Attributes of Engineers and Engineering Education for the Twenty-First-Century World

Abstract

The twenty-first century is witnessing ubiquitous technology; workforce economically active beyond normal retirement age, learning lifelong, interacting, and mobile globally; businesses with markets and supply chains spanning the world; growing demand and enrollments in professional engineering programs; diverse engineering education providers; worldwide comparison of engineering schools; and international recognition of accredited engineering programs and mobility of students. The surge in demand for professional qualifications in emerging nations led to the scenario of undergraduate engineering education being akin to liberal arts education with diverse career options. Recent decades also saw widening of engineering field covering many new disciplines which flourished at the interfaces with other disciplines. Yet in every country, employers are able to find only a fraction of graduates with requisite knowledge, skills, abilities, and attitudes suitable for employment. In other words there is a need to rethink the way engineers are trained and to align the curriculum to the needs of the twenty-first-century world. Sharing of best practices and continual improvement in all aspects of engineering education are desired for preparing engineers for the twenty-first century.