OVERHAULING ENGINEERING EDUCATION IN LATIN AMERICA

Authors

First Name: RobertoLast Name: Murphy Arteaga Organization: INAOECountry: MXMail: rotoflinsky@gmail.com

First Name: RamiroLast Name: Jordan Organization: University of New MexicoCountry: USMail: rjordan@istec.org

First Name: WilfridoLast Name: Moreno Organization: University of South FloridaCountry: USMail: wmoreno@usf.edu

First Name: FernandoLast Name: Guarin Organization: IBMCountry: USMail: guarinf@us.ibm.com

First Name: DulceLast Name: Garcia Organization: ISTECCountry: USMail: dgarcia@istec.org

First Name: AlvaroLast Name: Maury Organization: SilTerraCountry: MYMail: alvaro_maury@silterra.com

First Name: PankajLast Name: Gadani Organization: SilTerraCountry: MYMail: pgadani@silterra.com

Topic: Re–engineering engineering education

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Overhauling Engineering Education in Latin America

Abstract The advancement of technology in today’s world requires that more people be prepared as engineers, in all fields. The way we are approaching engineering education, however is not keeping pace with technological development; the curricula has not substantially changed in the last few decades, and what we are teaching our students is now rapidly becoming obsolete. Students cannot readily apply the learned concepts, and they are graduating with an outdated perspective, which in turn makes future students shy away from the field. Engineering education has to be substantially modified in order to make it more appealing to young minds. Here we place special interest in making engineering education multidisciplinary. The suggested changes are based on a project-learning focus, in which the students, from the early semesters on, practice hands-on with projects that involve team work and different disciplines, as well as interaction with industry. Keywords: Engineering Education, Curricula, Innovation, Entrepreneurship

Resumen El avance de la tecnología en nuestro mundo requiere que preparemos a más personas como ingenieros, en todos los campos. Sin embargo, la forma en que estamos enfocando la educación en ingeniería no se está manteniendo a la par con el desarrollo tecnológico; las tiras de materias no han cambiando en las últimas décadas, y lo que le enseñamos a los alumnos se vuelve rápidamente obsoleto. Los estudiantes no pueden aplicar los conceptos aprendidos, y se están graduando con perspectivas antiguas, lo que hace que los futuros estudiantes rehúyan el campo. La educación en ingeniería deber de ser substancialmente modificada para hacerla más atrayente a las mentes jóvenes. Aquí hacemos hincapié en hacer la educación en ingeniería multidisciplinaria. Los cambios que sugerimos se basan en el aprendizaje basado en proyectos, por medio del cual los estudiantes, desde sus inicios, tienen experiencia práctica en proyectos con trabajo en equipo, diferentes disciplinas e interacción con la industria. Palabras clave: Educación en Ingeniería, Programas, Innovación, Emprendimiento

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1. Introduction One of the factors that can mark the dawn of the 21st Century is that our daily activities are extremely dependent on technology. We rely on a wide variety of apparatuses to get things done, even the most trivial. Air transportation is the safest way to travel due to the highly precise electronic systems involved within the aircraft and in ground stations and airports; the medical field counts on many devices and systems for diagnosis and treatment; computers have revolutionized all fields, from basic clerical activities to industrial automation; Internet has substantially changed the way we do things in only two decades; the entertainment industry has progressed remarkably; we all depend on our cellular phones —especially smart ones— all throughout our daily routine. Autonomous vehicles are a common day occurrence, with more and more capabilities being incorporated day by day. Furthermore, we can envision a future when we will have many more devices, even for activities for which we now consider technology unnecessary. It is clear that technology is created and developed by humans. A device or system goes from being conceived in somebody’s mind to its final form through a very intense engineering process, in which experts in many fields, especially electronics, mechanical and computer engineering, contribute to define its functions, aspect, cost, etc. This is also true in the component level; each transistor, micro electro-mechanical device (MEMs), and transducer used for any system has to be designed, developed and tested. In the realm of software engineering, code has to be written and debugged. This is a continuous process; technology becomes obsolete almost as fast as it is developed, and new applications, functions, shapes and interactions have to be determined for the next generation of the device. The advancement of technology, and its widespread use, are only possible joining teams of specialists in different areas, i.e., forming multidisciplinary working groups. Education, especially in these engineering fields, needs to keep up with the technological advances in order to form human resources with the necessary knowledge, competences, and abilities. This, however, is not the case in general, and what students are being taught at universities is increasingly less than what they need in order to be full and productive professionals in their field of choice. A clear consequence of this approach is that nowadays there are fewer students interested in pursuing engineering as a career, especially in Latin America but also in the United States and Europe. In our region, this means that we are not producing enough intellectual property, and are unable to license our own developments, making nations more and more dependent on foreign technology for their day-to-day activities. Furthermore, many countries in the region prefer to send their students abroad, hoping that they learn modern engineering in the United States and Europe, so that can be assets once they return to their country (3), (14). Sadly enough, a great proportion of these students decide to stay in the countries where they studied, beating the purpose. This has contributed to the brain drain in the region, notwithstanding that Brazil might be an exception (2). This paper offers a panorama of engineering education in Latin America, addressing the current situation and identifying what we consider are the most important flaws. Then we propose a different approach to teaching engineering in the region, focusing on team work, project learning, entrepreneurship and social responsibility. Engineering education reform in Europe, the United States, Canada and other regions, has been dealt with for at least 15 years. The focus of reform has been on curriculum actualization, reordering and reduction, and it is an ongoing process. Here we shall not repeat these efforts, which have been published elsewhere (1), (4), (10), but rather focus on the Latin American region and its needs.

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2. Current situation The majority of undergraduate programs in the engineering fields in Latin America have a professional training approach, whereas technological advancement requires an approach significantly based on research. In the former case, students have to learn dogmatically, and have to try to comprehend the vast knowledge that has been generated in their field in the last decades. This is obviously impractical, especially considering the evolution of the field, in terms of knowledge and applications. In the latter approach, students are confronted with real life problems, for which they have to determine viable solutions. The first case is based on lectures, academic exercises and exams. The second focuses on solutions to known and practical problems. A review of the curricula by the most prestigious universities in the region shows that many current and important parts of education are not being taught; most of the material is outdated; majors are strictly focused in one area, and multidiscipline is absent. There are very few programs that rely on industrial interaction to better the preparation of their students. Just a few place importance in entrepreneurship (13). These issues lead to several questions: Is the profession leading or lagging society and technological advances? Are we producing the professionals that we need 5 or 10 years from now? Are we teaching and are they learning? How can we attract more students from the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region into Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields? How can the STEM careers be more appealing? These are few sample questions in the jungle of issues affecting education in general. In particular we are concerned with STEM education in the LAC Region. It is sad to mention the fact that Science and Technology (S&T) has never played a principal role in the socio-economic development of the majority of the nations in this region, a few exceptions can be found in Argentina, Brazil and Cuba on a long-term basis, and most recently in Mexico, Chile (11) and Costa Rica. Not only have S&T policies lagged at the national level in each country, but also at a regional level hardly any effort has been done to promote it. The average investment in S&T in the LAC region is 0.37% of the GDP, compared to 4% in developed countries. An interesting observation is also the lack of awareness, until very recently, of the importance of STEM education and S&T policies for the development of a country. This lack of awareness among professional societies, governments, industry, NGOs, civil society, and interest groups is critical to make the necessary changes in Policy and Education. But there are a few exceptions; Brazil’s current administration launched an ambitious program “Science Without Borders” to train over 100,000 scientists by the year 2015, and Argentina is following suit (15). This lack of the importance of STEM and S&T has a direct impact in the development of the LAC Region. This can be seen as not having a Regional role in participating in international bodies to establish industry standards. There is a lack of an educated workforce to attract direct investment in STEM fields; clusters for technology development cannot be set up; there are also voids of ecosystems to foster entrepreneurial activities. Curricula have not been continuously updated to meet the needs of industry and the complex “Grand Challenges” identified by several organizations worldwide (5). Moreover, there is loose accountability in academic institutions, whether they are public or private, and the culture of quality has not been raised in industry and academia in order to be globally competitive. Figure 1 depicts the National Academy of Engineering (6) Engineering’s Grand Challenges (5). You can see that inter-, multi- and trans-disciplinary collaboration and scalability are needed to address these complex areas. Furthermore, transnational collaboration is also of the essence in addressing these challenges and others posed by the United Nations Millennium Project, the World Bank, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), among others. Do these challenges mean the same at the different contexts such as local, national, regional, and international?

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In particular, engineering is the core for innovative solutions to challenging problems and in the generation of wealth. However, not many academic institutions are now aware of the importance of educating the engineers of tomorrow, maintaining their undergraduate programs accredited, and being innovative and creative in basic and applied research working with top graduate students, faculty and staff. In addition, the worldwide shortage of qualified engineers demands the development of new curricula that’s able to respond to the challenges mentioned above. Clearly, no institution alone can confront these global multilingual and multicultural challenges. Partnerships are essential. Partnerships for undergraduate student exchanges, joint R&D, Dual Graduate Degree Programs (MSc and PhD), and entrepreneurial activities that take ideas from the laboratory to the marketplace, resulting in the generation of wealth, are essential.

Figure 1 (5)

Why does STEM education have to be re-engineered? To continue to address this question let’s identify the advantages and disadvantages facing us all, synthesized in the term “globalization.” Thanks to the Internet and the mode of working in any type of a network, we are touched by the “six (6) degrees of separation” phenomenon. That is, in average, in six steps any person can interact with any other. This is great if the purpose is to collaborate, but it also means that any person can reach you, any Internet service provider can bombard you with “content”, and one can be completely overwhelmed with the amount of “information” received. Not everybody can discern from this overload. Besides this overload of “information”, the world has become smaller and we need to teach and learn to deal with cultural, social, economical, ethnical, religious, gender, and social awareness diversity, with sustainability, and to work with

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know-how versus know-who. Are we (students, staff and faculty) really IT savvy to take advantage of the present situation? Students are IT savvy and we must encourage that and keep it alive. They are ripe to make use and/or develop rapidly disruptive technologies. What about the faculty? In the Latin American and Caribbean Region we still encounter academic institutions hiring what is known as “taxi” faculty. That is, faculty that have completed the coursework of a BS degree but not defended a final exit thesis; or even personnel that have fulfilled all requirements and graduated. Whether a private or public university hires them, they travel between different academic institutions teaching the same set of courses. There is no need to update the content of the courses. The culture of quality in education; processes of certification, accreditation, and internationalization have only recently being introduced. Other issues that have not been addressed in all their depth are: tenure vs. non-tenure track faculty positions; requiring a PhD to become a fulltime faculty; R&D activities and access to funding; incentives to make faculty be current; on-line, on-site and mixed mode modalities for content delivery. Lastly, the basic infrastructure (IT, classrooms, laboratories, libraries, scholarships) to learn and teach is non-existent or in poor shape in a large number of academic institutions across the region. A very delicate issue is accountability of academic institutions regardless of whether they are private or public. There is wide range of policies and agencies across the region trying to address this issue. By having an academic institution being autonomous does it mean that it is not accountable? Also, somewhere in the works the stakeholders have been lost or been left behind. Who are the stakeholders these institutions have to respond to? Are they the government, civil society, interest groups, industry, others? Besides S&T policies and STEM education awareness, a better relationship among industry-government-academia-civil society is needed. All these issues are greatly exacerbated in STEM disciplines because it costs more to produce professionals in these fields. Regardless of whether we are dealing with public and private academic institutions, somebody is paying the bill. With less and less investment in education by governments, private education is on the rise. Again the question, who is doing quality control? What are lacking are incentives, monetary or in-kind, for faculty, staff and students to have a better sense of belonging and ownership in their institution to perform with excellence. This translates into innovation, creativity, entrepreneurial activities, keeping current, and having social responsibilities in the global context. Lastly, it translates in making the entire STEM fields more appealing and increasing the number of students. As mentioned above there are academic institutions in different countries that are exceptions and are producing globally competitive professionals. But the numbers are not enough to make a regional difference in a global scale. A good ranking of top academic institutions can be found in (9). 3. Proposed changes From the above discussion, it is clear that changes are needed in engineering education, and especially in STEM. One goal of these changes is to raise awareness on the importance of STEM education, R&D, and entrepreneurship. Another goal is to raise awareness on developing/enhancing policy in S&T and funding among governments, industry, academia, NGOs, civil society at large, foundations and multilateral organizations. A lot of experience has been gained by several organizations acting throughout the world working in STEM. Before the creation of IFEES in 2006 most organizations acted alone. Thanks to IFEES we have now a federation of organizations that can share their best and worst practices. The basic changes proposed, which are closely interrelated, can be grouped into:

• Modernizing curricula • Standardizing competencies

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• Fostering entrepreneurship • Working with industry

Modernizing curricula. As mentioned above, curricula in most universities in the region are based on well known but outdated concepts. The academic workload imposed on students does not allow them to be creative and independent, and is not preparing them to join the workforce as productive engineers, teachers or professionals. A Project Learning Approach has proved to be beneficial (16, for instance) in that students can use their creativity to tackle specified problems. It combines their experience and maturity, increasing their learning achievements. Furthermore, this type of approach is what technological advancement is based on, and thus students are better prepared to be successful professionals. Moreover, a multidisciplinary emphasis is also needed. It is now very difficult to be competitive in any given field without some knowledge of other fields. Take for instance MEMs, where we expect students to know electronics, semiconductor physics and mechanics. Or the design of integrated circuits for biomedical applications, in which the professional needs to know, besides circuit design, the basics of biology, anatomy and medicine. In environmental engineering, students need to learn a plethora of different concepts, ranging from the environment, STEM, social and cultural settings, geography, biology, etc. An approach as such nurtures innovation, which is greatly needed. Standardizing competencies. Engineers learn differently, and a different base of knowledge, depending not only on the country they study, but also on the university they attend. This makes professional mobility and certification very difficult, and frustrates recent graduates (12). The Engineer of the Americas (7 for instance), has aimed at making engineering competencies homogeneous, but based on the current situation, as outlined above, not many positive results have been reaped. Furthermore, the competencies for a global engineer have to be defined based on the social and technological needs of the region. This is indeed an issue that calls for broad and immediate collaboration from academia, industry and government. Fostering entrepreneurship. There is a marked and important difference between being an employee or being an entrepreneur. In the first case, one is subjected to following instructions from personnel higher-up in the organization, many times with a limited capacity to propose solutions, methods or processes. In the second case, the entrepreneur can decide what to do, use his/her creativity and work toward self defined goals. Clearly, not everyone can, or wants to be, an entrepreneur, but we have to give students the choice. Hence, we have to foster entrepreneurship in engineering programs, in order to be better prepared to face the problems affecting all fields of technological and social advancement. Entrepreneurship, however, has to be taught with a deep sense of social responsibility and philanthropy; the aim is not to form profit-based corporations, but enterprises that work toward the common goal in the region, which is to improve the standard of living for all its inhabitants, regardless of political, social and cultural borders. Furthermore, Latin America needs to have its own high-technology industry in order to overcome local problems. Moreover, innovation is a direct result of entrepreneurship. Working with industry. The curricula in universities all across the region have to include a heavy component of collaboration with industry. In the end, it is industry who defines what is needed for development; industry has a better scope of the global situation; industry determines the profile of an engineer for particular applications. If a university includes long term stays in industry (one or two semesters at least) as part of the curricula, the students will be able to learn what the “real” world needs, how things are done in a practical way, and what competencies they need in order to be successful professionals. So far, this is incipiently done at the graduate level, with a strong research focus, but it is evident we need to do it at the undergraduate level as well.

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There are several examples of efforts done in order to include these four issues in engineering education in Latin America and elsewhere. For instance, one of the events organized to raise the awareness levels is the Motorola-ISTEC IT Challenge. During the IX ISTEC General Assembly held in Ft. Lauderdale, FL in November 1999, Motorola launched the IT Challenge for Ibero-America. The challenge is to analyze the needs, strengths and expectations of governments, academia, and the private sector, and to define an agenda in Information Technology (IT) as a catalyst for social, cultural and economic development for the next decade (2000-2010). Dr. Terry Heng, then Vice-President of Motorola, presented the IT Challenge committing $500,000 US dollars for the next five years (2000-2004) to fulfill these goals. The objective of the IT Challenge was to sponsor conferences, workshops and forums with the participation of high-ranking government officials, academia, industry and international organizations to create awareness, analyze existing IT models in other regions, develop an IT agenda, and obtain commitments to implement an IT plan for the next decade. The agenda addressed issues such as automated processes for production, e-commerce, e-government, distance employment and STEM education, S&T policies, IP protection, social and cultural values, health, strategic alliances, and universal access to information. From 2000 to 2004 an IT Challenge was organized in almost all countries of the ISTEC membership. Would it not be nice to identify several more visionaries in industry like Dr. Heng that can fund events like these? There are certainly many more people in position to do this. Evidently, there are many other industries, multilateral organizations and government agencies which could participate in advancing the state of engineering education in the region. They have to be tapped, and work has to be undertaken relentlessly towards this goal. Thankfully, nowadays there are several transnational companies working together with academic bodies (such as ISTEC and IFEES) in Latin America to advance engineering education and help overcome the problems mentioned in this paper. As examples, but not limited to, the efforts of IBM, SilTerra (8) and HP are noteworthy. Clearly an important issue is to develop new curricula to accompany the knowledge base being created that addresses the “Grand Challenges” (5). We believe the new curricula should provide students experiential learning where trans-disciplinary collaboration and teamwork is highly valued. Not only to provide them with the basic knowledge, but to also instill in them the curiosity needed for innovation, research and life-long learning. As a consequence, the new leaders/entrepreneurs (social and business) needed today can be formed at the university with an ingrained social, cultural and ethical responsibility. We should demand from faculty constant updating of the curricula. The ideal setup would consist of having “open” laboratories that give students the hands-on approach to learning as well as the theoretical background. By an “open lab” we refer to a space where laboratories from different disciplines share a common area and students can interact and work in multidisciplinary projects. In addition, the students do not need to be from the same semester but across all levels in the program. In this space, students can learn the basics and the skills that will help them in their research and later in their professional lives. Furthermore, these laboratories have to have an important presence from industry, being it in projects, assistants and equipment. Collaboration of academic institutions in the creation of curricula and the content is vital because of the fast and complex challenges we face. In addition, academic institutions need to embrace on-line, on-site, and mixed mode modalities for content development, always aiming at standardizing competencies. As mentioned before, students are IT savvy and we must encourage them to keep this interest alive. They are ripe to make use and/or develop rapidly disruptive technologies. Academic institutions should work closely with student organizations in the innovation of curricula, retention programs, creation of scholarships and/or student loans, establishing internships with industry, government agencies, NGOs, etc. Moreover, student exchanges that

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encourage mobility at the local, national, regional and international levels should be fostered. Also, senior design projects should be encouraged to be inter and multidisciplinary, the result of work with industry, and across geographical borders. Lastly, the establishment of dual degrees (undergraduate and graduate) with other academic institutions will facilitate the mobility needed by students today and it will foster collaboration among academic institutions and industry. The partnering with other universities will enhance capabilities to develop joint R&D efforts, content, and innovate curricula. It will also facilitate the creation of costly new laboratories; fund raising by reaching out to alumni, philanthropic individuals and organizations, industry, government agencies, and multilateral organizations. If done correctly, the senior design projects can plant the seed for entrepreneurial activities. Projects can lead to incubation of new firms and eventual spinoffs generating wealth and new jobs. More institutions, however, have to get involved in the Global Student Design Challenges (GSDC) where the goal is to take an idea from the laboratory to commercialization. The GSDC has evolved from student design contests sponsored by ISTEC and now it has the backing of institutions like IFEES, SPEED and ISTEC. 4. Conclusions We have presented an overall description of engineering education in Latin America, addressing some of the most important issues which nowadays represent a hindrance to the real development of the region. Most programs in the fields of engineering are outdated, and have not changed according to the fast evolution of technology worldwide. Fewer engineers are being formed in the region, and countries have opted to send their students for an education abroad. Not all of them return to their country of origin, however, making it hard to infuse new ideas in academic programs in the region. An alternative approach is based on a multidisciplinary project learning focus, establishing a deeper collaboration among academia, governments, industry and society as a whole. Fostering entrepreneurship, standardizing competencies, renewing curricula more dynamically, and working closely with industry, a new generation of engineers can be formed in order to tackle the ever-evolving problems that present day society is facing, advancing technology for the good of all, and improving the standard of living in the region. Several important efforts have been undertaken towards these goals by the leading academic organizations in the region, such as ISTEC and IFEES, but much more is needed, in the short run, to make the region truly competitive and at the foremost in generation of knowledge and intellectual property. These have involved the active participation of transnational companies which have seen the potential of Latin America to form professional engineers with a sense of social responsibility and entrepreneurship; we now need to generate high technology industry in the region, and work together with them to achieve the goals. In order to be successful, these efforts require the support of the leading engineering professional societies, governments and academia at large. The changes herewith proposed can only be effectively implemented with a vast regional collaboration, at all levels, which we hope can be achieved in the short run once all concerned parties are aware of the need to reform engineering education in the region.

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