Circular letter CL03/02

Number	CL03/02
Subject	Engineering standards
Publication date	1 February 2002
Recipients	To Heads of all HEIs
Of interest to	All involved with the provision of engineering programmes in higher education
Further information	Professor Nick Harris
Response date	19 April 2002
Respond to	Rachel Curtin - r.curtin@qaa.ac.uk
Attachments	*Draft annex to the Subject benchmark statement for engineering.* *Report of the Compatability Working Group*

Dear Colleague

This letter invites institutions to comment on proposals relating to academic reference points widely used in establishing the standards of engineering degrees. The two attached documents are the result of collaborative work between the Agency, the Engineering Professors' Council and the Engineering Council. One document is a draft Annex to the current Subject benchmark statement for engineering; your institution's comments would be welcomed on this. The second document is a report addressed primarily to the academic community of engineers and is for information.

1.The Subject benchmark statement for engineering, published in May 2000, was 'designed to apply to all first degrees in Engineering (e.g. BEng Hons, BSc Hons, MEng) at honours or higher level'. The frameworks for higher education qualifications for England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and for Scotland, published in January 2001, identified the expectation that all Master’s degrees, including those awarded for integrated programmes that include and build upon undergraduate study, should be at Master’s level, i.e at a level demonstrably above that of the honours degree.

A number of organisations and individual academics have suggested to the Agency that a statement that would help clarify the relationship between honours degrees in engineering and MEng degrees could be valuable. A group including representatives from the Engineering Professors' Council, the Engineering Council and the QAA, and the chair of the engineering benchmarking group, have prepared the attached paper. It has been drafted as a potential Annex to the Subject benchmark statement for engineering. The draft Annex is also available at: http://www.qaa.ac.uk/crntwork/benchmark/mast/eng_textonly.htm

The Agency would welcome your views on the need for, and the form, content and utility of, the proposed Annex. If it is felt that such a paper would be helpful to the sector, it will be revised in the light of comments received and subsequently published as an Annex to the Subject benchmark statement for engineering. Please return any comments to Rachel Curtin, either by e mail (r.curtin@qaa.ac.uk) or to the address above, by 19^th April 2002.

2. I would also like to take this opportunity to draw to your attention continuing discussions about academic reference points in engineering. University engineering departments use a number of reference points when designing their programmes of study and for the assurance of their academic quality and standards. Typically, these might include the frameworks for HE qualifications, the Subject benchmark for engineering, SARTOR 3, and the interim report on the EPC Engineering Graduate Output Standard. In November 2000 a meeting was held between representatives of the Engineering Professors' Council and QAA. This meeting agreed that in principle a single statement might be desirable and that, as a first step towards this, a Compatibility Working Group should consider the EPC and QAA publications relating to the standards of engineering degrees.

This work was taken forward and the report of this Compatibility Working Group is also attached.

The QAA Subject benchmark statement for engineering includes a commitment to review it, if required, after 2003. The providers of engineering programmes and their principal stakeholders may wish in due course to consider whether there is advantage in seeking to consolidate the major reference points used in the design and assurance of their courses. Alternatively, the retention of different, but compatible, perspectives for characterising what is expected of a graduating engineer may provide greater opportunity and flexibility.

The Agency would be pleased to continue its collaborations with the engineering communities. It would welcome views on any further development of the reference points that clarify what is provided and expected, in terms of quality and standards, of HE programmes in engineering.

Yours sincerely

Peter Williams

Chief Executive