An Engine for Change - A Chronicle of the Engineering Council

222A CHRONICLE OF THE ENGINEERING COUNCILSuggestions for future prioritiesInstitution of Mechanical Engineers*Somehow we have to get away from the constant criticism, ill-feeling, and sniping at theEngineering Council. Somehow we have to get a situation where the Institutions really dofeel some ownership of the Engineering Council. We should not lose sight of the fact thatthere are 39 Institutions (16 of them Chartered) who look after Chartered and IncorporatedEngineers and Engineering Technicians. The Big-4 would claim that their members comprisea large proportion of the Engineering Council Registrants (and this is true). However theEngineering Council is charged with looking after its total Register of approximately 280,000with just under 200,000 being Chartered Engineers and the rest Incorporated Engineers andTechnicians. Moreover one of the larger Institutions is IIE which has a membership of justunder 50,000.How then do we tackle this problem? I have a number of suggestions:-We should ensure a better dialogue between Engineering Council Senate members andInstitution Councils or Executive Committees. In the case of IMechE reporting back fromEngineering Council Senate meetings is very ad-hoc and invariably ill prepared.We should ensure that Presidents and Council Executive Committees are well informed onwhat is being debated within the Engineering Council.Accepting that Senators are not “mandated” by Institutions, nevertheless we should try toinfluence them and explain our Institution view of matters, which are debated.An example of this is that “Strategy 2005” has been largely debated by the Big-4, but havewe in IMechE had any dialogue with John Wood who is on Senate? (or for that matter withBrian Kent who is very influential on Senate).Association of Cost EngineersStarting from the present, what would appear to be the most vital activity is to effect a changeat the beginning ie in the schools. Therefore, activity to influence the mathematics andscience teaching, even in the primary schools is perceived as essential, and the effect of thishas to be through the Government as well as the schools and the public. Only if this isimproved is there a hope in the long term for there to be sufficient school leavers with themathematical abilities to be able to embark upon an engineering career. It is unnecessary tostress the public relations continuing effort to eradicate the oily hands message and theimpression of low pay. Additionally, there is need to convince all employers that registrationis of benefit to them, both in the long and the short term. This can be difficult as exemplifiedby the problem of getting volunteers to undertake anything when they are in work because ofthe short term ‘unless it is of direct benefit now to xyz Co you can’t go’. This is essentially acommunication problem which is not helped by the majority who are involved in the ‘media’(in the broadest sense) are rarely even of a faintly scientific bent. It is of significance that thecourse of Higher Education which has the greatest intake is Media Studies. A reflection ofHigher Education becoming a mass market with mass standards, abilities and aspirations. Amild campaign to counter the ‘I never was good at arithmetic at school’ brigade would bewelcome, especially if it turned around the scorn of the no-good at arithmetic regarding© Engineering Council UK 2004