THE ROLE OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION IN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT FOR THE 21 ST CENTURY.doc

THE ROLE OF ENGINEERING EDUCATION IN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT FOR THE 21ST CENTURYG. L. OYEKANDEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERINGUNIVERSITY OF LAGOSE-mail: gloyekanABSTRACTEngineering will continue to be critical in the economic and commercial development of any nation as it has been in the past. Innovation is needed both for enhanced productivity and the progress of any community anywhere in the world. But the practice of an innovative engineer also requires a high standard of ethics, both moral and professional, which sadly appears to be lacking in Nigeria.This paper examines some of the changes that must be carried out in the Engineering education in Nigeria and the concomitant implications for engineering practice.1. INTRODUCTIONThere is the need for a revolution in the training of engineers in our nation Nigeria as is being done in other parts of the world. This is in consonance with the demands of a society that seeks engineers with skills in managing people and systems. Engineers have to maintain both a focus on innovative approaches to problems as well as technical competence. Whatever changes are made in tertiary engineering training will certainly have profound implications for the future of engineering. This is more so when we remember that we are in the era of sustainable development. Technical innovation will be found to be the ultimate goal of engineering education for sustainable development. In this way innovative thinking, which is the basis of the development of a society, will continue to be an essential component of engineering practice. Engineers and technologists do have a significant role to play in the development of their society and the importance of technical innovation and ethics in modern engineering training practice cannot be overemphasized.A modern definition of engineering is that it is the art, based primarily on training in mathematics and science, of utilizing economically, the forces and materials of nature for the benefit of mankind. Even a cursory glance at some of the technological achievements of the last century shows how technology has changed the living conditions in the world. This process of technological change has continued to gather momentum and the impact is felt in every nation of the world. For example the GSM introduced into the Nigerian market a few years ago has had an unimaginable effect on the lifestyle of the people. It has made communication easier for everybody particularly those in business.2. ENGINEERING EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN NIGERIAFor the engineering profession to be able to make contributions to a nations progress the country must have the human resources, that is manpower with sound education and training in the right quantity. Nigeria with her 45 Federal and State universities and even a larger number of polytechnics should be able to churn out a sizable amount of technical manpower for the engineering profession. The quality of the engineering graduates will necessarily depend on appropriate curriculum, adequate and experienced training staff, good facilities for teaching and the necessary items of equipment particularly in our laboratories. But what we have on the ground leaves a lot to be desired. In most of our universities the facilities are just not there; our laboratories are ill equipped to give our students the right type of exposure they need. Many of the items of equipment in out laboratories are obsolete and have been begging for replacement for long as the spare parts to repair them are no more available.The author doubts even whether the 45 universities and several polytechnics can produce enough technical manpower for the engineering profession. UNESCO (4) cites only one scientist or engineer per 10,000 for sub-Saharan Africa compared to one per 200 500 for Japan, Europe and the United States of America. For example, Australia, a country of only 19 million people has over 53,000 engineering students enrollment, whereas Nigeria with a population of well over 150 million people can boast at best of engineering students enrollment of perhaps 100,000. There is an urgent need for the NSE and COREN to review our engineering educational training programmes. Similar reviews carried out in other nations, notably Australia, showed that the emphasis of the profession had to change.Some of the findings of the reviews carried out in Australia were:1) The present emphasis placed in engineering science resulting in graduates with high technical capability has often acted to limit the appreciation of broader role of engineering professionals. Graduates must understand the social, economic and environmental consequences of the professional activities of the profession if the profession is to fully assume its expanding responsibilities.2) Engineering education must become more outward looking, more attainable to the real concerns of communities. Courses should promote environmental, economic and global awareness, problem solving ability, engagement with information technology, self-directed learning and long-life learning, communication, management and team-work skills, but all on a sound base of mathematics and engineering technology.The author feels strongly that we need to carry out our own reviews along the lines stated above. He believes it will be good for the engineering profession in Nigeria.One good outcome of the reviews carried out in Australia was an emphasis on 10 generic attributes of engineering graduates. Any Australian Faculty or school must demonstrate that it achieves these attributes in its graduates otherwise its programmes will not be accredited. These attributes are:1) Ability to apply knowledge of basic science and engineering fundamentals.2) Ability to communicate effectively, not only with engineers but also with the community at large.3) In-depth technical competence in at least one engineering discipline.4) Ability to undertake problem identification, formulation and solution.5) Ability to utilize a systems approach to design and operational performance.6) Ability to function effectively as an individual in multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural teams with capacity to be a leader, or a manager as well as an effective team member.7) Understanding of the social, cultural, global, environmental and business responsibilities of the professional engineer.8) Understanding of the principles of sustainable design and development.9) Understanding of and a commitment to professional and ethical responsibilities.10) Expectation and capacity to undertake life long learning.Do our graduates in Nigeria have these attributes? Perhaps they have some of them. As in Australia our universities and polytechnics must endeavour to achieve all these laudable attributes in the graduates they produce every year. Institutions that fail to do so should not have their programmes accredited.There is the need for engineering education in Nigeria to change its emphasis. This is for a number of reasons. Firstly, communities now want engineers and technologists with skills outside the realm of technical competence. Secondly, engineers and technologists have a wider role to play in the development of their region. Thirdly, there will be underlying acceptance of the importance of engineers and technologists whose contributions are essential to the well being of their regions economy, environment and human health.It is gratifying to note that a few years ago the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) called on government to review the entry requirement into Faculties of Engineering. They suggested that a minimum of 6 credits at O level and at one sitting should be required and that a credit in further mathematics should be made compulsory. The government should look into this and implement it as soon as possible.In addition, with the recent reintroduction of HSC and A level certificates, only candidates with good A level results will go on to study engineering. In this way only the best will be found in the Faculties of Engineering across the nation.Engineering regulatory bodies, NSE and the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) should ensure that computer education is made compulsory for all engineering disciplines taught in all the tertiary institutions across the nation. This is because there is the urgent need to increase the level of computer literacy and awareness for our engineering graduates. Professional engineers need computer knowledge for better outputs in their fields instead of relying on computer technologists to help them out in carrying out designs.3. ENGINEERING PRACTICEThe COREN law requires that fresh engineering graduates from accredited engineering institutions should undergo tutelage training under registered engineers before they can be considered for registration. The registered engineers are also expected to issue Certificate of Experience to the engineers in training after the latter have acquired cognate experience in the profession. This law makes two basic assumptions:i) That there are sufficient registered engineers ready to train the young engineers and ii) That the atmosphere is conducive for such training.Unfortunately this has not been the case. Many young graduates hardly get the opportunity to learn from their older and more experienced colleagues. This is because the older and more experienced ones are more interested in running around to get jobs and usually have little or no time to help the younger ones to garner the much-needed professional experience. To my mind, many young engineers learn the hard way, some after a structural collapse has taken place. Secondly, the importation of foreign engineers has made the situation worse. The large engineering projects are not only conceived as total or turnkey projects but are designed outside the country. As a result the nation loses the benefit of opportunities these projects would have created. The young and inexperienced engineers are left out in the cold. This scenario will remain for as long as the nation continues to depend on the so-called foreign experts.But our young engineers need to be given the right exposure so that they can grow in the field. Training is best provided in an industrial, manufacturing or construction environment where they will have opportunity to face real-life problems so that they will have more knowledge in their respective fields. The only sure way to advance engineering and technology locally is to develop, sustain and utilize through economic strategies that offer Nigerian engineers and technologists opportunities for employment. There is also the obvious need to adopt strategies of training and retraining engineering and scientific researchers and consultants. This would mean making massive investments in technical universities. Are the Federal and State universities in the country ready to do this?For the umpteenth time the author suggests that remuneration levels should be renewed to check the brain drain problem. There is no doubt about the fact that we are still losing well-trained human resources to Saudi Arabia, South Africa, USA and other countries. Periodic assessments of engineering Faculties should be maintained by COREN. As this is already being done then perhaps the time interval between accreditation visits should be reduced. Those universities found wanting should be denied accreditation. This will apply meaningful pressure on the universities to continuously modernize.The government should initiate loans to assist local consultants. Consultancy projects valued at one million US dollars or less should be awarded only to Nigerian consultancy firms. If this is done wealth will be redistributed fairly evenly. In addition, capital flight will be drastically reduced and a more stable currency will be obtained and above all there will be indigenous capacity building, which is largely missing in Nigeria.3.1 TRAINING PERIOD FOR FRESH ENGINEERING GRADUATESNow, is the mandatory three-year minimum training period required by COREN before they can be considered for registration adequate? The author feels that it is high time that the engineering training period is reviewed upwards. The author feels that many of our engineering graduates after 3 years tutelage are hardly ready to be on their own. Many cannot stand on their feet.The frontier of knowledge, without any doubt, is expanding daily as new discoveries and inventions are being made. All engineers, according to COREN, must be abreast with the changing world of technology. They must be seen to be making relevant contributions to the field of engineering. Contributions in engineering could take the form of project supervision, attendance at relevant conferences, seminars and workshops; publication of books, journals and papers; research work, discoveries or patents in engineering, etc.In the light of the above, COREN recently established the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) programme. The programme has been introduced to make Engineering Personnel remain effectively relevant to the demands of their profession as dictated by the equally fast changing demands of the communities, which they serve.According to COREN, each Engineering Personnel must earn a minimum of 10 CPD units per year to qualify for continuing practice. Failure to comply with the COREN directive will result in the engineers name being removed from the register. This is a good development in the sense that the engineer will be under pressure to continually update his knowledge.4. INNOVATION IN ENGINEERINGThere is no doubt that engineering plays a remarkable role in the development of any nations economy. Engineering plays a unique role in advanced economies through the provision of essential infrastructure, products and services. Modern communications, transport, energy, health and defence all depend on high quality engineering input so as to be able to provide state-of-the-art services to the Nigerian community. This means in effect that innovation must be central to the development of our economy.As large as Nigeria is, it cannot support research in all areas. There must be a strategic approach to research and development that emphasizes those areas in which it can have a competitive advantage within the global economy. Thus, strategic research oriented towards innovations for social environmental well being is urgently required in our nation. Steiner (6) has argued that conventional science education, including engineering education, does not produce innovators. Innovators are people who have spectacular management, commercial and people skills; who are not satisfied with what they see around them. They are goal getters, achievers; people who question paradigms. They are people who wan