A recent report, Engineering Change: The future of engineering education in Australia considers the changing nature of professional engineering practice and the implications for engineering education in Australia. It has been released as part of an Engineering 2035 project commissioned by the Australian Council of Engineering Deans.
The report reminds us that engineers and engineering are indispensable contributors to Australian prosperity and health, and that engineering services are embodied in almost every good or service consumed, used or traded by Australians, now and in the future.
The report’s major findings include:
- Australia needs to ensure that it produces sufficient engineering graduates to meet the needs of the nation without being overly reliant on skilled migration.
- Insufficient women are attracted to engineering, which represents an ongoing massive loss of potential talent for the profession and the nation. The low proportion of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students must also be addressed.
- Industry wants to see a re-balancing of the theory-practice components of professional engineering education, with a greater emphasis on practice, including the human dimensions of engineering.
- Potential students are motivated to solve “real-world” problems and want to see that engineering practice addresses societal needs.
- The diversity of engineering career options and opportunities needs to be better promoted in the school system to achieve the pipeline of engineers required to achieve the goals of the nation.
- Exemplars of global best practice in curriculum and pedagogy are easily available for all engineering schools, regardless of the scale of their operation. These curriculum methods have a greater emphasis on practice and have delivered the curriculum in non-traditional ways, with a mix of on-campus and in-placement methods.
- The Australian engineering academic workforce has demonstrated a willingness and capability to change education practice, particularly over the past year, demonstrated by the rapid shift to online education in March 2020.
The report details the changing roles of engineers and the transformation needed in the teaching of engineers. Calls to action are included for a number of key stakeholders in the system. In the case of industry, it is suggested assistance could be proivded by:
- championing the changes in curriculum outlined as necessary and appropriate
- assisting in bringing more ‘real-world’ experiences to the education of professional engineers by providing examples of, and increased opportunities for, students to participate in engineering work through work-integrated learning and other means; encouraging flows of academic and industry staff between the industry and academe; rewarding industry engineering staff who participate in such activities
- providing funding and other resources for coalitions of engineering schools to implement a greater emphasis of engineering practice, including human dimensions of engineering.
