Abstract:

Professional engineering activity plays a key strategic role in the national economic and social well-being, and that is reflected by a number of government and professional inquiries into the engineering profession and education throughout the world. These inquiries, specifically in the English-speaking countries such as the United States and Britain and Australia, have identified Issues in gender- imbalance, and a long tail of poorly qualified entrants to engineering education as of particular concerns over their impact they have on perceptions of the profession and academic standards. Employers are particularly concerned with the lack of flexibility in terms of social skills among the Australian engineering graduates needed to function in managerial activities. Public perception, though recognizing the essentiality of professional engineering discourses in maintaining good quality of life, is also poor. As an organizationally embedded profession engineering is essentially invisible. It is unlike major professions such as medicine and law which have their discourses underpinned by clear professional ideologies and philosophies and are seen as professions of social practice. There is a lack of clarity in pin-pointing professional engineering work and achievements. The problem lies in the diversity of engineering with its fifty or more disciplinary tribes. Though various disciplinary professional bodies such as the institutions of civil, mechanical or chemical engineering accredit various engineering courses at Australian universities, it is generally done within narrow technical guidelines which eschew the relevance of soft skills. This paper examines issues of engineering education through the lens of education for professions at universities in Australia and in the OECD countries. It proposes engineering curricula for a generalist undergraduate engineering courses with specialist streams shifted to postgraduate courses. It also identifies possible hurdles from interest groups such as government agencies, universities, faculties and schools of engineering, and as well the bodies representing engineering professions. In conclusion the paper calls for paradigm shift in thought concerning engineering professions.

Keywords:

Innovative curricula, education research, teaching and learning.