Matching sections to meet the educational requirements for incorporated engineer status

The raising of standards by the Engineering Council with their 3^rd edition of Standards and Routes to Registration (SARTOR) published in 1997 includes the upgrading of the educational base to bachelor degree for Incorporated Engineer status. Up until recently BTEC Higher National Certificates (HNCs) and Higher National Diplomas (HNDs), the latter requiring endorsements, could be submitted for accreditation, but now require a Matching Section to bring the output standard up to that of a bachelor degree. The raising of input standards in SARTOR however has enabled BTEC qualifications to remain popular with full-time students unable to gain direct access to a degree programme and with part-time students who are often initially sponsored to take a HNC. Many students in these two categories will perform sufficiently well to engage in a Matching Section. This paper examines the experiences of two institutions in the design of Matching Sections accredited by the Institution of Incorporated Engineers (IIE) where quite a different approach has been adopted to achieve the same output standard.