There are many routes to the different careers within the construction industry which vary by country. However, there are three main tiers of careers based on educational background which are common internationally:unskilled and semi-skilled general site labour with little or no construction qualifications; skilled on-site managers who possess extensive knowledge and experience in their craft or profession; technical and management personnel with the greatest educational qualifications, usually graduate degrees, trained to design, manage and instruct the construction process.
Skilled occupations in the UK require further education qualifications, often in vocational subject areas. These qualifications are either obtained directly after the completion of compulsory education or through on the job apprenticeship training. In the UK, 8500 construction-related apprenticeships were commenced in 2007.
Technical and specialised occupations require more training as a greater technical knowledge is required. The professions, like a civil engineer, a building services engineer, a project manager, a quantity surveyor structural engineer and others hold more legal responsibility.
4.10 :
1. Are construction careers the same in different countries?
2. What is the first tier of construction careers characterized by?
3. What is specific of the second tier of construction careers?
4. What is the third tier of construction careers based on?
5. How are further education qualifications obtained in Britain?
6. How many construction-related apprenticeships were commenced in Britain in 2007?
7. What professions require more legal responsibility?
4.11 , CIVIL ENGINEERING'S IMAGE A FIVE-YEAR UPDATE by Les Hamill, Liz Hodokinson :
Five years ago this journal reported that the civil engineering profession was relatively invisible to young people that universities were struggling to fill places and that many practitioners were dissatisfied. Since then there has been a welcome improvement. The same authors now find that civil engineering is featured regularly on television, applications to universities are up and practising civil engineers seem happier. This coincides with civil engineers enjoying a relatively high workload and being offered improved salaries and more flexible, family friendly working patterns. Unchanged, however, is the very low proportion of women entering the profession.
In May 2003 the authors published a paper in Civil Engineering describing the invisibility of the civil engineering profession, its relatively poor image in schools and how this might be improved. This paper reviews the changes that have taken placc during the last five years. In 2003 a number of factors were adversely affecting civil engineerings image. These are summarised briefly below.
Ø Applications to study civil engineering at university had fallen by around 50% between 1995 and 2001, resulting in the closure of some courses.
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Ø In 2000, 61% of accepted home applicants to engineering and technology degree courses held A/AS-levels and 15% of a Business and Technology Education Council (BTEC) national diploma or general national vocational qualification (GNVQ). Usually -level entrants to civil engineering must have mathematics but, in 2001, a 29% failure rate in the new AS-level maths (introduced as part of the 2000 curriculum reforms) significantly reduced the number of candidates for the full -level. Compared to its BTEC national diploma predecessor, the advanced general national vocational qualification (AGNVQ) contained insufficient mathematics.
Ø Many young people associated engineering with car mechanics and dirty, manual, low-status work. Civil engineering and construction were also perceived by many as a dirty, manual job that could potentially be boring.
Ø Surveys indicated that around 70% of sixth-form students claimed to know nothing about civil engineering and construction, and 62% would not consider it as a career.
Ø The image of a male-dominated construction industry was unattractive to many girls and some boys.
Ø The starting salary of graduate civil engineers was relatively low, which discouraged people from joining the profession.
Ø 82% of practising civil engineers thought that they were undervalued by their employer and 64% had considered leaving the industry in the last year.
The authors made a number of suggestions for improving the image of civil engineering. These included increasing the starting salaries of graduates, engaging in a public relations campaign involving positive news releases and television programmes, and a sustained commitment to positively promoting the profession in schools through the use of exciting hands-on activities and work experience. When considering the changes of the last five years, it is useful to consider how they fit into a longer time frame. The business writer, Charles Handy, claimed that many things are cyclical and can be represented by the sigmoid curve like a sine curve or horizontal S. The curve represents relative success with time, and may be used to chart anything from the rise and fall of empires to a products life cycle. Both civil engineerings workload and universities recruitment are cyclical.
| ADJECTIVES & ADVERBS |
? A wide road. . A tall tree. . An interesting book. .
? speaks English well. - .
:
(positive degree), (comparative degree), (superlative degree).
:
, -er, -est.
| strong | stronger | the strongest |
| cold | colder | the coldest |
, -, -er, -ow , , - -est.
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easy
easier ,
the easiest ,
clever
cleverer ,
the cleverest ,
narrow
narrower ,
the narrowest
, , more (less), most (least).
famous
more (less) famous () the most famous ,
interesting
more (less) interesting () ,
the most interesting ,
