On Education, Industrial Awards, and Mobility of Professionals

I don't know but it appears that the modern world is highly focused on collecting credentials rather than actually doing work. Given a shortage of work probably not too much of a problem. Yes, I know there is apparently a global shortage of engineers, and also locally a national shortage of engineers in Australia.

But I have to question that shortage, the Engineers Australia linkedIN group has a variety of discussions taking place relative to the problems of overseas people getting their degrees accredited by Engineers Australia (IEAust). Not sure why they need to do this. But then the WFEO accords and consequent mutual recognition agreements, such as the Washington accord, the Sydney accord and the Dublin accord only really relate to qualified technical professionals. To become a qualified technical professional, the degree, only provides the enabling competence as IEAust puts it. Then depending on local requirements have to obtain anywhere from 3 to 10 years experience before can achieve, registration, license or charter. This may involve writing a collection of career episode reports, and combining into a work practice report, taking a professional interview, presenting a portfolio of work, sitting additional exam's (eg. FE/PE exams or IStructE part 3 exam etc...). If achieve the local requirements for full professional status, and that meets requirements of the WFEO accords, then mutual recognition holds and have the potential for mobility between countries.

However recognition of qualifications alone, doesn't mean going to get a job overseas, there are immigration issues, need to speak the language, and local experience requirements.

Those that finally have got accreditation of their degrees are apparently having trouble with local experience. Though I doubt the local experience is really the problem. Most jobs advertised require some 5 to 10 years experience: these are not jobs for graduate engineers. People who need accreditation of their degree are clearly not qualified engineers. The global shortage of engineers is not for graduates, for that matter it is not really for engineers. The real shortage is for highly experienced and competent persons with respect to established technologies, and highly innovative people with respect to unresolved problems.

Professional engineers, within engineering organisations governing the profession, having designed and defined an engineering team, have failed to educate practicing professional engineers about the differences in the membership of the team, and consequently professional engineers are failing to give the other members of the team the opportunity to put their education to work.

Part of the problem resides in past shortages of work, resulting in inflation of qualifications: thus a job that was previously the domain of an engineering associate has been raised to that of an engineer: the work complexity has not increased, and the person with a B.Eng in such job is never going to get experience required to achieve professional status: but since they can call themselves an engineer in anycase, what do they care about professional status? The problem however is that it produces an incorrect count of the necessity for engineers.

Up until the recent introduction of Federal industrial awards, in South Australia (SA), we had an award for draughtsmen and technical officers. This award covered drafters, engineering technicians, and engineeing associates. All 3 of these groups likely to have had a formal education of 2 years duration, so the duration of the education is not relevant to competency and capability. The Australian Qualification Framework (AQF) is based on competency and level of responsibility, not duration, though recently some guide line durations have been introduced. Basically AQF-6 (Associate Degree) upwards are university based qualifications, and AQF-6(Advanced Diploma) downwards are TAFE qualifications.

Apparently, the IEAust wasn't happy that engineering technologists and engineers were both AQF-7, since both have bachelor degree. So IEAust apparently responsible for honors degree AQF-8 being included, though 4 year professional degrees lost honors status some time back. It is also nonsense. Architects typically have a 5 year degree or 2 x 3 year degrees: the typical programme a 3 year degree in architectural studies, followed by time in practice, then return for the professional 3 year degree in architecture. There are other professions which comprise of a 2 stage study programme, resulting in 2 degrees. It should also be noted that from an industry employment viewpoint, not everyone goes onto to complete the 2nd stage and get the 2nd degree: it has no relevance to their employment.

That is part of the problem, professions have little relevance to the needs of industry and society, professional organisations are in some ways attempting to resurrect the restrictive practices of the old guilds. Science however is held partially responsible for the decline of guilds, along with national legislation and regulations. For example building codes specify requirements for buildings, whether prescriptive or perfromance based, the knowledge becomes public, and secret knowledge held inside guilds no longer acceptable: it has to become disclosed. Structural mechanics provides a disclosed method of validating adequacy of a building structure: so some secret ritual to appease the gods so that a building doesn't fall down, ceases to be accepted. Consequently mechanics institutes teaching artisans technical science, starts becoming alot more acceptable than the secret knowledge held by the guilds, and people outside the guilds start practicing and supplying more acceptable product than that supplied by the guilds. Some guilds cease to exist, others adopt the new learning, and become the examining and qualifying authorities. But still, whether guild, professional association, society, institution or union, there is some unwarranted restriction of practice already in place, or attempts are made to put such restrictions in place. Sure protection of the public is usually raised as the basis of the restriction, but that is generally misleading and invalid. The public is typically protected by regulatory and approval systems, with requirements for independent checks. Where licensing and restrictive practice is in place it is typically a relatively old practice and there is no conclusive evidence that such restrictions actually provide protection to the public. Arguments can tend to be presented either way, I favour arguments against licensing. Licensing tends to lead to self-certification, and code of ethics or not, tends to lead some approving things not in the public interest. Licensing tends to lead to monoply, escalation of prices and deliberate shortage of supply. Shortage of supply is achieved by making it difficult to enter the profession, and basing membership on requirements irrelevant to the task performed. Modern laws which protect economic competition, oppose granting monopolies to professions.

Having high standards to join a profession, is not opposed, having high ideals makes wanting to join the profession challenging and worthwhile. The objection is the shortage of supply. Requiring a building designed by a professional structural engineer is unacceptable, because it would tend to lead to restricted supply of buildings: when there are others who can carry out the design. For example engineering associates are capable of structural analysis and design, whilst the use of something like AS1684 timber framing code vastly simplifies the specification of timber framed houses which are structurally adequate. A engineering associate however is not likely to design a multistory building in a high seismic zone, or a bridge other than a short span foot bridge: they may however be involved in designing component parts or subsystems of such larger systems.

Universities and computers however have changed the nature of the workforce, engineering and otherwise. Traditionally designer-detailers would have done detailed design calculations, whilst the engineer concerned themselves with the analysis of the over all system. So for example whilst the engineer is calculating the bending moments in the individual elements of a multi-storey building, a design-detailer could be calculating stresses in beams already analysed and sizing concrete beams and determining reinforcement and producing the drawings specifying such requirements. The designer-detailer likley to have started career as a tracer, and moved onto drafter, and taken additional studies in the required technical sciences: their traing largely on the job working on real projects. The role of designer-detailer may be considered as a career for life, or a stepping stone towards becoming engineer. If no future positions for engineer in a company, then designer-detailer likely to be career for life, unless there is an opportunity to become engineer elsewhere. With more people going from school to university, the designer-detailer role displaced by graduate engineers. The role of engineer then becomes confused as does gaining the experience to become a fully fledged member of the profession.

The organisation becomes increasingly dysfunctional as more and more personnel become inexperienced graduates: both drafters and engineers. Many of the local South Australian consultancy businesses are like this. The "recession we had to have", resulted in shutdown of government departments and privatisation, along with lay offs from large businesses, almost over night there was a massive increase in consulting engineers, as those laid off set up sole proprietorships. Having established businesses these experienced engineers have no desire to show any loyalty to big business only to be laid off again, some do however provide services to the bigger consultancies on a contract basis. So some of the so called shortage of engineers is more a desire to have the experience back in-house at a lower cost. Whilst the IEAust is assisting with its graduate development programmes, and supply of mentors possibly external to a graduates employer organisation, there is still a lack of succession planning to sustain the technical workforce. That is largely because most of the effort is focused on the B.Eng and engineers is what we need: which is not so.

So first we have problem of professions defining idealistic requirements independent of industry needs, then a problem of educational institutions, universities and otherwise defining academic study programmes equally independent of industry needs, and a further problem of computer software and other technologies changing the industrial environment.

Technology has diminished calculation effort, first logarithms, then slide rules based on, then calculating machines, electronic calculators and finally digital computers. Engineer, structural analyst and stress analyst are different professions. The traditional engineer was more concerned with design, and supervising the implementation of such design. Engineering education in the 20th century however, shifted engineers into the role of structural/stress analyst and away from their traditional role. Hence the emergence of the problem of things being designed which cannot be built: a loss of understanding of their core function. The use of computer software is said to assist in a return to the core function. Computers can complete calculations in seconds, therefore don't need such a large team of people to assist in completing such calculations., and skill development doesn't have to be as focused on arithmetic or evaluating mathematical formulations. The problem is defining a new age profession whilst retaining past competencies, which are actually recently developed competencies anyway. The other problem is that other professions and occupations have arisen to take up those tasks engineers discarded as they moved away from their traditional role.


INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS AND QUALIFICATION FRAMEWORKS
The environment is dynamic, and roles in industry are constantly changing. It is partly because of changing roles that occupational groups or professions are designed and defined by those dealing with the industrial relations system and the associated industrial awards. For example the metal industry had a multitude of job definitions and associated restrictive work practices. If I recollect correctly from my studies of industrial relations in the early 1990's, it was considered an achievement that some 109 jobs were reduced to some 63. I never saw the awards at the time, but the most recent I've seen there were 14 occupational wage levels: C14 to C1. Where C14 is a production worker with a few weeks of on the job training, and C1 is professional scientist or professional engineer. Though there were separate industrial awards for scientists, another for engineers, and still another for draughtsmen and technical officers. I say were because we are currently in a transition of moving towards more federal awards rather than state awards. Though national organisations like APESMA would have tended to make state awards for engineers similar. Anycase now have a federal award for technical professionals, and it covers scientists, engineers and information technologists.

Part of the drive for this rationalisation and grouping is to increase mobility in industry, and reduce industrial disputes. For example a weld slag chipper may have been prevented from sweeping the floor. On the one hand this protected the job of the person who swept the floor, on the other it was unproductive. Additionally it creates unwarranted ranking of job roles: neither chipping weld slag or sweeping floors is something to make a life long career out off, though some may wish to. Sweeping the floor in a hazardous industrial environment may require some training, but not necessarily less or more than chipping weld slag. The rationalised awards rank a multitude of such similar jobs into appropriate wage groups. The next issue then becomes developing a multiskilled workforce, which then leads to defining new occupational groups. From which then emerges qualification frameworks like the Australian Qualification Framework (AQF). Given that industrial awards and occupational classification tend to be based on formal education, it is likely that further simplification will result in one industrial award based on minimum wages for each of the 10 levels of the AQF. One of the things the AQF does is define core knowledge for various occupational groups, with electives. So having obtained core knowledge and graduated completing one set off electives, it doesn't require too much effort at some future date to take other electives to move over to another job function. The purpose of the AQF is to enable articulation from one occupation to another giving proper recognition to prior learning (RPL) whether obtained through formal education, on the job training, or self-learning. So building a portfolio of work as evidence of learning is an important aspect of obtaining an AQF certificate.

To move people from wage level C14 to qualified tradesperson at level C10, requires defining a skill set for an occupational group, which enables them to move between a multitude of job roles and job functions. Naming such occupations is also problematic. The change in materials and the change in technologies used changes many job functions and skill sets. A carpenter traditionally worked with wood, but when it comes to building construction likely to also work with steel and variety of other materials. They cannot be called builders because builders already defined and builders don't actually build anything but rather supervise building works. They cannot be called technicians because that is a more knowledge oriented activity than trade activity. Job titles consequently either remain and change meaning to reflect new role. Or in the main job titles just become meaningless and pointless, since they poorly describe the real skill set that the individual has. Individuals have similar problems to business in explaining to the public the services they can provide. Even within a business enterprise which chooses own internal job titles, the actual roles of various individuals may be distorted by the job titles assigned. Businesses restructure every so often, and assign different roles and job titles to better reflect internal operations: but it can still misrepresent real roles and responsibilities.

BACK TO ENGINEERING PRACTITIONERS
As I was saying computer software reduces the size of the engineering team required to complete calculations in a given time frame. So whilst an engineer could do the structural analysis whilst a designer-detailer designed members to the materials codes and worked on drawings, and this was carried out in parallel once the analysis under way: such work break down (WBD) between people no longer required. For structural analysis software can now rapidly carry out the analysis and size all the members, and increasingly generate the technical drawings aswell. So designer-detailers not required, and nor enitirely are drafters.

With the introduction of CAD many drafters replaced by CAD operators. The CAD operators only have a few weeks training in the use of CAD and have poor knowledge of a technical discipline: such as structural, mechanical or electrical etc...They also have poor knowledge of CAD. Increased training produces CAD technicians who have extensive knowledge of CAD but still poor technical knowledge. This adds to the dysfunction of engineering business organisations.

As the software becomes more complex with increasing integration of documentation and engineering assessment, there are calls to have more engineers use the software, rather than CAD technicians. But software is a specific tool and requires trained specialist for each software package. Such training not considered appropriate for engineers who should know the science behind the software. So there are emerging issues as to who should be building such virtual models and who should be responsible for them.

The other problem is an increasing dependence on such software. In many instances the use of the 3D virtual models is inappropriate and unjustified: it takes far too long to build the models and adds no value. But with diminishing skill sets concerned with more generic tools, there is inceasing dependence on such tools, and so increasingly inefficient tackling of projects with unwarranted delays. The real thing could have been built whilst they were playing with the 3D model. Task becoming increasingly more like a video game than real design.

I recently read somewhere a proposal for a 3 year bachelor degree in virtual modelling. I don't see the value in such things. All the time the solution to everything  is an high level academic degree. Such does not have anything to do with the task at hand, it is only concerned with status. Attract people by defining a degree, an AQF-7 qualification, and slotting people in at wage level C1, thus bypassing C14 to C2, and no where to go.

By rights moving from AQF-1 to AQF-10 should reflect increased depth of knowledge and increased responsibility level. Most professional degrees reflect breadth, not depth of knowledge. Also continuing professional development (CPD) requirements are seen by many as a grab for money, especially when weighting is used to diminish value of on the job learning and self-learning: and biased towards paid seminars and otherwise gaining higher academic awards. If actually practising engineering then always learning on the job. If not then probably operating at a level below engineer, on highly routine stuff.

It is this situation of persons not operating at the level of their academic award that needs to be resolved in industry. Persons with B.Eng set out to become professional engineers, cannot achieve and ignore profession. When the first required stepping stone should be to become engineering technician, no choice in the matter, that is where all start. If their job is at an advanced level, then shouldn't be too difficult to advance through technician, associate, technologist and finally achieve engineer status in a short time. For those with relatively simple jobs, they will get stuck at a lower level. But it is now clearer that they need to move on to another company to achieve full status as an engineer, or they need an external mentor to assist in putting their knowledge to use as an engineer and providing more value to their employer and raising their job function.

Another part part of the issue, is that people with an interest in design get stuck on engineering programs, which don't really provide for their interests, and 4 years is a long time. This can be achieved by proper articulation through the AQF levels from AQF-1 to AQF-9, with more industrial experience imposed between each level. So complete first year of B.Eng get AQF-5, complete 2nd year get AQF-6, and complete 3rd year get AQF-7 etc...But before get AQF-5, also have to complete AQF-1 to AQF-4. There then becomes a common core knowledge throughout the industry which all participants are aware of. For example everyone in the industry from trades people upwards can read technical drawings and specifications, and understands them.

Part of the current problem in industry is that occupations are now defined by educational institutions, rather than by industry. When defined by industry people progressed up through various positions in a business or stayed where they were. Those that progressed were aware of the skills of those below because thats where they came from. But with the education system controlling qualifications, people are coming from all over the place and slotted anywhere into the business organisation. So no one really knows the capabilities of their subordinates, and become surprised when the subordinate cannot do what is considered to be a common sense task. Problem is common sense is not common, it is environment and culture specific. School leavers have not spent long enough in the required industrial environment. If they have to get AQF-1, spend time in industry gain some experience and return to study for AQF-2, then a better understanding will be developed of an industry and its processes.

The training of an engineer, thus follows the more traditional route, from tracer, copy-drafter, drafter, design-drafter, to designer. From designer an increasing knowledge of scientific principles becomes necessary depending on the technology involved with. There are also issues of planning, supervision and management to consider, but these are really separate strands of study. Which is the reason to pay more attention to the AQF, than to professions. As a person goes in and out of industry moving from AQF-1 upwards, they will increasing reach a situation where they are offered a fulltime job, and otherwise given guidance to electives to study directions to take. In the main only qualitative understanding of science is required, followed by knowledge of established technology and supervisory skills. Rather than pushing towards AQF-9, better to have multiple AQF-6 qualifications. This not difficult because in the main will only require 1 year of fulltime study, or 2 years part-time, because the first year of such 2 year qualification will be a common core the earlier AQF-5 qualification. In other words a common core of broad technical science with diversions into more specialised areas. So for example not that difficult to cover civil, mechanical and electrical engineering, in 4 years, at the AQF-6 level. The current practice would be to define this as a B.Eng in some specific field such as say architectural engineering. I don't agree with such. For that matter I don't agree with the B.Eng in the first place: should have stayed with the 3 year B.Sc, with the applied technical fields being covered by additional awards such as graduate certificates. For that is part of the real problem, tradition put science into industry where it was applied and provided technical solutions. The B.Eng obscures what is added to the science as do many other professional degrees they should be scrapped, and get back to the B.Sc with something else to cover the applied practice. So an engineer for example more likely to have a B.A to cover the creative design, and a B.Sc to cover the scientific principles. But basic technical design only requires AQF-6 not AQF-8.

The idea is to get people interested, keep them interested, and have them progressing through qualifications from the very beginning. Don't want people leaving the industry, want them to find the right role and level. Some may have preference for planning and supervision so they get diverted to that quickly, others for design. Do not want to confuse industrial design and industrial management with engineering. Academic programmes for engineers are focused on the numbers, not design or management. I believe the young are being misled about what engineering is about. All the promotional programmes are biased towards building technology, not the engineering supposed to be promoting. From such progammes the school students should be taking up trade studies not engineering degree.

So really need to identify that which is unique to the engineer, and I mean in practice, not the foundational beliefs of those defining the profession and supposed subordinates. Engineering technicians, engineering associates and engineering technologists may work as subordinates to engineers, but all are more likely to work independently and subcontract work to engineers on an as needs basis. The actual operation of the industrial economic environment is complex, and we need to make far better of use of the available human resources. Not demanding that people spend increasing amounts of time in formal education before they can start to earn their own income. Got to get them into industry sooner, making use of acquired knowledge. Innovation occurs when people with a different knowledge base than those currently at the coal face are placed at the coal face. So cycle people between industry and formal education. The industrial revolution cascaded ahead because artisans studied technical science out of curiosity, either by reading or due to the availability of mechanics institutes and night schools. Rather than push a few to AQF-8, we should be ensuring that the minimum any employee has is AQF-6, anything less than AQF-6 and the person is still in a training and development programme. The first step however is to ensure everyone has an AQF-1 qualification, and in the main that requires providing evidence of prior learning. The primary step therefore is not going around teaching any one, but assessing them and recognising the learning that they already have.

The Innovative Educator: School is Not School. A Place Where The Community...

The Innovative Educator: School is Not School. A Place Where The Community...: I recently shared three radical ideas to transform education without school . In it, I shared Linda Dobson’s timeless article, When the S...

Not something new rather something lost. Consider that Henry Maudslay workshop was a centre of learning, with apprenticeships there sought after. Refer to the biography of the iron workers by Samuel Smiles

10 Principles for eliminating the words "engineer", "engineered" and "engineering" from vocabulary.

Professional #engineers within IEAust and elsewhere, complaining about their recognition and status, year after tedious year is so tiresome. So have decided to work towards completely removing the words "engineer", "engineered" and "engineering" from my vocabulary. Here is a starting set of principles to assist in doing so.

Principle#1 : If use tools and techniques, though abstract and analytical, then with in the scope of the generic meaning of #Technician.

Principle#2 : If it is not #engineering when done by others then it is not engineering when done by #engineers.

Principle#3 : #Engineering is what #engineers do. Not vice versa.

Principle#4 : True #engineers are the ingenious innovators who beget #Technology, and provide #TechnicalScience for future adaptation.

Principle#5 : Last years #Engineer is this years #Technician.

Principle#6 : Understanding history, geography and ethics of technology and society is the role of the #Technologist.

Principle#7 : As defined the #Engineer shall always be placed subordinate to the #Technologist. Not vice versa.

Principle#8 : The words technologist, technician, associate and officer shall not be prefixed with engineering or postfixed with engineer.

Principle#9 : Institutions and societies of #engineers shall only have rights to define profession of #engineer, and no other occupation.

Principle#10 :Legislation shall not limit a single profession to supply of service. Only review and approval shall be constrained.

Revision:
1) Spelling corrected principle 7. Principle 10 rewritten.

Eliminating "Engineer" and "Engineering" from my Vocabulary

Been reading the discussions taking place on the Engineers Australia LinkedIN group, most seem  to be focused on either:

1) The status and recognition of Engineers
2) Recognition and accreditation of foreign qualifications

Seems mutual recognition agreements haven't improved mobility much. As for status and recognition I think they are highly confused people. Edward de Bono apparently did an experiment in which he hypnotised someone and asked them to draw a square circle: the person got really stressed and frustrated. So called professional engineers seem to be in a similar state, not really knowing what they want.

ENGINEER
The english language is highly dynamic, with the meanings of words under going subtle changes through the use of metaphor, analogy and poetry., with the passage of time the most commonly accepted meaning of a word can change significantly from its original meaning. Professional engineers, want to be the guardians of the words "engineer" and "engineering" and only permit the meanings which they define and redefine as they please from time to time. For these engineers: engineering is what engineers do. Anybody else who does what an engineer does, but does not meet the specification of an engineer, then what that person is doing, is not engineering.

The other issue is that the institutions and societies which represent engineers, typically have promotional campaigns which are misleading about what engineers do, and completely ignore the multitude of other people involved with planning, design and management, such as: architects, industrial designers, surveyors, quantity surveyors, building surveyors, applied scientists, industrial and applied mathematicians, and industrial managers, just to name a few.

A civil engineer maybe able to use a theodolite and measure or set out a site, but a licensed surveyor is required to identify property boundaries. A civil engineer may study building structures, but that doesn't make them a structural engineer. A structural engineer may be competent at analysis and design of pinned and braced structures or diaphragm boxes, but it doesn't mean they can analyse cable-nets or tension membranes. A structural engineer may be competent at designing steel reinforced concrete but that doesn't mean they can design aluminium or glass structures. Similarly structural engineers may be competent with statics but not with vibration and structural dynamics. The knowledge base is immense.

Unfortunately many of todays graduates and employers are confused and believe that a university degree contains the knowledge required for the job. It doesn't, it contains the fundamentals necessary to be able to learn the specifics of the job: a great deal of additional self-study is required to do the job. For example at university study the basics of strength and stability of materials, but then have to learn the specific requirements and approaches of different materials codes. The steel (AS4100) and cold-formed steel (AS4600) structures codes are in the main similar, but the differences make the cold-formed steel structures code more time consuming and difficult to use. To further compound the difference most designing steel structures to AS4100, use simple look up tables, known as design capacity tables (DCT's), thus avoiding the need for detailed calculations. Those designing coldformed steel (AS4600) structures have to do the calculations. Additionally as start to push the materials to their limits need to review and expand studies and understanding of the strength and stabilities of materials. This can be achieved by returning to university to study for higherlevel academic awards, or by self-learning. Given that don't get personal tuition at most universities, and the student has to do the work, and university is about passing exam's not getting the job done, most such additional learning has traditionally taken place on and off the job. Engineers and others spend late nights trying to solve problems or just understand the behaviour of a physical system.

However as society gets more complex and integrated, then inconvenience to others, hazards and public safety start to become issues. The community starts to specify minimum education requirements and academic awards, impose examination, registration and licensing, in an attempt to control quality and public safety. This however leads to confusion and contradictory perceptions. If engineers are the leaders and innovators, then when looking at the review manuals and examination requirements for the USA Fundamentals of engineering exam (FE/exam) and the professional engineers practice exam (PE/exam) administered by NCEES is this licensing exam truly for engineers or design technicians? Is it really possible to test engineering ability or only ability to apply Technical Science? What is this engineering thing?

Further more whilst the FE/PE exams provides a far better assessment of technical competence than writing career episode reports and work practice reports, and a more detailed assessment than the part 3 examination of the IStructE, it still is not a good enough check on technical competence. The work practice report idea is based on identifying competences so generic that they could apply to anyone in any job, and as a complete collection, potentially apply to no one at all. But still they provide the flexibility to qualify a person as an engineer, engineering technologist or engineering associate, irrespective of what the individuals actual job function and career path involves: it makes no prior judgment of the technical knowledge used on the job. The latter flexibility is also its flaw. A person maybe good at delegating but otherwise actually hopeless at design. Good at concrete design but should be kept away from welded aluminium. Problem is, that writing a work practice report, hasn't actually tested if the person is good at concrete design: because the generic competences do not deal with the specifics: that is where the FE/PE exams make a better assessment.

Engineers are the only people I know who think engineers drive trains, or fix plumbing. As far as I know the population at large think engineers : "do the numbers" and are good with mathematics. Still not a good picture for an engineer.

So heres the thing. Engineer sounds like engine. The first trains, were steam engines on wheels, and designed and built, maintained, operated and tamed by the one and same person, and characters like Casey Jones do not equate to simply being a driver. If a person calls themselves an engineer, then its likely to bring to mind engine, and from there something to do with engines: trains and cars.

But if say structural engineer, chemical engineer, electrical engineer, then it does not immediately bring to mind engine. Since no engineer is technically competent across all disciplines, nor in depth within a discipline, no engineer should be lazily referring to themselves as engineer. Do that then expect to be equated to a train driver and get poor recognition. Engines and engineer go together, if want to differentiate then do so. Do not insist on incorporated engineers and engineering technologists as not being engineers, and then leave engineering discipline out when referring to oneself as an engineer. Further more in terms of identifying the technical competence that the community needs to hire an engineer the major discipline alone is simply not good enough.

Since engineers complain of lack of recognition and acknowledgement, then dropping the use of the word from our common language shouldn't be a problem, its not being used anyway apparently. If we don't have engineers then no engineering can be taking place. Will modern industrial society collapse? No it won't because we are simply arguing semantics.

From this point forward as far as is practical the words "engineer", "engineered" and "engineering" are to be eliminated from the language associated with the planning, design, management, application and adaptation of established technology.

Determining the size of a beam is not engineering it is technical design. Determining the size of a mechanical drive shaft, not engineering design but technical design. Want the flow of water in a pipe network, that is technical analysis, sizing and selecting a suitable pump : technical design. In the future there will be technical planning, technical design, technical analysis , technical science, and technical management. Further more persons qualified in the Australian Qualification Framework (AQF) from level 6 down have the potential to carry out such work. To implement legislation which requires and restricts to AQF level 8 upwards is unacceptable.

AUSTRALIAN QUALIFICATION FRAMEWORK (AQF) AND ARTICULATION
There should be far greater enforcement of increase depth as go from one AQF level to the next, breadth should restricted to the same level. There should also be distinction between enabling knowledge and competence, from required competence and proficiency. Just because a person knows something and is able to perform a task does not mean they are suited for employment in such activity. We don't train everyone that can run for the olympics.

Similarly not everyone able to do a job is suited to the job: business is a real world experiment and a competition for survival. To survive need to be flexible, multiskilled and adaptable. Things get designed once and can be made many times, so typically far more work available for producers than for designers. But products and technolgical systems have life cycles and therefore become obsolete, so need to come up with new innovative ideas to keep occupied as producer. So if only partially innovative only going to be in role of designer for short time frame, and will after design over, need to be producer for greater portion of time.

Given 95% of businesses are small business, then as owner/operator going to be doing everything: chief cook and bottle washer. Aiming for the top level of the AQF does not bring job security, it may be something interesting and challenging to do, but it does not meet the needs of industry or the individual need for survival. Survival requires breadth.

The problem is whether educational institutions impose a requirement to study breadth sequentially or permit it in parallel. For example is it permitted to study business and technical science at the same time or is it required to decide which to study first? If they are combined in a single award what is it called: does the name of the award hide the content and cause confusion?

There is benefit in keeping science, mathematics and technology as separate streams and awards. With occupational and professional qualifications kept separate from the generic knowledge. For example a degree in engineering hides content such as: mathematics, physics, chemistry, computer science, and the technology covered.

Historically people studied the arts and sciences then went into industry, if they were innovative they put it to use. In the modern world there is a focus on needing a degree in engineering, but at the same time someone with such degree would be excluded from a job position in industrial mathematics. To truly retain flexibility occupational titles are not helpful in academic awards: there is need to differentiate between the learning and the job qualification.

A degree in economics, business or accounting is not helpful if it hides an equivalent diploma in applied mathematics. When the economy changes, the starting point from a diploma in applied mathematics is more flexible than that from a degree in accounting: there are more pathways from which to move forward.

By starting at AQF level 1 and moving along generic streams the articulation requirements of the framework are better met. Qualification requirements for occupations and professions can be met by independent national and international qualification boards, along with training institutions which provide for the development of proficiency independent of learning institutions. The issue is that most modern degrees contain breadth not depth, and also lack the synergy which makes a whole out of the component parts. When jobs are in short supply it doesn't really matter, the education is to keep people of the streets, not train for employment. But when there is a mining and construction boom, or other up turn in the economy it is not sensible to be declaring shortages and educating for breadth when the work typically requires specialisation. For example someone educated at AQF-6 is capable of designing the typical concrete structure it is not necessary to educate to AQF-8 or increasingly to AQF-9 to do the job. So whilst AQF-9 may be increasingly the requirement to join the profession of engineer, it is not engineer that is required to do the job: unless there is some silly grab for work legislation been permitted to be put in place.

ENGINEERING
By removing the word engineering, from engineering associate and engineering technologist, and not describing the work as engineering, it is possible to reduce confusion that the work is engineering and therefore requires an engineer, and where there is no restrictive legislation it can deter such being implemented. Secondly if legislation does exist and if professional engineer is poorly defined as a unique entity, which it usually is, and technical competence is not properly assessed, then others can step in and set the required levels of technical competence.

With respect to the FE/PE exams in the USA, there is relatively clear definition of engineering, and also restrictive legislation. However where such legislation and licensing dominates there is little innovation: innovation tends to occur where the industry exemptions are in place. Engineering may be what they choose to call the content of these eaminations, but is it really engineering? There is need for technical science at many different levels and in a variety of areas. The depth and breadth of the PE exam may be the requirement for an engineer: but others don't need the same depth and breadth. Others may be carrying out the same task but that doesn't make it engineering, and just because its done by an engineer doesn't make it engineering.

As I have mentioned many times previously: last years engineer is this years technician. So that which was engineering last year is not engineering this year. It is professional engineers who keep increasing the required duration of education and inventing alternative names for people with less duration of education. It is professional engineers dictating the terms and setting the agenda, I am simply following through with that which they are imposing on others.

Cannot draw square circles. If it is not engineering when carried out by others it is not engineering when carried out by engineers. Therefore there is little that is unique to engineering, and thus little need for engineering, but there is a great deal of need for the application of technical science.

ENGINEERED AND PRE-ENGINEERED
What does pre-engineered mean? If engineers are commonly percieved as the ones who do the numbers, then as far as the public is concerned pre-engineered simply means the numbers have been done. Since fitness-for-function is dependent on qualitative characteristics as well as quantitative characteristics, then something that is pre-engineered is not fully designed. Design however is increasingly perceived as non-functional, so something pre-designed may be pretty but fall apart the first time it is used.

One of the main uses of "pre-engineered" is in respect to buildings such as:

1) Pre-engineered metal building systems (PMBS)
2) Pre-engineered metal building (PEMB), or manufactured buildings

If something is pre-engineered then the inference is that the engineer's needed input has been provided already. Elsewhere I have indicated that engineering takes place at the frontiers of science and technology, once the science and technology has been established then the engineering is over. Hence the engineers needed input has been provided and the engineers continued input is no longer necessary. Further application and adaptation is a matter of technical design. All established technology is effectively pre-engineered. That something is custom engineered by an engineer is largely irrelevant if it is based on a variant of a generic and established technology. Engineered and pre-engineered are basically irrelevant terms, no replacement words required, simply don't use them, or accept where already used, and avoid introducing any additional terms.

Also in reference to pre-engineered there is failure to differentiate between end-products, systems and installations. Typically the building system is pre-engineered, but the specific assembly of components is not pre-engineered, nor is the anchorage and installation on site. Consequently PMBS/PEMB still require much technical analysis and design before regulatory approval for building can be granted. So better to simply refer to building system. We don't refer to bolts as pre-engineered so why refer to larger more complex assemblies as pre-engineered?

Also if engineering is at the frontiers of science and technology, it does not do well to advertise product as engineered, for it tends to suggest experimental and that the science and technology is not yet proven nor established. That is "engineered" should have negative connotations for the product, not positive. Thus engineered means there are potential hazards not yet identified and designed for. No matter how much testing occurs before released to the environment, the technology is still a real world experiment. Established technologies are still real world experiments with inherent hazards, however the risk of experiencing the hazards has been minimised.

SUMMARY
Calling something "engineered" detracts from its value rather than enhances it, so don't call it so. If something was designed scientifically, and such design-science was not provided by an engineer, then don't call it "engineering". If its called engineering then professional engineers may claim exclusive right to do such work, and get legislation introduced to restict practice to engineers and otherwise make a grab for work. Do not provide professional engineers with opportunity to claim credit for that which they have not done. If you do not match the professional engineers technical specification for an engineer, do not call yourself an "engineer", you are simply giving credit to an elitist class of people who are not actually doing the work.

Do not use titles like incorporated engineer, engineering technologist, engineering associate/officer, engineering technician. If not engineers and not doing engineering, then by using such terms invented by the professional engineers, credit is being given to the persons who did not do the work. Do not use terms which the public are likely to abbreviate, adding to the confusion.
If tools and techniques are used, even though abstract and analytical, it is still the generic work attributed to a technician.

JOB TITLES, OCCUPATIONAL CLASSIFICATION, PROFESSION AND BUSINESS
There is no need for job titles, occupational classification or profession, such are relatively modern inventions resulting from a high division of labour in industrial society. In more ancients times we were all hunter/gatherers then subsistence farmers. In modern industrial society where we have no direct access to food and water, we are trading enterprises trying to exchange what we have for what we need. We are effectively all businesses, and every employee is a microbusiness.

And for those against national identity numbers, it is the compilation of the doomsday book for taxation purposes which basically gave us our surnames: taylor, blacksmith, arrowsmith, waters, farmer. We have already been classified by occupation. Further more what one person can do a group can do, and what a group can do a single person can do to a limited extent.

Buckminster Fuller suggested there are craft tools and industrial tools. Craft tools are those made by one person working alone. Industrial tools require a team. WIth industrialisation and capitalist competition, the concept of having society on a national or even city scale is some what questionable. True society is some what limited to family, business or other small group. What a person needs to contribute to a group can change at any time, and certain tasks need to be shared and/or taken in turns (eg. handling garbage). Occupational classification even at the professional level is still extremely limiting and based on an inadequate knowledge base. Continuous professional development is just continuous learning, and with respect to the industrial landscape it should produce a significant level of commonality after several years. Job titles and job specifications typically fail to reflect the true nature and synergy required for the job. Employers typically write job specifications on the basis of a limited knowledge and understanding of the last person who held the job, and they typically fail to find the right person. So stick to own name rather than adopting a job title or seeking after a job title.

It is also typical advise to use own name in a registered business name whilst this is beneficial for a sole practitioner it can become problematic for: an employing organisation and partnerships. It is also not advisable to have the name of the service or product supplied in the business name: a name should be relatively simple and have no particular meaning other than as a unique identifier. The activities of a business enterprise expand, contract and change with the passage of time. Some modern businesses now have abreviations which are considered names in their own right and no longer have the original meaning due to the diversification of the businesses (eg IBM, ASTM international). There is also another issue with business names, and that is cannot register a generic name which would prevent others from naming te type of business they are in, which results in some strange things. For example a business that sells apples cannot call itself Apple, but a business that makes computers can. So as previously mentioned, every employee is a micro business, as such better for the individual to get credit for the work than the occupational group. If the occupational group is credited for the work, then any member in the group can be replaced by any other. However there is a need to balance individuality with the needs of the larger group forming the business which the individual works for. Clearly it is easier to provide loyalty to a group formed for the benefit of the members, rather than the benefit for some other group. Business, competition, survival: forget about professions they are too limited and an obsolete invention.

Industrial Awards

In Australia we have both State and Federal industrial awards which define conditions of work including pay rates. Pay levels tend to be defined in terms of educational awards, and presently are not aligned with the 10 levels of the current Australian Qualification Framework (AQF). Aligning pay levels with level of education has the benefit of being simple but is not entirely appropriate: it is only really relevant for one aspect of wage relativity.

Some examples which may or may not be obsolete as new awards are coming into play:

Metal Industry (South Australia)
{similar awards exist for building and other industries, though they can involve more complex wage classifications structures: too much division of labour}

C14 Production Employee Level I
C13 Production Employee Level II
C12 Production Employee Level III
C11 Production Employee Level IV
C10 Engineering Trades Person Level I
C9   Engineering Trades Person Level II / Engineering Technician Level I
C8   Engineering Trades Person Special Class Level I / Engineering Technician Level II
C7   Engineering Trades Person Special Class Level II / Engineering Technician Level III
C6   Advanced Engineering Trades Person Level I / Engineering Technician Level IV


Draughtspersons, Planners and Technical Officers

*C10 Engineering Trades Person - Level 1 (Not part of award, reference level only)

C9 Engineering Technician - Level 1
C8 Engineering Technician - Level 2
C7 Engineering Technician - Level 3
C6 Engineering Technician - Level 4
C5 Engineering Technician - Level 5
C4 Engineering Associate - Level 1
C3 Engineering Associate - Level 2
C2a Leading Technical Officer / Principal Engineering Supervisor / Trainer / Co-ordinator

In some earlier awards professional scientists and professional engineers were set at level C1

Professional Scientists (General Industries)
(APESMA classify's engineering technologists as professional scientists.)

Level 1A Professional Scientist
Level 1B Professional Scientist
Level 2 Professional Scientist
Level 3 Professional Scientist
Level 4 Professional Scientist

Professional Engineers (General Industries)

Level 1 Graduate
Level 2 Experienced Engineer
Level 3 Professional Engineer
Level 4 Professional Engineer

Technical Professionals
New Federal award covering scientists, engineers and information technologists.

Engineers Australia, only recognises and accredits qualifications for: engineering associates/officers, engineering technologists and professional engineers as part of the engineering team: excludes the engineering technicians shown in the awards.

Subject to various international accords engineering associates/officers are equated to engineering technicians elsewhere in the world. Not sure that such is valid, since engineering associates were never just drafters, nor trades persons in an engineering area of practice. Nor are the engineering technicians particaularly advanced level trade persons. For example electrician is not an abreviation of electrical engineering technician. An electrician needs to be licensed, whilst an electrical engineering technician does not need to be unless they do the work of an electrician. Electricians are primarily concerned with supply side of electricity, from the GPO in the wall, back to the power station. Though from the building supply point and the power station likely to have a different name again, such as linesman.

Music Video: We’ve Got To Be That Light – A Gift to America’s Teachers

Music Video: We’ve Got To Be That Light – A Gift to ... Teachers.

From coast to coast, across the oceans to teachers every where.

Educational Testing: Cannot Inspect Quality in have to Design it in

The Innovative Educator: A Fundamental Principle: No Unnecessary Testing (N...: By Stephen Krashen | Original PDF Summary: Do not invest 4.5 billion on new standards and tests. Instead, work on improving the NAEP to g...

The testing in the education system is inappropriately focused. The students who need to learn something, are tested to assess whether the teachers are doing a good job. Forget the debate what is the purpose of education, what value are teachers? Are teachers doing a good job and should the government be investing in the schools and their personnel? That appears to be the focus of all the testing in education.

Whilst industry needs to know is this person competent to perform this job? Does this person have adequate knowledge to work safely in this job and not otherwise pose a hazard to others. Is this person capable of exercising adequate duty of care and learning what is needed to complete the job, or otherwise seeking the guidance and assistance of more qualified persons?

I always found swot vac, irritating. Who introduced such rubbish? I never wanted time to study and prepare for examinations, nor reading time once in the examination. Just give me the examination, with out warning, if I don't know the stuff being examined then the results will indicate, I have no current interest in the stuff, and no immediate need to know. The examinations are all about someone else wanting others to know, it is not about the individuals need to know. Professions are creating more and more standardized knowledge bases, exacting specifications of the elite members of the profession. But in the process actually diluting and watering down the capabilities of the members of the profession. Most professions were born out of necessity, individuals studying and acquiring and appropriate knowledge base to tackle specific problems. We don't really need members of the existing professions, we need people who can tackle today's problems.

The journey is important with respect to learning, and the important part which leads to quality learning, is the students interest in the learning, the students need to know, the relevance to the student. The problem with education, is that it is about what others believe the individual needs to know. So individuals have their own problems and circumstances to resolve, and schools deny them the opportunity to tackle these issues and force them to study a great deal of abstract irrelevances, with constitute further problem relative to their current needs.

There is need for rigorous training and testing before being appointed to certain tasks, or job functions. but such training and testing should be independent of the learning and enabling process itself. That is education enables, training develops competence and proficiency, and testing determines if the required proficiency has been achieved.

But some one may be a good soldier but that doesn't mean they are good enough to be in the SAS or any other elite group. Similarly there are many people in the work force who are very good at their job, even unaware that there are specialist professional groups in existence, they are too busy getting on with their job to worry about professions. But then circumstances change, they become unemployed, they now need job titles for what they did, a professional classification, and to get a job doing what they were doing a professional qualification. No they become excluded from their area of practice. They end up attending educational institutions supposedly being taught. But the teachers know and understand less than they do: the only advantage the teacher has is the language, the jargon of the profession that obscures communication and understanding to all that are not part of the elite group of the profession.

Knowledge is not a tree, it is a complex network or web, and there is no starting or ending point. We should be enabling the next generation to study from their own perspective, based on seeking answers to their own questions: rather than learning and feeding the known answers back to teachers. They may all start from different points in the knowledge web, and take differing paths through the web, but their breadth of knowledge is likely to converge, whilst their depth of knowledge differs.

To operate in our economy there is a common knowledge base and skill set required. All eventually acquire that skill though not part of any formal education system. Whilst if look at professionals, no matter where their initial education started: science, engineering,  medicine, many ultimately end up with an MBA or graduate diploma's in project management. The relevance of the masters or graduate status is largely irrelevant because many, have learnt such skills and knowledge on the job. So that academic awards are largely about assessing ability with out having actually used that ability in a real world setting.

That is academic awards do not indicate actually ability, but rather potential to demonstrate such ability. All the specification writing, and all the testing and filtering carried out, is not working in selecting the right people for the work that needs to be done. We are simply failing to train the people with the right skills to meet the needs of industry and society. Further their own imagination and creativity are being stifled. That imagination is required to develop new needs, new wants, new desires and new demands in the market. Do not necessarily need innovative designers, just a populace with imagination and needs.

At the extreme if no one desires to build a space colony beyond Pluto, merely just to see if we can, then it will never happen. An education system built on the purpose of creating employees for an industrial machine, which has all the cogs it needs, is of little value. More people need to be leaving school and starting new businesses supplying new goods and services, or providing alternative goods and services to those existing already, but with some innovative twist.

Where there is no issue of public safety, no exacting specification for a job function, then no testing is required. Where exacting specifications are required, then training is important, and training imposes a specific journey of incremental assessment, where you may be eliminated very quickly and never complete the training programme. Training is about developing proficiency and testing competence in realistic setting. Education and learning to acquire enabling competence and foundational knowledge should have been completed before training begins.

You don't train some one with two left feet, and trips themselves up, to be an Olympic sprinter. You train those who have the enabling competence in the first place.

In education, testing should be incremental, and it should be used to change the assistance that the teacher gives to the pupil to enable that person to learn and to encourage such learning.

Testing which concludes the teachers no value and the pupil no value is pointless. If such is so then what is going to be done about it? Teachers have to be able to adapt to the needs of their pupils, to be dynamically adaptive, to use feedback systems and adjust lessons accordingly, designing lessons to suit the needs of the individual. And that may mean that the teacher keeps out of the individuals way.

We have 10 years of compulsory education: the individual can learn as much or as little as they like. The system appears to be biased towards doing the minimum necessary to get through. No need to aim for the academic judgement of excellence, for what value does it have to the majority? Most are interested in getting away from school, attaining a ticket to employment, earning money and pursing their own lives. They don't want to be at school, and they are not with out ability, they mostly consider they are oppressed and constrained unwarrantedly. If the government, the teachers are going to hold the young captive, then better not waste their time in the classroom: teachers had better have something worth while to say: it had better be relevant to the pupils needs. If not then the teachers better get out off the way. Teachers are prison warders, and the students are not wasting the teachers time causing a disturbance, the teacher is wasting the students time. So far better filtering is required on who is permitted to teach.

If education is for the purpose of getting a job, then education is failing. If education is about more than getting a job, then education is failing. Teachers shouldn't be getting credit for the efforts of students. Teachers shouldn't be tainted by the actions troublesome pupils. It is necessary to get the right teachers and pupils together.

If our society is producing, or supplying at any rate, most of what it needs, then it has all the personnel it needs, and so new cogs for the societal machine are just going to be stockpiled in the warehouse until components wear out and need replacing. They will not be able to participate. It cannot be education for jobs, for employment, it has to be education for business, for the market, for survival, for life. What can be tested when it comes to such purpose? Better just keep out of the way.

Then each nation seems to be declaring war on the rest of the world. Like we are in an economic war and have to beat each other. School ground stuff: my nation better than your nation, we lead the world ...

Would be better if we worked together. Not the least of which one major export is education. Like local population diminishing interest in education, but over seas students have interest. Is this because locally we have nothing to develop, the other nations simply developing and building what we already have. Do we not have a future vision, or is it whats the point? We either have too much comfort, or too many constraints on being able to take risks. We have met basic survival needs, but what next? Really get bored to death with sport and the movies? Or can we go explore the depths of the oceans and the outer reaches of space. To climb Everest just because its there.

Just do Coz !  With no point or purpose. Too much rationalizing everything: some things just need to just go do.


{
Yeh! I get easily side tracked. The web of knowledge has no boundaries. All in the universe is connected.
}

Machine Analogy of Industrial Society

Society has a split personality. To talk of capitalist society is something of a contradiction of terms. The advocates of capitalism, often cite how the system more closely represents the natural world with competition and the survival of fitess: it is also why many nations have problematic legislation which protects competition rather than protecting diversity and security of supply. Such regulation implies a certain mechanical analogy to society. That society is a designed and planned machine with specific purpose. When people complain about the state of the health care system, and long waiting queues, there is an inference the machine is broken. When people complain about the state of the roads and the quality of service from public transport, there is an implication that the machine is broken. When people complain about the failure of the education system once again an implication that the machine is broken. The supply of water the disposal of waste. Financing the unemployed, the sick and the retired. Every subsystem is defective, and the machine is broken.

But if the machine is broken, then at some point in time the machine had to have been fully operational and fullfilling its function properly. Whilst some people may refer back to better times, those better times as with now, were only better for some people not all. The machine has never been fully operational, for it has never been fully built. The construction of the machine is a work in progress, but that is not what the educators imply to their pupils. Educators teach as if the machine was fully operational. There is confusion has to whether we have to fight to survive in the wilderness of the concrete jungle, or whether we are simply cogs within the machinery of industrial society.

Some people think they are not cogs: but isolate them entirely from industrial society and see how well they can survive. They are analogous cogs, because they drive and are driven by the industrial machine, from one cog to the next. As drive system or power supply, they are still component parts of the machine: represented by cogs. They are not outside of the machine, and they cannot walk away from the machine. In this respect we are certainly inferior to our ancestors reaching out into the unknown, a pioneering colony on the Moon, or Mars or a space station beyond Pluto is all a constrained possibility because of an unrealistic desire for a perfectly safe machine.

Except that we do not currently operate in a perfectly safe machine, simply travelling to and from place of work is a major risk: likely to result in death. This risk we desire to remove, to perfect the machine, and yet we don't want to be cogs in the machine. Everybody else is expected to be a highly regulated cog with in the machine but not ourselves: everyone tends towards unlimited freedom for themselves and shackles for everyone else. Legislation, regulations and law are all part of the technology of the machinery of industrial society. The laws and regulations are the software that controls the operation of the machine.

The machine operates in a dynamic environment. The environment is changed by many causes, but the very presence of the machine in the environment changes the environment. The machine therefore has to be dynamically adaptive: the environment that the machine is being built in, is not the same environment it will operate in, and the environment it operates in today is not the environment it will operate in tomorrow. If there is no feedback system and no adaptation, then the machine fails in its intended function. It grows, ages, decays and dies. If we adopt a living organism analogy for a city, then the city is a plant not an animal. The plant has to build an extensive root system to draw resources from ever distant locations, resources are wasted on transporting back to the core. Animals however can move closer to the resources, and reduce repetitive transportation distances. Animals can take risks and seek out new resources in as yet unknown places, and do so without a life line back to a point of origin. Many of the problems humans currently face are because the political machine as turned them into plants. Industrial cities and their mechanical plant are stationary engines.


{
Thoughts interrupted will return to this later.
}

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