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

ENGINEERING: ISSUES CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR DEVELOPMENT Engineering educationbegins with basic principlesand hands-on experience.© SAICEOne of the most serious internal issues and challenges facingengineering is the decline of interest and enrolment of youngpeople, especially women, in engineering in most countriesaround the world. This will have a serious impact on capacityin engineering, and on poverty reduction, sustainable developmentand the other Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) indeveloping countries. In view of the importance of engineeringin development and the need for capacity and ongoing capacitybuilding for adequate numbers of engineers, this is a major concernand challenge for engineering and the world. This seventhand last substantive chapter on engineering capacity focuseson engineering capacity, education, training and mobility. Thechapter begins with a section on discussion of engineeringcapacity, and includes an introduction to needs and numbers– the demand and supply of engineers, and a contribution ontechnical capacity building and the role of the World Federationof Engineering Organizations ( WFEO). These are followed by twocase-study contributions from Africa, one on the role of capacitybuilding for sustainability, and the other on needs and numbersin civil engineering in South Africa – based on the pioneeringwork of Allyson Lawless and the South African Institution of CivilEngineers (SAICE). This section continues with contributions onenrolment and capacity in Australia, continuing engineeringeducation and professional development, and concludes with acontribution on brain drain, gain, circulation and the diaspora ofengineers. The following section focuses on the transformationof engineering education – a process that many think will benecessary to make engineering more contemporary, understandableand attractive to young people. This includes contributionson problem-based learning, sustainability and the engineeringcurriculum in Australia, rapid curriculum renewal, the evolutionof environmental education in engineering and research in engineeringeducation. A final section on engineering education fordevelopment includes case studies on university-based centreson engineering and technology for development in Australia,Botswana and Ghana. The chapter concludes with a discussionon engineering accreditation, standards and mobility of engineers,with particular reference to the Washington Accord, EngineersMobility Forum, APEC Engineer and European perspectiveon the Eur Ing and Bologna Accord.7.1 Engineers in educationWlodzimierz Miszalski308IntroductionIn general, the mission of engineers working in educationincludes:■to disseminate technological knowledge;■ to provide society with candidates for the engineering professionwho are equipped to respond to the engineeringand technological challenges now and in the future;■■to increase the breadth and depth of the technologicalunderstanding of society; andto raise awareness of the advantages and disadvantages oftechnological progress.This mission is presently the work of thousands of engineers allover the world through many different forms and programmesof engineering education starting from primary and secondaryschools, through vocational or technical schools and collegesto institutes of technology, polytechnics, technical and nontechnicaluniversities as well as specific educational and trainingprojects within professional engineering and technologyorganizations. It is also important to recognize the contributionof engineers teaching mathematics, physics, economics,chemistry and other disciplines, to the wider benefit of generaleducation and knowledge in society.Figure 1 shows the growth of science and engineering firstdegrees at the end of the twentieth century. More recentestimates indicate further growth of engineering graduates inAsia, for example in China with 517,000 graduates and Indiawith 450,000 graduates per year. In 2007, 46 per cent of Chinesestudents graduated with engineering degrees while in theUSA and Europe the proportion was 5 per cent and 15 percent respectively.Figure 1: Total number of first degree graduatesfrom science and engineering studies450,000400,000350,000300,000250,000200,000150,000100,00050,0000197519771979USAJapanChinaS. Korea198119831985198719891991UKGermany1993199519971999Source: James J. Duderstadt, Engineering for a Changing World, The MillenniumProject, University of Michigan.