Rethinking engineering education at the age of industry 5.0

Abstract

During the last two decades, profound technological changes have taken place around us, supported by disruptive advances, both on the software and hardware sides. An amalgamation of information, communication, and artificial intelligence is taking place, as well as the cross-fertilization of a wide range of concepts, referred to as the digital transformation. While the discussion on how to operationalize the new intelligent systems of the fourth industrial revolution, Industry 4.0, is still going on; the dominant characteristics of the fifth industrial revolution, Industry 5.0 – going beyond producing goods and services for profit – requires all to think and act differently. As a result of the convergence phenomenon, the boundaries between different disciplines are eroding, necessitating a thorough discussion on what engineering education should be like in the future. In this paper, after presenting a brief history of engineering education, the recent paradigm changes are discussed, which essentially stress that skills must prevail over degrees to deal with challenges posed by the trends of the fifth industrial revolution. Later, before concluding the paper four strategies are presented such as lifelong learning and transdisciplinary education (1), sustainability, resilience, and human-centric design modules (2), hands-on data fluency and management courses (3) and human-agent/machine/robot/computer interaction experiences (4).