Engineering education promotion and e-government

Jaroslav Král, Michal ŽemličkaCharles University, PragueFaculty of Mathematics and Physics

Based on the experience from Czech Republic

There are indications that the conclusions are valid for many

countries

UICEE06 3

What prospects of engineering education? 1

Falling interest to study engineering (and science) Fashion - It is not “in”: Humanities assumed more

interesting, economically more promising and prestigious Despect: Engineering professions are good for people

from developing countries. Frequent statements: Engineering and manufacturing can be outsourced Engineers or workers can be imported if necessary

Education: Fewer second level schools alumni having good basics for the engineering study => more alumni have difficulties to enter and pass engineering programs at universities

Gaps in mathematics and science knowledge and skills Gaps in skills needed for engineering education (e.g. some

procedures cannot be negotiated, they must be accepted otherwise they are wrong and lead to failures)

UICEE06 4

What prospects of engineering education? 2

Prejudice: The manufacturing process is now so effective that it needs almost no people in production a due the globalization less developers. People needed in manufacturing can be easily imported. But

The services and support of products and due to strong competition more expensive and need many people

The research and development is becoming more expensive and requires more top talents

It is often so, that research and manufacturing is moved to the East rather as a consequence of the lack of talents and good workers than due to lower salaries

UICEE06 5

What prospects of engineering education? 3

Prejudice: The manufacturing process is now so effective that it needs almost no people in production a due the globalization less developers. People needed in manufacturing can be easily imported. But

Some professions are difficult to import as they need the knowledge of local culture (laws, cooperation with users, some parts of user interfaces)

Import of people from abroad can have unexpected consequences and expenses (eg. social instabilities, France, The Netherlands, problems with integration)

UICEE06 6

What prospects of engineering education? 4

Prejudices: Engineering is according to opinions of many

people difficult, boring, giving less career prospects and lower salaries

Lower salaries are not always prejudice in some countries Engineering professions offer jobs at low levels of

hierarchies only Engineering professions presents no jobs offering

interesting tasks contacts with people

UICEE06 7

No prospects of engineering education? NO!

The contempt for engineering is not correct, it is rather a prejudice It is based on rumors and fashions (it is not “in“

to be an engineer; not to speak about highly qualified craftsmen)

Human resources agencies announce the strong lack of good engineers and some craftsmen (see below)

The prospects of engineers are in fact quite promising

Some activities are difficult to outsource (e.g. some services, top jobs in civil engineering)

UICEE06 8

Research of human resources agency Manpower, 2005 Question (shortened): The lack of

what professions is the barrier of your growth?

Asked: 33000 enterprises all over the world.

UICEE06 9

The top 10 jobs that employers are having difficulty filling across the 23 countries and territories surveyed are (ranked in order):

1.Sales Representatives, especially the ones understanding the products they sell

2. Engineers3. Technicians (primarily

production/operations, engineering and maintenance)

4. Production Operators

5. Skilled Manual Trades (carpenters, welders and plumbers)

6. IT Staff (primarily programmers/developers)

7. Administrative Assistants/Personal Assistants

8. Drivers9. Accountants10. Management/Executives

UICEE06 10

Summary

Total Number of Respondents: 32,975Employers indicating difficulty filling positions: 40%Employers indicating no difficulty filling positions: 60%Margin of error: +/- 4.1%

UICEE06 11

Preliminary conclusions

Technical professions are strongly neededThe best prospects have the technicians having

also knowledge and skills in human relations. This trend was confirmed for software engineers by Gartner Group (the need to collaborate with users is and will be crucial)

Why EE is still not attractive? We attempt to find causes.

We attempt to depict causes using a causal diagram

A Bs

s - synchronous, increase of A causes B to increase

A Br

r - reverse, increase of A causes B to decrease

UICEE06 13

PrejudicesSuccess of engineers

Interest for engineering study

Quality of EE

Difficulty to enter and pass EE

Quality of education of skills and knowledge in math. and sci. at secondary schools

Knowledge and skills standards, inspections, standardized exams

Lack of engineers

Outsourcing

s

rr

rs

s

s

r

r

r

s

s

sblock

block

Until block is avoided the situation will continuously deteriorated, the main issues will be at secondary schools, standardized examinations helpful, but not the Goldratt bottleneck

r

Ill-conceived reforms of edu systems

r

s

UICEE06 14

Main reason and its crucial consequences The information on real needs and

prospects of engineers is not available or the information can be known to public after many years

The main most dangerous consequence is falling quality of the knowledge and skills of secondary schools alumni needed for engineering study. Problems here, if appear, require many years to be avoided

UICEE06 15

The measures are common for EE and for education of researches Skills and knowledge are common at

secondary schools for engineering but also for research and development in general

Research and development is the precondition of success in global economy. This argument can be used to strengthen the position of science and mathematics in secondary schools curricula.

UICEE06 16

Problems with the alumni of secondary schools in Czech Rep. Tendency to reduce (to attract students

to entry the given school) Mathematics (requires training, e.g skills) Science (especially physics, skills are again

necessary) Skills in general

Problems with languages, they need skills as well Seems to be typical not for Czech only (lack of

technicians all over the world, overly reduced production of technicians in the USA etc.)

UICEE06 17

The reason: Timely information on success of alumni is missing Modern information technologies

enables to provide information how successful are alumni of secondary schools and universities and in practice. Application of the technologies can made the

information more exact and especially more timely (days instead years)

The needed data on alumni at schools and in offices but they are inaccessible for publics as well as the information that is not sensitive but computed from the sensitive data

UICEE06 18

Problems with the alumni of secondary schools The humanities are more difficult to teach

and more difficult to control that they are taught properly in comparison with math and science. It has obvious consequences for the overall quality of secondary schools alumni: Popularity of humanities.

Result: Difficulty to pass EE curricula for secondary schools alumni.

Does it holds for EE only?

UICEE06 19

How to measure success By activities (questionnaires) of

universities and schools Choice errors

Less successful school and alumni will not publish it

By independent bodies, state majorities and individual citizens Survey/research (choice errors again) Use of the data of e-government (preferable, in

fact the only effective solution) and schools

UICEE06 20

How to measure success 2 Success attributes

Salary, career, unemployment, job in the profession relevant to education, success at universities

Filters (approx. conditions in SQL commands) n years after graduation profession, school, school type, job type

UICEE06 21

How to measure success 3 The information is public although

it is computed from private data Must be reflected in legislative

(accredited applications at accredited servers)

Difficult to accept by offices (majorities prefer the data security instead of information security)

UICEE06 22

Conclusions The support and enhancement of

engineering education must besides of the enhancement of EE itself include „Marketing“ against prejudices

It should require the opening of information on success of alumni from e-government

Enhancement of the teaching of math. and science at secondary schools via standardization of the kernel knowledge and evaluation procedures (examines, inspections) preventing not thought out education systems reforms

UICEE06 23

Desirable side effects The prejudices can be at side of

some employers The information systems can show

them that engineers must be paid adequately otherwise they will never grow as outsourcing need not be always a proper solution