Abstract:

Upon the returning of sovereignty to China, Hong Kong’s manufacturing industry had rapidly moved to the mainland because of the cheaper labour cost there. It had changed its role to an international business, trade and financial hub. The demand of traditional ‘pure’ engineer is then diminishing and consequently the practical training for engineering students seems to be less important. Training centres that provide practical training are facing unprecedented difficulties since engineering departments at the universities, who are sponsoring students to the training centres, had also shifted their paradigm to provide non pure engineering programmes and thus they had cut the practical training time from several months to only three weeks in order to decrease budget. Moreover, students are uneager to attend practical training not only because it is not a core subject but also their career perspective switching leads them not to find any reason to support themselves to make such involvement.
The paper describes and explores, through a case study of an integrated practical training programme at one of the universities in Hong Kong, how a three-week practical training could effectively deliver basic knowledge and skills of machinery and manufacturing processes as well as providing opportunities for the students to work collaboratively and most importantly how it could reignite their learning interest and passion in practical training.
At the end of the paper, a group of students are invited, after their training, to discuss matters regarding the training’s effectiveness and to comment on the content and context of the training programme based on their own experiences and their thoughts.

Keywords:

Enhancing learning, undergraduate experience, practical engineering training.