Trends in Engineering Education - An International Perspective

F. A. Kulacki, Executive Director

Technology-Based Engineering Education Consortium
Department of Mechanical Engieering, University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455 USA
and
E. R. Krueger, President
Krueger and Associates
Bend, Oregon, USA
Abstract - This paper presents a critical overview of over the past tent to fifteen years. The ICEE’s offer the
contemporary international trends in engineering education. potential to synthesize developments, to systematize them,
An analysis is presented of engineering curricula, and to serve as a technology transfer agent for engineering
educational delivery systems, engineering programs in schools in various regions of the world.
developed and developing nations, and major challenges
facing engineering education worldwide. Our intent is to The Framework
synthesize the many ideas under the broad categories that
have been presented at two recent world conferences on The framework of our discussion here comprises global
engineering education held in the United Kingdom in 1991 high-technology industry and the engineering schools. Both
and in the Untied States in 1995. Based on this analysis of are reflected in the focal areas touched upon by the two world
the contemporary situation, we present our perspectives on conferences. To set the stage for our discussion of emergent
the immediate future and the possible scenarios facing trends in engineering education, we briefly comment here on
engineering schools over next generation. two highly relevant factors: the early-21st Century picture for
competitive industries and engineering degree trends.
Introduction The technical environment into which engineers will
emerge in the next few years will be characterized by
Two world conferences on engineering education held in knowledge-based industries with high value added products,
1993 and 1995 have brought focus to several issues, problems a high reliance on the application of fundamental science in
and opportunities that appear to be universal regardless of the product development, and a development-to-design-to-
federal and private systems of higher education in place manufacturing process relying on a high level of simulation
around the world. Moreover, concerns over the education of and information flow.
the engineering workforce seem to pervade both developed This is not to say that industries dealing with natural
and developing countries. Thus, with these two conferences resources, infrastructure, and environmental quality will
as underpinnings, we analyze the current state of affairs and wither. Rather it is that advanced and developing economies
draw some general conclusions on the course that engineering will ultimately be based on “brain power” where the
education appears to be taking at the present time. economies of scale and simple automation will not be
We note that transnational issues in engineering education sufficient for survival. In addition, the rapid growth of
have been a topic of discussion for some years, and several technologies that quickly disseminate knowledge and provide
national and international associations and professional ready access to information and data have the potential to
societies have from time to time addressed over arching alter permanently the form and possibly the substance of
issues and concerns. The United Nations has been a engineering work during the next generation.
particularly active participant in the international dialog, and The engineering workforce (engineers and technologists)
the International Liaison Group for Engineering Education appears to be increasing globally despite current declines in
has been a prominent promoter of international conferences the US and Europe1. Most of the increase has occurred in the
on the subject. The World Bank has recently initiated
developmental projects in several underdeveloped nations in
1
Sub-Sahara Africa. Also, industry in the developed countries Engineering degree trends in the United States have been
has become more interested in the future path that carefully monitored for some time. Degree data for the 1985-1994
engineering educators chart for their schools given the period have been summarized by Clarke and Kulacki [1996] and
relation between high value-added products and engineering show a steady decline of the baccalaureate degree production.
Annually, the degrees awarded at the end of the period were some
know-how. 17% lower that for the base period. Technology degrees (two- and
It seems that we are a particularly good point in time to four-year) have remained at about one-sixth the number of
draw together some of the trends that we have seen develop baccalaureates. Overall degree production (BS, MS, and Ph.D.) in
Pacific Rim and in other Asian counties. The newly based on the productivity, the quality and accessibility of
industrialized countries in this region have apparently made a engineering, a concern for the environment, the use of
long-term, strategic commitment to increase the engineering technology, an understanding of the changing role of the
workforce. Current population and degree production data faculty, innovation within the curriculum, and the formation
suggest that the worldwide engineering workforce in the next of an action based agenda on international collaboration.
generation will be largely Asian in its cultural origin. The Keynote lectures were focused on the articulation of
contribution of India to the international workforce will also engineering education with the needs of national and regional
be a significant factor, but the contribution of Central and economic development, curricular design and reform, the
South America remains to be determined over the long run. impact of technology--especially computer-aided design and
Although the distinction between engineers and analysis--on the educational process and engineering itself,
engineering technologists is maintained in the US and and the role of the engineer in the next century.
Europe, engineering and engineering technology are What we can say at this point is that a new context for
generally combined in a national system of higher education engineering education worldwide is beginning to emerge. It
in other countries. The distinction between degree holders is is based on a paragon defined by three broad themes:
therefore sometimes difficult to determine. Figure 1 • Education on any subject at any depth, any time and
illustrates trends in degree production in the US and selected any place.
Asian and European countries. • Education tailored and styled to the individual
learner’s skills.
• Integration of tomorrow’s research into tomorrow’s
instruction.
Each of these forms the basis for a number of the
individual actions aimed at curricular reform, altering the role
of the faculty, etc. Each of the focal areas of activity
mentioned above are framed by elements of the larger
educational process. It is a complex problem with no simple
solutions and no clearly defined path of development. But
what we have seen over the past ten years is that a “good
news” versus “not so good news” kind of picture is coming
into focus for the engineering schools, the faculty, and
industries of all kinds.
Figure 1. Projected worldwide production of engineering
baccalaureates. A variety of sources have been used here,
The Good News
including data from the Engineering Workforce Commission,
UNESCO, and the National Science Foundation (Johnson,
A worldwide movement toward the application of
1993). This graph is taken from an article that appeared in information technology to education - From the very
the ASEE Prism in 1996. developed nations to those emerging from the primary levels
of agriculture, manufacturing, and design, the use of
computing and communications technologies of all kinds is
The World Conferences on Engineering increasing as fast as the schools can install and implement
Education campus wide information systems, workstations, and personal
The world conferences on engineering education held in desktop computing. The raw capabilities of hardware and
the United Kingdom and the US in 1992 and 1995 software have far outdistanced the adaptation of those
respectively focused of very similar themes and thus capacities to engineering education in any sort of pervasive
represent a benchmark on the current state of engineering manner.
education in the 1990s and also a departure point for focal Irreversible changes in Eastern Europe, Africa, the
actions in the first decade of the next century. An all together Pacific Rim, and China - The change in the political
different set of voices expressed surprisingly the same issues landscape of these regions and the opening up of economies
and areas of concern in a 1989 conference of limited scope to embrace free market principles (even if slowly and with
held at the Ohio State University. federal supervision) has meant that engineering schools and
The emerging common theme of the 1992 and 1995 technical institutes are expected to play the same roles as
conferences may be said to be “restructuring engineering their counterparts in the developed capitalist economies.
education to meet world needs”. Within this over arching Concurrently, we have observed almost universal activity
idea, special topical foci included: educational development related to a comparative analysis of the curriculum within the
context of curriculum development.
the US has been generally steady during the period, with increases
in graduate degrees compensating for the decline in baccalaureates.
 A growing understanding on the part of national aging of the faculty will take place. The result will be a
governments of the role of engineering education in the faculty with a skill set that is somewhat out of step with the
welfare of the state - National governments in both requirements of engineering practice in the future. There are,
developing and developed nations have expressed through the of course, several remedies here, but a full discussion of them
world conference an understanding of the connection are beyond the scope of the present paper.
between the quality of their system of engineering education Baccalaureate and masters/professional degree programs
and key measures of national well being, e.g., economic need better definition. - With the advance of technology, it is
progress and the sustainability of the national infrastructure. not clear that baccalaureate programs can either expand or
In more than one keynote lecture and contributed paper, the otherwise revise their content to accommodate new
relation between the work of the engineering schools and the knowledge. We are perhaps at a point where the
wealth creation process has been heard. Moreover, the baccalaureate is insufficient for entrants into the workforce
fundamental idea that innovation is an incremental process who wish to work at the forefront of product development,
appears to be more understood and appreciated. design, applied research, etc. In all nations, this issue needs
thorough discussion, and models of engineering education
The Not So Good News need to be developed that recognize both the general and
professional nature of engineering.
Curriculum structures are slow to change. - Despite the The intersection of science and engineering will alter the
efforts of many individual faculty members, administrators of educational mission - This is arguably the most important
engineering schools, and sometimes national governments, issue for engineering schools worldwide. What we have
engineering curricula tend to remain faculty centered and witnessed over the past generation are two trends in
content driven. Pedagogic approaches to learning that were engineering that are at times in opposition. The first is a
established some fifty years ago yet control the educational dramatic altering of the basis of modern engineering because
process and shape the curriculum. In the US, the curriculum of breakthroughs--incremental and paradigm shifting--in
in place today was established in the 1950s and refined via fundamental scientific knowledge and the advance of
several national commissions and the accreditation process computationally based tools for engineering. The second is
throughout the 1960s. It is only with the advent of new an external pressure on engineering schools to produce
accreditation guidelines that the potential for reshaping the students with readily applicable skills to meet the needs of
curriculum has been created. However, the majority of the industry. The first results in engineering education that is
engineering schools in the US will not be too very much aimed at the long term while the latter begets a kind of
affected by the new guidelines until well into the next decade. vocationalism that was the end point of engineering education
The future roles of the faculty are not well defined. - The in the early years of the current century.2 We believe that the
future roles of the faculty of engineering have not been first will eventually win out because it will be more relevant
clearly enough defined in light of generally admitted potential to the long-term survivability of industry and national
for changes in engineering education. Currently the faculty economies.
are experts who provide information in a compartmentalized We do not minimize the need for an engineering
curriculum. Perhaps the future shape of engineering workforce that can perform over the entire spectrum of
education will require them to embrace activities as mentors technical tasks needed in society. The schools should
and facilitators in an environment where engineering fundamentally address their educational mission and type of
judgment and the synthesis of knowledge are at the center of graduates they wish to produce. This outcomes oriented
the learning process remains to be seen. In any event, a approach will enrich the engineering educational system
major shift toward a student centered educational process worldwide and provide the varied technical skill sets needed
based on andragogy is perhaps needed before any significant for all types of economies and regions whatever their stage of
redefiniton of faculty roles can take place. Also, the extent to development.
which substantive curriculum reform takes place is needed as The use of technology in instruction is spotty. - Despite the
a prerequisite to altering faculty roles and work. many papers presented at not only the world conferences but
Faculty obsolescence will continue to be a factor in also at other learning educational conferences (e.g., the
educational reform efforts. - While it is difficult to Frontiers in Education Conference, the Annual Meetings of
generalize across the many educational systems in place the Technology-Based Engineering Education Consortium),
around the world, we believe that faculty obsolescence will the use of computer-based instructional techniques is “spotty”
be as much of an issue over the next 15 years as both the
2
curriculum and the roles the faculty play in the learning This was the case in the US and most likely Europe. The shift in
process. In some nations, reductions of state support to the the US toward engineering science that gained momentum after
universities will ultimately mean a reduction in the numbers 1945 fundamentally altered engineering schools. We note that in
countries where economic transformation is underway, e.g., China, a
of faculty members and their support staff. In seniority-based system of technical education exist that includes a large number of
systems of employment (we include here the tenure system of institutes that provide training for specific technologies or industries
the US and lead professor system of Europe), an inevitable rather than broadly-based engineering education.
at best. We draw a distinction here between technology as multi-media, computing, communications, software
such and technique. Hardware and software currently exists standards, standardized software, electronic publication,
that provide faculty and students with sophisticated tools for universal data sets, and universal design bases. We are at the
computation, simulation, and visualization -- this is the very start of a period where each of these elements will be
technology. However, the use of these tools in any sort of imbedded into the vocabulary of the educational process and
uniform way and in a manner that deeply affects how content given unique attributes in the development of engineering
is delivered and learning takes place is not at all apparent. curricula.
Several schools have made tentative steps toward the use of Restructuring of the educational delivery system - There is
technology, but our assessment is that technology-based general consensus that the engineering curriculum that has
educational processes are yet viewed as a supplement to evolved during the 20th Century needs to be restructured to
traditional classroom lectures and laboratories. The need for meet new societal needs and a transforming industrial scene.
the next several years is for effective dissemination agent for While integration of curricular elements and even entire
workable developments and techniques, as well as standards programs of instruction is underway in many schools
for instructional software.3 worldwide, there is surprisingly little commonality of
approach and the sharing of methods and educational
The Future Agenda philosophies. This area, we believe, will require repeated and
extended discussion a worldwide basis if engineering
Three focal areas, or thrusts, have become apparent from education is to achieve the reforms envisioned by industrial,
our experience with the world conferences: governmental, and educational leaders.
• Engineering education has assumed a truly global The delivery system need to emphasize fundamentals at
purpose and character. the undergraduate level, provide for an increased breadth of
• A new technological paradigm appears to be emerging. knowledge, focus on the learner, address life-long learning
• A restructuring of the educational delivery system is both needs, and provide to a great an extent as possible cross
needed and of deep concern. cultural experiences.
Each of these deserves comment and some elaboration on
possible future developments. The Forecast
Global Aspects - Over the past ten years or so, each of us
has interacted extensively with a variety of leaders in industry We have touched on a large number of issues here that have
and education from around the world. The common message been made visible by the world conferences and related
that they send to educators is while ready-to-use-skills are experiences over the past decade. Our purpose has been to
highly desirable, education of a generic nature is much more offer a framework for future activity rather than to offer
preferred. The long-term viability of an industry requires solutions on any one particular issue or problem. The
technical talent that is adaptable, flexible, and has a capacity worldwide engineering education system is just too
to learn. These drivers are all the more important given a complicated and varied for general solution seeking.
future in which international manufacturing and marketing We are assured, however, that movement toward the
and engineering with cross-cultural skills will e be demand. paragon of engineering education as we describe it here is
While systems of engineering education meet these universal and touches both developed and developing
requirements to a varying degree, we are convinced that the countries alike. Rates of progress toward a very different
message has gotten across to both the engineering schools future and the endpoints of reform processes will vary rather
and their benefactors (governments or donors). This, of greatly across the world. This is to be expected and in fact
course, places the schools in an interesting and challenging assures a richness and diversity in educational approaches
position. Our comments on the faculty, the curriculum, and that are as much needed as software standards and general
educational delivery are relevant here. agreement on the attributes of graduates.
An emerging new technological paradigm - A new Based on what the world conferences have told us,
educational paradigm us just beginning to emerge but is engineering education is generally moving toward an
gathering momentum in a variety of settings. There are great information rich, student centered future in which learning
differences worldwide as to how this paradigm is being can be conveniently extended beyond the engineering school.
conceptualized and applied within the engineering schools, In this environment the distinction between formal post-
but several elements are generally accepted. These include graduate education and life-long learning will diminish, and
engineering knowledge will be provided to practitioners and
3 students alike on an as-needed basis. Within this framework,
The World Wide Web may in part answer the need here.
Communication protocols are established and the use of hyper-text
we expect that the requirements on the engineering faculties
markup language is universal. The few authoring tools that are around the world will be much more demanding because of
either freely distributed or commercially available are quite the seamless amalgamation of scientific knowledge,
powerful and generally accessible worldwide. Perhaps the WWW
may provide the vehicle on which ubiquitous reform can go forward.
techniques of engineering practice and international design
standards.

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