Engineering Industry Training Board Research Articles

Obituary: Muriel Gore Venning, 1921-1997

Obituary: Muriel Gore Venning, 1921-1997

A study of the quality of open learning materials supplied to the engineering industry

Describes how, in August 1989, the Engineering Industry Training Board (EITB) were commissioned by the Training Agency to evaluate the quality of open learning materials supplied to the industry. In parallel, the EITB entered into a collaborative research agreement with Aston University. A range of 67 products, in eight subject areas and from 39 suppliers, were evaluated. The majority (48) were either text‐based (32) or video‐led (16). The remainder (19) were audio, computer‐based training (CBT) and interactive video (IV) packages. Details three main findings emerging from the research. First, that price alone is not a predictor of quality. Second, good quality products exist across the entire price range including some at less than £50. Third, text‐based materials form the majority of the good quality products (24 out of 34), followed by video‐led (5) and interactive video (4). Results from the small sample of audio products (5) suggest that this may not be an effective medium for open learning.

Managing CAD in heavy electrical engineering

This paper draws on work carried out at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU), for the Engineering Industry Training Board (EITB) during 1988. This was the culmination of an eight-year programme, of case-study based research, considering the implications of CAD for skills and training in UK engineering. It concluded that, despite investments in sophisticated systems, firms found implementation problematic and promised benefits slow to materialise. The experiences of five heavy electrical engineering establishments which participated in the study illustrate many of these difficulties. The novel approach to managing CAD in one of these companies, however, brought commercial success and holds out some interesting lessons for other companies.

Engineering training

Shake‐up for Engineering Training. The Chairman of the Engineering Industry Training Board had some strong words for the top engineering employers of the West Midlands. Speaking at an informal meeting, he said:

Training Placements for Sandwich Students in Small Companies: The Group Scheme for Technologist Industrial Training at Bradford University 1972–87

Group Schemes for technologist industrial training were established in the early 1970s on the initiative of the Engineering Industry Training Board (EITB) to help small companies to take sandwich course students for single periods of industrial training. The Group Scheme at Bradford University has provided industrial training places for 40 students on the mechanical engineering course during the last 15 years, and the participating companies have recruited six graduates. Details are given of the operation of the Scheme including recruitment, the provision of basic engineering training, and the response of small companies to changes in grant aid. The provision of grant aid has proved a critical factor in the readiness of a company to take a student. The introduction of Engineering Applications 1 (EAI) and changes in funding from the EITB has altered the Group Scheme from a body offering sponsorship in a collective of small companies to one providing closely monitored training for ‘college-based’ students. The work of the Group Scheme could be improved by giving the EITB responsibility for encouraging engineering training in all industries.

CAREERS

The hard facts behind some of the key issues facing educationists and industry alike are highlighted in a new series of Education Profiles published by the Engineering Industry Training Board. They draw upon a wide range of published and unpublished material to address issues like:

Careers:

“We need a nation of well‐trained fully informed and motivated people — in other words educated”, said John Egan, Chairman and Chief Executive of Jaguar. He was speaking to more than 200 senior and chief executives at the Engineering Industry Training Board's (EITB) conference, The Winning Margin, in late March. They had come to hear three speakers from West Germany, Japan and the USA describe their methods of developing human resources to achieve competitive success, and also to learn about British success stories. The theme of the conference was that, although the UK is lagging behind other countries, it can catch up, provided we invest in education, training and developing people.

The Engineering Industry Training Board to the Year 2000

The engineering industry has always been at the forefront of developing and using new technology. This is especially so now with foreign competition forcing the industry to change and adapt all the time. Successful use of technology new to the time means having a skilled workforce; this is crucially so at the moment.

Engineering Training and Careers for Women in Britain: an overview of the initiatives undertaken by the Engineering Industry Training Board

SUMMARY The Engineering Industry Training Board of the United Kingdom has been heavily involved in special projects to increase the number of women in engineering careers in manufacturing industry, both at technician and professional level. The scope of these initiatives is outlined and the research carried out into their implementation and outcome is reviewed. The projects have had considerable success in themselves, in bringing young women into engineering careers in increasing numbers and have also been influential in changing the climate of opinion concerning the appropriateneness of professional and technician engineering careers for women. Research has thrown a great deal of light on to the issues still to be solved, if women are to enter the engineering field of employment in satisfactory numbers. Recently, the issue of how to help older women engineers cope with the dual roles of career and family, has been addressed and especially how to reduce the impact on careers which can result from breaks in full-time work due to family commitments.

The Welfare Approach and the Need for an Alternative Policy

The projected extension of the Youth Training Scheme and the Community Programme, plus the increase in science and engineering university places, demonstrate the government's failure to understand and effectively deal with the shortfall in skilled manpower for the high‐tech industries. The Engineering Industry Training Board (EITB) is promoting an alternative “instant training”, putting experienced graduates, already in‐post, through intensive training to up grade them for high‐tech posts in the growth industries.

BTEC is launched

BTEC is about education and training for employment. It has been said that education is merely training done well; so I am particularly pleased that Sir Keith Joseph, Secretary of State for Education & Science, is here with Tom King, the Employment Secretary. The accepted national approach that I, and many other employers, fail to understand is the division of responsibility for education and training across different Departments of State. As employers we believe this division is nonsense, as education and training must be two parts of a whole. Therefore I was very glad to sign an agreement last week between BTEC and the Engineering Industry Training Board for Joint Certification of both education and training for engineering technicians and technician engineers. Sir Richard O'Brien, EITB Chairman, who is abroad at the moment, shares my satisfaction that we have been able to come together. BTEC will be pursuing arrangements like this one in other fields.

The Development of Creative Engineers

We shall consider some aspects of the development of creative engineers by means of undergraduate university programmes in the United Kingdom. Attention will be given to the nature and objectives of such programmes with particular emphasis on the selection of students for entry to them. For illustration, some reference will be made to the development of one undergraduate engineering programme. earlier. That speech dealt, amongst other things, with the need to develop educational activities in the light of the needs of the UK economy and UK industry. Much of the subsequent debate was focussed upon engineering industries and the engineering profession and therefore upon engineering education and training. Commentators, often drawing upon Anglo-German and similar comparisons, identified the many peculiar characteristics of the UK engineering education system (2). The emphasis upon a science-oriented approach with the relative subordination of technology, the diminution of the concept of art in engineering education, and the absence in the UK of any concept or approach corresponding to the Tecnik concept widespread in Germany, were common observations in this debate. This discussion originated and flourished at a time when undergraduate engineering courses in the UK universities and polytechnics were under-subscribed. In this situation the University Grants Committee (UGC) caused the establishment of so- called 'enhanced' undergraduate engineering courses in eight universities. This heralded a period of fairly widespread innovation in undergraduate engineering education in universities and polytechnics, such that by the time of the publication of the Finniston Report, over twelve universities and two polytechnics had established new undergraduate engineering programmes, each in their different ways aiming to attract high quality students for development as competent and capable engineers for UK manufacturing industry. The recommendations of the Finniston Report added momentum to this development. The report drew attention to the importance of this 'formation' of engineers as an integrated process involving study and training. This approach was consistent with the predominant views of the engineering professional bodies (e.g. the Institution of Mechanical Engineers was beginning to move towards an obligatory five year integrated study/training programme (3) ) and a similar line had been taken by the Engineering Industry Training Board. Thus, the substance of the Report's recommendations on engineering education and training provided few

ECIS special course for careers officers

The centre was one of several used recently for visits by small groups of the 36 members of the course during a week which was devoted to engineering. The Engineering Industry Training Board's office in Newcastle, acting on behalf of the Engineering Careers Information Service, was responsible for organising the programme with Des Hall, the course leader, and Janet Smith, a senior lecturer from the Polytechnic, lending advice and help.

Employee Relations Training for Managers:

The Engineering Industry Training Board recently, completed an intensive study on employee relations training for managers. Whilst the main emphasis was on the needs of line managers in the day‐to‐day management of relationships at work, a frequently occurring element in the analysis was the impact of the increased role of the ER specialist. This article summarises the main conclusions of the EITB study, and highlights the implications for ER specialists.

Management Requirements for Successful Change

Introduction The theme of this article is change, and the central concern here is to analyse the role and discuss the competence of British managers in handling industrial changes. Most of the observations are based on work undertaken at the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex for the Engineering Industry Training Board. This work, which has been going on for many years, was, in its early stages, primarily concerned with monitoring the impact of new technologies on employment patterns in various sectors of the industry. Later, this monitoring work was supplemented by the analysis of management decision‐making and competitive success within particular sectors of the industry. This article discusses our monitoring of numerically controlled machine tools and the role of management in their adoption. The differences between British managers and their international competitors are analysed with particular reference to their educational background.

Employee relations training for managers

The Engineering Industry Training Board has just completed a two‐year study on employee relations training for managers. The six‐man project team which undertook the study was composed of industrial relations and personnel specialists and trainers. The team carried out investigations in over three hundred companies, a number of special studies and a survey of the current provision of employee relations training. Their final Report, which contains recommendations on the analysis of employee relations, the development of training materials and the training of trainers, has been accepted as a basis for action by the EITB. This is the first in a series of articles, setting out the findings, conclusions and some of the ideas for new initiatives in this area.

Developments in apprenticeship

Initiative from the engineering union; In the February issue of the AUEW Journal, Hugh Scanlon, president of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers and chairman of the Engineering Industry Training Board, published an article entitled Apprenticeships — Engineering Industry. It contained a proposal for fundamental changes in the conditions of apprenticeship in the engineering industry.

Basic skills in mathematics for engineering: an illustrated guide. Pp. 31. 1977. Obtainable, price £1 including postage (£20 for 25 copies), from Engineering Industry Training Board, Publications Department, 54 Clarendon Road, Watford WD1 1LB.

Basic skills in mathematics for engineering: an illustrated guide. Pp. 31. 1977. Obtainable, price £1 including postage (£20 for 25 copies), from Engineering Industry Training Board, Publications Department, 54 Clarendon Road, Watford WD1 1LB. - Volume 61 Issue 418

Girl technicians for engineering

This picture shows a part of the training centre at Joseph Lucas, the Birmingham‐based engineering group. This is the grinding section; it is only one section, and then not the largest section, within this training centre. I have seen engineering training workshops the world over; you'd have a long way to go to beat this one. One thing that marks it out as unusual is the number of girl trainees about the place; another is the remarkably high calibre of the girl entrants. Although under training in a craft training centre these girls are not training as craftswomen: they are girl technician trainees and, as such, they are extremely rare. Britain has 250 000 technicians in its engineering industry and of these, only 3 000, or about one per cent, are women and even these are concentrated in certain specialised branches of the industry, particularly in electronics. Clearly, this situation is unsatisfactory. In 1976 the Engineering Industry Training Board decided to mount a limited investigation into the problems of bringing girls into the industry at the technician level. It decided that the best way was to have a go itself to recruit and train girl technicians or, at least, to play the major role in such an exercise, and study what happens. That is how these girls came to be in the Lucas Training Centre.

The case of the disappearing craftsman

An alarming fall in the number of new craftsmen likely to be available to the engineering industry in the next three years is forecast in a new report published by the Engineering Industry Training Board. It discloses a drop in the number of new craftsmen from an average of 15 500 a year in the early 1970s to an average of under 10 500 a year for the three years beginning 1976/77.