Abstract:

Success of the renowned universities such as MIT or University of Cambridge, in the opinion of the Authors of [1], results mostly from attaching high importance to the original research works, the aim of which are not scientific degrees and titles, but their cognitive values. A significant factor here is also a didactic process, discussed in the present work. While referring to the above mentioned, universities the basic assumptions and ideas for the university-of-the-future have been characterised. By analysing the present top world universities positions, the ways of accomplishing the assumptions and ideas have been presented in the work. If we put aside the purely financial aspects of a university activities, as well as the organisation and scientific and research profile of such academies, we have to point at the so called rule of early student involvement in the research activity. That form of academic activity has been frequently neglected. Since 1992, at the Mechanical Engineering Faculty of the Wroclaw University of Technology the individual tuition has become a common practice and has assumed the regular form of Individual Study Course (ISC), the founder and co-ordinator of which has been Professor Wacław Kasprzak. Of course, such individual way of educating for the gifted young has also been present at the Mechanical Engineering earlier. In 2004, the ISC transformed into the Individual Study Program (ISP) and has since been operated in that form till today. The work presents also that form of student education. The ideas, assumptions and organisation of the ISP at the Mechanical Engineering of the Wroclaw University of Technology have been described and characterised. Such form of a student education finds recognition not only in the eyes of participating students but also the graduates, many of which become the young academic staff. Also, from the employer point of view, that form of education allows students to adjust to the current needs and industrial research topics of numerous enterprises (not only the domestic ones). The publication presented at the ICERI2010 Conference Proceedings is an attempt of indicating one of the important factors related to modification of gifted academic young education in the individualised way.

References:
[1] http://strategia.immt.pwr.wroc.pl/wp-uploads/2009/10/Uniwersytety nowe2.pdf (in Polish)

Keywords:

Education, university of the future, individual study program, didactic process.