Revised Engineering Council Standards Published

The Engineering Council has published new editions of its internationally-recognised standards of professional competence and commitment.

This follows the completion of the Engineering Council’s five-yearly Standards Review process, a wide-ranging consultation with stakeholders, including registrants, professional engineering institutions (PEIs), employers, education providers and the general public.

The revised standards documents are as follows:

• The UK Standard for Professional Engineering Competence and Commitment (UK-SPEC)
• Accreditation and Approval of Qualifications and Apprenticeships (AAQA) (replacing the Approval of Qualifications and Apprenticeships Handbook (AQAH))
• Accreditation of Higher Education Programmes (AHEP)
• Registration Code of Practice (RCoP), which sets out the regulations for registration.

Each standards document is accompanied by a summary of key changes, setting out the main differences from the previous edition.

The overall approach in redrafting UK-SPEC was to aim for greater clarity, making the requirements (ie the standard itself) more obvious, while providing better examples of how applicants might provide evidence of having met the standard. An emphasis was placed on accessible language, clarity of structure and internal consistency with other standards documents. No competences have been added or removed in this fourth edition.

AAQA is broader in scope than the standard it replaces, to enable approval and accreditation of a wider variety of programmes, including those designed to develop engineering competence. It also introduces intermediate competences between EngTech and IEng to support progression and recognition of apprenticeships and competence development schemes at these levels.

Revisions to AHEP aim to encourage development of innovative programmes and pedagogy, making clear that industry involvement in programme design and delivery is expected. The updated document also has a sharper focus on inclusive design and innovation, and the coverage of areas such as sustainability and ethics.

Changes to RCoP aimed to make the document more general, simpler, and easier to navigate. Any content that was process-based rather than regulatory have been moved to a more appropriate document, resulting in the fourth edition of RCoP being significantly shorter.

The deadline for implementation of these standards is 31 December 2021, with the exception of learning outcomes, which will be implemented by 31 December 2024 to allow for course development timescales. All current and revised standards documents are available on the Engineering Council website at www.engc.org.uk/standards