Coming up from the shopfloor

the easiest route to gaining professional engineering status is to obtain a degree that is accredited by a professional institution, thereby meeting all the criteria in one fell swoop. For the pre-university student, time spent researching which courses fulfil which requirements can set them on the straight and simple route. However, university is not the starting point for everyone. Some of those who started out as apprentices now have the skills, knowledge and responsibility equivalent to those with professional status. Increasingly they are finding that their career advancement is hampered by the lack of formal recognition. For such people, without the academic qualifications, there is a special route to professional status, the Mature Candidate Route. TWI, the Welding Institute based at Great Abington near Cambridge, has seen an increase in the level of interest its members have shown in this route in recent years. The institute is keen that individuals who achieve a high standard of professional competence in the course of their careers should not be handicapped by a lack of early educational opportunities, and has set up its own mature candidate scheme to help. Rosemary Setterfield runs the scheme and acknowledges that it is not an easy route to follow. To help potential mature candidates, TWI has drawn up a factsheet detailing what they need to do. There are currently 15 people on the scheme. A workshop in Middlesbrough in May attracted a further 15 interested people of whom between 10 and 12 are expected to proceed. A second workshop is now planned to meet the demand from those unable to attend the first one. Candidates must be at least 35, have had experience in appropriate positions of increasing responsibility over a minimum of 15 years, and have attained a position of responsibility which, if academically qualified, would qualify for member, senior member or chartered engineer registration. They identify a project that, once approved, is undertaken with support from an adviser. The resulting paper must demonstrate analysis, interpretation and presentation skills, and is assessed by two TWI assessors and one Engineering Council assessor.