Editor’s note: This article was first published in June 2011. This news concerns a proposed reform of engineering qualifications in Spain, and the article does not cover what finally happened to it.
This is one of those reforms that probably nobody understands: the aim is to end specialisations within engineering, so that with a single degree any engineer could work in any branch. In other words, one degree, one single branch of engineering. Engineers are up in arms and demanding answers, but those answers aren’t coming.
The idea that an agricultural engineer could design a ship or build a bridge, or that an aeronautical engineer could build a boat, makes no sense whatsoever to the profession. Engineers believe that it not only puts public safety at risk, but that the image of “engineers for everything” will undermine the credibility of Spanish engineers’ professionalism abroad.
The president of Spain’s Royal Academy of Engineering, Aníbal Figueiras, has warned that this reform is as absurd as a bus driver taking the controls in an aeroplane cockpit, or a dentist performing heart surgery.
If specialisation ends and anyone can work in any branch of engineering, professionalism ends too. The impact of this reform, should it come into force, is unknown, so we’ll have to wait and see what the consequences are.
See also: The crisis and notaries
Featured image: Luis García, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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