Education: Accreditation: A debatable issue: Key officers of IEEE express diverging views on the role the Institute should play in accrediting electrical engineering programs

Abstract

An often-heated debate has raged within IEEE circles for several years over various aspects of accreditation. One major area of concern has been the quality of engineers entering the work force each year. According to many, there has been insufficient attention paid, within IEEE as elsewhere, to the establishment and enforcement of appropriate educational standards in B.E.E. curricula. Further, critics have questioned IEEE's continued endorsement of bachelor of technology programs, suggesting that graduates of such programs are too often accepted by industry as full-fledged EEs. The primary target of such criticisms has been the Engineers Council for Professional Development (ECPD), an umbrella organization that has been the principal arbiter of engineering education standards for nearly 50 years. Its detractors say that ECPD has persisted in stacking its evaluation teams with a predominance of engineering educators who tend to favor relaxed standards. Within IEEE, therefore, there has been an outcry for the Institute to pressure ECPD into reforms of its entire evaluation process ? and to withdraw from that body if progress is unsatisfactory.