ICES Technical Grade of Membership in a bid to Combat the Skills Shortage
A new technical grade of membership for commercial management specialists employed within the civil engineering industry has been unveiled by the Institution. This new grade of membership, namely the ICES Technical Member grade, recognises the skills and contribution of those who perform technical duties under the specialisms of both commercial management and geospatial engineering surveying within the civil engineering industry. The ICES Education, Training and Membership Committee Chair, Robin Jones FInstCES comments on the fundamental issues surrounding the Institution's decision to introduce the new Technical Member grade:

"The recent A level grading fiasco has served only to confirm our suspicions that higher education in the UK is in crisis. At the same time, the government is pushing forward with its policy of increasing university attendance levels by some 20% and complaints from the professions and industry over low standards and failure to meet demands are becoming louder and louder. In the latter part of 2002, the argument swung to top-up fees and the emergence of a premier and elitist university division."

Mr Jones adds, "None of this is any comfort to either the civil engineering surveying profession or the industry in which we work. Quality vocational degree courses are becoming fewer and fewer and the number of young graduates currently entering the professional ranks of the industry is less than half of the annual needs.

"To make up this shortfall, industry is taking matters into its own hands in three ways. It is importing graduate resources from abroad, it is reviewing its commercial structure to ensure concentration of its graduate skill base into areas that actually require graduate skills and it is employing increasing numbers of non-graduates and training them to their own specific requirements. It is to recognise and to assist this latter process that the Institution has opened a new technical grade of membership."

Robin concludes, "In recent years, the Institution has been growing more and more concerned that a considerable number of important participants within the civil engineering industry may have been barred from professional qualification for academic reasons. Within the ICES, this is no longer the case. Furthermore, Technical Members can also advance to full corporate membership."

The Technical Member grade has been introduced by the Institution in two stages. It was first introduced for geospatial engineering surveyors in September 2002 and has been duly followed by the launch of a Technical Member grade for commercial management specialists.

Commercial management candidates who satisfy a range of qualification and experience requirements, as set by the Institution, will be eligible to apply for this grade of membership with effect from January 2003.

A successful applicant for the Technical Member grade of membership under both specialisms will be awarded the designatory letters, TMInstCES, and enjoy a wide range of membership benefits and services customary with a specialist and progressive professional institution.

For further information regarding the new Technical Member grade, contact the Institution's Education, Training and Membership Officer, Paul Brown at ICES Head Office:

Dominion House, Sibson Road, Sale, Cheshire, M33 7PP
Tel: +44 (0) 161 972 3114; Fax: +44 (0) 161 972 3118; E-mail: [email protected]

Copies of the Technical Member Grade of Membership leaflet and Guide to Membership brochure are now available from Head Office on request: [email protected]