Engineering: issues, challenges and opportunities for development ...

ENGINEERING: ISSUES CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR DEVELOPMENTfield is the automotive sector with an annual turnover of €254billion in 2006 (€155 billion for export). These two industrialsectors employed about 22 per cent of German engineers.At present, there are about one million engineers in Germany.Of these, 64 per cent are national social insurance contributorsand the rest are self-employed or work as civil servants. Themajority of engineers work in the field of mechanical engineering(186,000), followed by electrical engineering (155,000), civilengineering (149,000) and then architecture (114,000). Therather new sector of industrial engineering (i.e. an engineeringeducation with complementary economics studies) has42,000 employed engineers. 93The status of engineersSince the 1970s the status of engineers has been protected bythe laws of engineers, (Ingenieurgesetze). The recognition ofengineering qualifications is the responsibility of the federalstates. In short, only a person who has studied engineering sciencesand graduated in this field can be called an engineer.Engineering education in Germany is delivered by forty-two universitiesand ninety-nine universities of applied sciences (Fachhochschulen).The system is changing from a one-tier diplomasystem into a two-tier bachelor and master system. Thoughmany study programmes have already converted, graduatenumbers are developing slowly; in the year 2006 no more than3,181 master degrees and 1,648 bachelor degrees were awarded(in comparison to 22,599 students with a diploma from universitiesof applied sciences and 10,906 students with diplomas fromuniversities in engineering science in the same year). When Germanydecided to replace the highly regarded title of ‘Diplom-Ingenieur’ with a Bachelor and Master system, it met with a lotof resistance from the engineering associations.In 2006 the federal government launched an excellenceenhancing programme in which additional funds were madeavailable. In a strong competition nine universities reached thestatus of an ‘elite-university’, which tends to become a majorattribute for further increasing academic reputation. Each eliteuniversity will receive a total additional funding of approximately€100 million.Regulation of the professionThe legal protection of the title ‘engineer’ ensures that itremains exclusive to graduated engineers, though studentsare entitled to use the title as well during their studies. Furtherregulation of the profession takes place in the field ofcivil engineering, where certified experience and competenceis required by the authorities for engineers and architects inorder to sign applications and calculations for constructionworks. To certify, engineers must be enrolled in the registers of93 Source: Federal Statistic Office of Germanythe Engineers Chambers in their federal state. Around 40,000engineers are members of the Engineers Chambers nationally.The chambers have lists of specialists for several fields, whoare entitled to elaborate official opinions and assessments (forexample as expert witnesses in legal disputes).Engineering associationsMembership in an association, for most engineers, is not mandatorybut many are members of Deutscher Verband Technisch-Wissenschaftlicher Vereine (DVT), which comprises fifty-fiveassociations. The DVT represents Germany in internationalorganizations such as FEANI and WFEO. Of the associations,the largest engineering association in Germany is the VereinDeutscher Ingenieure (VDI) with 135,000 individual members.Another, the Verband der Elektrotechnik, Elektronik und Informationstechnik(VDE) has 33,000 individual members. Associationsalso act as regulation and standards institutions incooperation with the national standards organization. The VDIalone publishes more than 1,700 technical regulations, manyof them are also in English.The current situationThe shortage of engineers has become a serious problem formost industrial sectors in Germany. After years of positiveeconomic development, all kinds of engineering professionsare in need – even the civil construction sector, which hadlong suffered from having more engineers than jobs. Accordingto the federal employment office, engineering vacancieshave increased by 50 per cent in the last two years. In the sameperiod, the number of unemployed engineers fell by 60 percent. Due to the effects of demographic change and the more–or-less stagnant interest of students in engineering sciences,the number of available engineers may start to decrease.For many companies the single most important factor thatrestricts their growth is the shortage of qualified engineers. Lookingat the figures of the federal employment office, the vacancieshave increased by 50 per cent in the last two years. The marketdemand on engineering skills can also be seen in the developmentof the unemployment rates. In the last two years theamount of unemployed engineers has reduced by 60 per cent.OutlookTo solve some of these problems in the short term, Germanychanged its immigration laws in 2007. The laws make it easierfor more skilled personnel to enter the country and streamlineand improve the process. In the longer term, engineeringsciences needs to attract more students. As a result, new conceptsare being discussed and introduced into universities. Withthe demographic trends in Germany in mind, more engineersand more companies have to be attracted into lifelong learningand other schemes to maintain their employability. The policyof allowing skilled people to take their pension somewherebetween the age of fifty and sixty has come to an end.230