The Future of Education

Need for renewable energy resources, fast depletion of material resources, availability of affordable food supply, need for clean water, environmental problems created by toxic generation, waste management and global climate change are some of the global challenges for the engineers during next decades. One of the major responsibilities of engineers of our age is to find innovative solutions to these challenging issues to shape a sustainable future. While meeting the needs of present, we should not compromise the ability of future generations. Curriculum and teaching strategies of engineering education should be designed for more creative and innovative engineers. Besides having a strong background in mathematics, sciences and engineering subjects, the engineering students should develop number of skills, competencies and the experiences during their education in order to be able to find innovative solutions for global challenges. Some of the important attributes, that graduates of engineering programs should have developed are formulation, analysis and solution of complex engineering problems; design ability of a complex system, process, device or product, considering realistic constraints such as economic, environmental issues, sustainability, ethics, health and safety issues etc.; ability to design and conduct experiments; ability to work efficiently in intra-disciplinary, multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural teams, ability to communicate effectively; recognition of the need for lifelong learning; awareness of professional and ethical responsibility; knowledge about project management, risk management; impact of engineering practices on health, safety, environment and sustainability. Programs should be able to demonstrate that their graduates have acquired such attributes as well as research based knowledge at the forefront of their field. The programs should be designed to achieve more proactive and innovative engineers. A review of expected outcomes of engineering programs, as well as the evaluation and accreditation criteria will be reported in this presentation.