Abstract:

As with many countries worldwide, New Zealand is facing a critical shortage of infrastructure asset managers, engineers who understand the nature and infrastructure of the country and who can draw on interdisciplinary knowledge to solve the problems that arise from infrastructure deterioration as well as future needs and natural disasters. At present, New Zealand does not train engineers specifically for this growing niche, but rather traditional civil, electrical and mechanical engineers “grow” into the role through their own experience on city and district councils. This paper describes the processes involved in the development of a pilot curriculum for a three year engineering technologist apprenticeship degree in New Zealand, with a focus on infrastructure asset management engineering. Initially, a sample of 20 engineers based across New Zealand was used as a reference group to draw up an apprenticeship standard that would outline the desirable knowledge, skills and behaviours of the degree candidates. This pool of engineers was then expanded and the expertise of this group used to drive the development of the curriculum. The expanded group included both city and district engineers, engineering consultants and contractors and also engineering educators from the polytechnic sector in New Zealand.

Once the degree apprenticeship standard had been ratified and interview data collected from this reference group, the degree was planned in terms of the nature of the delivery methods, the level of the degree, the structure of the programme and critically the end point assessments. The strength of this approach to curriculum development is that it is driven by the engineering community and not the engineering education sector and focused on their needs thus addressing a critical shortage that is a looming national problem. In addition, this paper will also discuss the transformative aspirations of the curriculum aimed at addressing critical diversity issues in engineering such as the number of female students engaged as well as the engagement of other under-represented groups.

Keywords:

Engineering, curriculum development, degree apprenticeship, infrastructure asset management.