Abstract:

The Agronomic Engineer is the advanced technician qualified for the use and transformation of the biological natural resources of Agriculture, preserving the environment. Therefore, they have an important social function as innovators and inductors of the most advanced technologies applied to Agriculture and Food Industry. Nowadays, the term "employability" has begun to be glimpsed over that of employment for life; where knowledge is important, but not less the skills or competences acquired. All university master's degrees from the University of Almería should contemplate explicitly, three types of skills: 1st The generic skills included in Royal Decree 1393/2007, establishing the planning of official university studies; 2nd Generic skills of the University of Almeria; 3rd The specific skills of each master's degree, in this case the master of Agronomic Engineering. In this paper, generic skills of the UAL (UAL1 to UAL10) are analyzed in 34 subjects comprising the aforementioned master: UAL1- Basic knowledge of profession, UAL2- Using Information and Communication Techniques (ICTs), UAL3- Capacity to solve problems successfully, UAL4- Writing and oral expressing with clarity in Spanish language, UAL5- Development of a sense of criticism and self-criticism, UAL6- Ability to work in a group, UAL7- Learning a foreigner language, UAL8- Commitment to Ethical Business, UAL9- Capacity to design, manage and undertake a task by oneself, and UAL10- Social Responsibility of Business.
It has been observed the distribution of this skills are (by subjects): 67% UAL-1, 44% UAL-2, 82% UAL-3, 35% UAL-4, 32% UAL-5, 38% UAL-6, 6% UAL-7, 15% UAL-8, 50% UAL-9, and 3% UAL-10. Stands out from the skill Basic knowledge of profession (UAL-1) and the skill Capacity to solve problems successfully (UAL-3) are very high and is what is expected of a qualifying technical title with professional competencies. On the other hand, the existence of these inequalities should be reviewed as an improvement action for the successive title reviews. To this end, an extension of those competences below 20% is proposed. This work opens new perspectives for the profession of Agricultural Engineer with its broad scientific, academic and vocation for teaching, will prepare students in different specializations, such as crop , livestock, and agro-industrial production, as well as Economics, Sociology and Engineering in rural areas.

Keywords:

Skills, agronomic engineer, university degree.