An Engine for Change - A Chronicle of the Engineering Council

1981-1985: THE CORFIELD YEARS 31basis of FEANI registration. The problem had been temporarily resolved in 1981 by agreeinga five-year moratorium on allowing British Chartered Engineers to be included in the topgrade of the FEANI registration over that period. The implication, no doubt, was that thiswould give us time to get our act together on a four-year academic degree. That moratoriumwas due to expire in June 1986 just over a year away. So this was a real challenge for the newBNCIEA particularly as there was an EEC directive for the mutual recognition of engineeringqualifications looming ahead.“But it concentrated our minds. We thought through many possible strategies and decided tobase our case on raising the FEANI registration standard. Registration, we said, should not bebased simply on the length of time of academic study but on the competence of the endproduct regardless of the qualifying route; in effect we decided to try and have somethingadopted very similar to the British professional engineer qualifying system. But we wentfurther. We decided it would be helpful to suggest that as this should be an enhanced FEANIqualification, recognition of registration should be given by awarding an engineeringdesignation. We suggested EurEng (later to become EurIng) and argued for it to be used as aprefix in front of a recognised engineer's name. [Editorial note: the proposed Eur Ing formula,later ratified by FEANI, see Chapter 3, was based upon a seven-year package incorporating a threeyear,as a minimum, degree course. Thus, for example, a German or French engineer with a five-yeardegree would need only an additional two years of training/experience]“We managed to get FEANI to set up a working party to consider our proposals and to reportto their Registration Commission. We had George Adler, the BNCIEA deputy chairman,appointed to that working party and to the Registration Commission; George was laterappointed a vice President of FEANI. In the event, after many working party meetings ourproposals were agreed, the Registration Commission in turn agreed, and the FEANI Boardconfirmed acceptance at a meeting in Stockholm in May 1986.“We had of course many other meetings, conferences and seminars on FEANI business, all atdifferent locations throughout Europe and many extending over several days. I was veryappreciative of the goodwill and friendship extended to us generally by the FEANI delegatesat all of those meetings; there was always a genuine desire to reach agreement on even themost difficult of issues. I should perhaps not refer to anyone in particular, but nevertheless Ishould like to mention Finbar Callanan the Irish Engineers’ representative from Dublin whowas particularly helpful to us and a staunch ally.“The European scene and FEANI dominated most of the business of the BNCIEA and therewere many meetings of FEANI committees and sub-groups throughout the year. The FEANIheadquarters at that time was in Paris where many of the meetings took place. Each yearthere was a large Annual General Meeting which rotated through the 20 member countries.“The CEC and WFEO operated at a less intense level with their General Assemblies heldevery two years usually in consecutive weeks in the same part of the world to reducedelegates’ travelling expenses. The BNCIEA sent one or more representatives to all theseAssemblies and has contributed to discussions and actions on numerous international issuesparticularly on Engineering education and training matters.”© Engineering Council UK 2004