to assist any number of companies with the design and development of any new product they might ask him to undertake.
But after registering his consultancy and hiring out some office space from which to conduct his business, he was in for a big shock. During the course of promoting his numerous academic qualifications on his business cards and website, he was sent a letter from a semi-autonomous government organisation informing him that he was acting illegally.
That’s right. The letter from the semi-autonomous government organisation informed him in no uncertain terms that no engineering consultants were allowed to demonstrate to its clients that they had any more than a basic undergraduate engineering degree in engineering. The promotion of any further academic qualifications had been banned.
Naturally enough, the engineering graduate was stunned when he received the letter. He could not understand why he could not promote his tremendous academic qualifications for his own financial benefit after working so hard to obtain them.
After some discussions with a few of his more experienced colleagues, the situation became clear. The reason for this apparently peculiar government decision was that there was a distinct lack of engineers in the country. It seemed that a lot of the engineer’s colleagues had moved abroad — most of them to the US — leaving a scarcity of highly qualified talent at home.
The government’s solution to this thorny issue was to allow many engineers from the Indian subcontinent and Eastern Europe enter the country to take up the slack left by the engineers that were moving out. But there was a problem. Many of the imports were not as well qualified as the young graduate and, as such, would not appear to be quite as attractive to employers, unless, of course, something was done about it.
So rather than give the impression that there were hundreds of rather less academically qualified personnel practising engineering in the UK, the government decided to create a level playing field for engineers, in which no one engineer would appear to be any more qualified that any other. And to do so, it banned the promotion of anything but a basic engineering qualification.
This, dear reader is, of course, a fictitious story.
In the private sector, such behaviour would be considered a complete outrage. There, the experience and knowledge of our more qualified engineers is considered an advantage — not just to the companies that they are employed by, or the companies that they themselves have started up — but to our society as a whole.
But in the public sector, especially in the National Health Service — where home-grown medical talent seems to be so sorely lacking — could such a mandate already be in place to hoodwink Joe Public into believing that he is receiving free medical treatment that is identical to that on offer from private clinics?
David Wilson
The Wilson’s world blog also forms part of the Engineeringtalk, Electronicstalk and Manufacturingtalk newsletters. To subscribe, go here for Engineeringtalk, here for Electronicstalk and here for Manufacturingtalk
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Readers' comments (16)
Anonymous | 9 Jun 2011 12:24 pm
So Dave - its not clear what the reality is. Is this simply conjecture or does a thin end of the wedge exist in the world of engineering?
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tony smee | 9 Jun 2011 12:33 pm
My qualifications, ONC, HNC, B.Eng form some 10% of what I know, a sort of foundation, that's all.
The rest is in experience, construction, commissioning, maintenance, design and project management and making mistakes. Add in hobbies in electronics & mechnical workshop, DIY and a few years overseas.
The paper qualifications are like learning the alphabet before going on to read and write.
Don't mention the "government", not an experienced engineer, or medical practicioner, in sight, raised on bluffing and fast talking how can they possiblyrun anything efficiently.
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Terry Pilfold | 9 Jun 2011 12:42 pm
I believe an "Engineer" who has never done a practical year or two in his chosen field, On the Tools, has no right to claim to be an Engineer, much less a consultant. After 50 years in the business I find this has got worse, not better; especially in the developing world.
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Aditi | 9 Jun 2011 12:58 pm
"...allow many engineers from the Indian subcontinent and Eastern Europe enter the country.." "..Many of the imports were not as well qualified as the young graduate.."
Indian engineers going abroad are very qualified and in no way inferior to the engineers in UK. So, I would be glad as an Indian if you can refrain from using such statements.
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Roger Park I Eng MIET | 9 Jun 2011 1:06 pm
You really had me going there David! I’m taking a lot longer to calm down than I did to get steamed up and now I feel cross with you for doing it to me! As you may remember from previous correspondence, I am passionate about the Engineering Profession and was incensed until I saw your disclaimer. I'm just glad it wasn't true, but could it happen in the future...?
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Anonymous | 9 Jun 2011 1:18 pm
I used to work for a Company that forbade the referencing of Qualifications and Institute Membership on business cards and communications, despite the fact that we frequently undertook contracts where the customer required individuals to be qualified through specific master's Degree courses.
On the other hand, we now seem as a Nation to want everyone to have equal qualifications in having a degree, and are therefore dumbing down existing subjects and introducing vast numbers of fatuous new ones including Media Studies, most of the 'ologies and directed technical and/or scientific degrees that direct people who don't actually have the relevant scientific or technical background in the first place. And Business studies is now a BSc subject. How long before a PhD is needed to achieve CEng status, I wonder ?
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Anonymous | 9 Jun 2011 4:50 pm
I am fairly new in the UK; living here legally before any funny notions enter into one's head. I have found, much to my consternation, that there seems to be a trend where everyone is called an engineer, regardless of qualifications etc. As far as I am concerned anyone who studies for years and years and comes out with a worthwhile qualification at the end deserves respect and should be treated just like that as well. I do not like this level playing playing field ideology where we are all equal.
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Geoff Wilson | 10 Jun 2011 2:19 pm
Your story of an Engineer collecting qualifications brings to mind a line in 'Last of the Summer Wine' when Clegg said "Remember Helliwell from Inkerman Street? He went to night school for five years and became a First Class Pratt!" Qualifications are worthless unless backed by in depth experience.
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jamesskaar | 11 Jun 2011 0:02 am
i thought the story was going to go another way... that qualifications mean little if you don't have experience, or have to deal with things that you aren't smart enough to figure out. like 'there's a turn of last century steam battleship engine, something's wrong with it, tell me what that thing is', would have many modern engineers a bit stumped. hell, the nasa engineers still can't figure what a lot of the tech in the saturn 5 was for, but it was necessary to make it work, for future missions they need this knowledge, something is lacking in their training.
personally, i'm learning engineering on my own, it's a tad rough not being able to figure out calculus, so i'm learning the old fashioned way.
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Malcolm | 13 Jun 2011 10:53 am
Instead of writing half a page of self confessed nonsense, why not address the issue of why there are so few home educated doctors.
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