Submission to the Review of Higher Education Financing and Policy
The Australian Council of Engineering Deans
The education of Australian professional engineers is the responsibility of 36 university engineering schools, which currently enrol 50,000 students and produce approximately 8,000 graduates a year. The Australian Council of Engineering Deans (ACED) provides a forum for deans to discuss matters of mutual interest in engineering education.
A matter of considerable concern to ACED is the threat to educational standards posed by declining government funding and indifferent industry support for engineering education. This is occurring at a time when strengthening of Australia’s technological capability should be our top priority for survival as a developed nation in the Asia Pacific region.
In 1995, ACED joined with The Institution of Engineers, Australia, (IEAust) and The Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) with the support of DEETYA to establish a forward-looking Review of Engineering Education (REE). The review report, entitled "Changing the Culture: Engineering Education into the Future" was published in December 1996 (1).
Comments on the principal themes of the West Review are submitted by us to assist the Review committee in understanding the nature of education of an essential professional group in the Australian community and ensuring that such education is adequately funded. These comments are largely based on our input to the 1996 REE, which we commend to you for more detailed examination.
The "useful art" of engineering dates back into prehistory: homo habilus was a toolmaker, some two million years ago. In more recent times, the lever was in use in Egypt around 5000 BC in the balance beam for weighing and in the shadoof for raising water; the wheel, arguably the most important mechanical discovery of all time, appeared around 3500 BC in Mesopotamia. The Great Pyramids, built between 2650 and 2190, required exceptional engineering feats in their construction. While mechanical arts were considered less important and prestigious than liberal arts in ancient Greece, engineers still had an important role to play: Plato (in his Dialogue of Gorgias) expressed concern about their status:"why is it not the custom for the engineer to give himself grand airs . . . who at times saves whole cities?" (3), while Aristotle’s Mechanica is considered to be the oldest surviving engineering text. The Romans, who depended on engineers for the excellent roads, bridges, aqueducts and weapons that were necessary for the extension and maintenance of their empire, later became technologically stagnant as slave labour killed off ingenuity. The Renaissance later saw the re-birth of ingenuity - Leonardo da Vinci, the outstanding military engineer of his day, foresaw inter alia the invention of the submarine and the helicopter. The industrial revolution gave birth to the modern engineer as a designer and builder whose education necessarily became rooted in science.
Much of the infrastructure and many of the products we often take for granted in our daily lives to-day are the result of engineering. The Prime Minister’s 1991 Science Council report, "Engineering in Australia"(4), refers to professional engineers as
"originators and facilitators (whose) role in society is to use a multiplicity of skills to transform concepts into structures, factories, services, systems and manufactured products. They are responsible for the safe and efficient construction and operation of industries and infrastructure. Their activities span most areas of the Australian economy".
Engineering today is concerned with wealth creation in a competitive world. Engineers must understand the context in which they function while not losing sight of the need for technical excellence. The prime goal of engineering education is to provide the formative knowledge, attitude and level of understanding to produce graduates who are well prepared to enter a professional career. The attributes that graduates should have to a substantial degree are (1):
Engineering studies are offered by most of the world’s great universities. France led the way when in 1747 it established the Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussees, followed in 1794 by the Ecole Polytechnique. Engineering studies were first offered at the University of Melbourne in 1861 and at the University of Sydney in 1882. Studying engineering at a university provides students with exposure not just to the scientific and technical aspects of engineering but to the wider cultural influences present in a comprehensive university. It is essential for engineers to have this wider perspective and an awareness of the impact of engineering in society and the community. Outstanding Australian engineers who have made their names in other fields include: former Governor General Lord Casey; current South Australian Governor, Sir Eric Neal; current Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University, Sir Alec Broers; eminent playwright David Williamson.
Engineering practice covers such a wide spectrum of endeavour that study of individual branches or sub-disciplines is necessary. Some branches are broadly based, such as chemical, civil, mechanical and electrical; others are more specialised, e.g. aeronautical, mining, computer systems, biomedical. Australian universities provide four-year bachelor of engineering courses in over 20 branches, as well as masters and doctoral programs. Engineering technicians who perform many essential tasks under the guidance of professional engineers, receive their training mainly in TAFE colleges.
The number of bachelor-degree commencements is currently negotiated between the universities and government. The recent substantial increase in HECS has had a patchy effect on demand for places, the longer-term impact being somewhat uncertain. By comparison with other developed countries, Australia produces fewer engineering graduates per head of population (1). If Australia is to remain technologically competitive with these countries, our engineering activity, and hence need for engineers, will have to increase. This matter is discussed in some detail in the REE, including the impact of migrants.
We support the REE recommendation that Government should budget for an annual increase of 2% to 3% in engineering commencements over the next three years and plan for more substantial growth in the first decade of the next century to provide for essential expansion in engineering activity and associated research and development.
A matter of considerable concern to us is that so few women are attracted to the profession. Women currently constitute about 14% of engineering students but only 4% of practising engineers. ACED strongly supports the principal REE recommendations which aim to redress this unacceptable imbalance through the development of engineering programs that recognise and are connected to community needs and issues, recognising the alternative outlooks that women can bring to engineering through different interests, backgrounds, knowledge and work and family roles.
Australian engineering degree studies have proved to be increasingly attractive to overseas students in recent years. Associated educational export income is estimated at $75 million p.a.. Australian engineering academics have developed close links with their counterparts in countries to our north. Many influential government and industry leaders in these countries received their engineering education in Australia at the time of the Colombo Plan; they are now very supportive of their young people coming to Australia for their university studies. It is vital that we are able to maintain the very high educational standards we have developed over the years and to improve modes of delivery if we are to retain our international eminence as quality providers of engineering education.
It is essential that employers and the community are satisfied that the engineers we educate, largely at public expense, are able to fulfil their primary roles as technically competent practitioners. Engineering undergraduate degree courses are accredited by the Institution of Engineers, Australia, to a level that provides international recognition. This is important for Australian graduates who will be working overseas, as well as for overseas students who gain an Australian qualification and return to their home countries
to work. It is also important that graduates are more broadly educated to be able to perform their duties in an effective manner. The REE has recommended that accreditation of bachelor courses in future be based on demonstrated development in those courses of specified graduate attributes (listed above). It is recognised that while these attributes can not be fully achieved in a four-year degree program , the manner in which courses are taught and the learning environment in which they occur will be significant factors in establishing the professional foundations. Additionally, an increasing number of students entering engineering courses are attracted to combined and double degree programs to broaden their education in science, humanities, languages, commerce or law. We applaud these students for their initiative and enthusiasm, as we believe that both they and the community will benefit substantially in the longer term from the additional effort expended. We would not like to see any restrictions to deter such initiative.
We are deeply concerned about the deterioration of engineering laboratories that has occurred over the past two decades as university budgets have been steadily reduced. Engineering is concerned with physical systems - their design, construction, operation, and behaviour. Computer simulation, while offering considerable assistance to the design engineer, cannot totally replace the real thing. Our laboratories have largely become museums for ancient equipment as the cost of replacement has exceeded our available funds. A substantial injection of funds is needed to rectify this. Our students, in the meantime, are increasingly entering industry without having had exposure to up-to-date technology.
After many years of pressing government to recognise this deficiency, it is now apparent that additional funds will only be forthcoming if there is a fundamental change the way funding is provided. The introduction of the Relative Funding Model (RFM) put engineering in the same band as science, contrary to the historical greater cost of teaching engineering (- larger equipment and maintenance costs; smaller, more expensive classes compared with cheaper early-year science service teaching to large classes; more expensive one-on-one engineering project supervision). Many universities interpreted this RFM rating as meaning that engineering was no longer more expensive than science and adjusted allocations accordingly. Solutions include: designated higher RFM factor (increase from 2.2 to 2.5); sharing facilities and infrastructure (-being done, but limited in scope); and involving industry more strongly in the provision of such facilities.
Australian industry and business have been unwilling to provide anything but token support in the past, based on the argument that they already pay high tax to the government which must, in turn, provide the necessary educational infrastrucure. We would urge the government to provide tax deductibility for such provision to help change this unsupportive "culture". We also recommend that support be provided to university engineering schools to help establish collaborative programs for more effective utilisation of scarce resources, including "coalitions" to develop innovative courseware for undergraduate engineering education (1).
If engineering education is to be broadened and the image of engineering improved, engineering schools will need to develop staffing profiles "to include a balance of strengths in the areas of teaching and learning, research, professional practice, industry experience and community service, and adopt policies for the recruitment, development and reward (including appropriate remuneration) of staff that value and reward excellence in all of these areas." (1)
Research is an essential activity in engineering across the spectrum from fundamental to applied. Unless most of our teaching staff are engaged in research and current scholarship, engineering education will fail to maintain contact with rapidly changing technologies and may in time be teaching superseded technology. This can only put our society on the downward spiral of inadequate and poorly performing infrastructure and services and increasingly uncompetitive industry, ultimately leading to third-world status. We believe that there is a need for a wide-ranging strategic review of engineering research both in the engineering schools and in other research centres in the private and public sectors to ensure that Australia makes the most of the engineering talent available. We support the establishment of and Engineering Research and Development Council, as proposed in the REE (1) and elsewhere.
The establishment of CRCs and the introduction of industry research scholarship schemes have encouraged more engineering graduates to embark on research training than was previously the case. This is having a beneficial effect on applied research which is in the national interest. ACED believes that taxing of postgraduate stipends could have a devastating effect on future recruitment of students, particularly in applied areas associated with industry. The excellent work of CRCs and other industry-oriented research programs supported by the Commonwealth would be adversely affected by such a measure. Taxation of postgraduate stipends is strongly opposed by ACED.
In some areas of engineering that are vital to the nation's future, e.g. manufacturing, mining, telecommunications, computer systems and information technology, our PhD programs are not seeding the next generation of academics. Australians are not enrolling as postgraduates in sufficient numbers because of the lure of starting salaries in industry that are much higher than PhD scholarships, and the unattractive long-term salary prospects in academe. Already, a typical response to an advertisement for an engineering academic is about sixty applicants, only two of whom have English as a first language. Attraction of top quality applicants will require better rewards than currently available. This is a matter for individual universities to address in partnership with industry. Encouragement from the Review for enhancing this partnership would assist markedly in rectifying what we see as becoming an even more serious problem in the future.
The current level of basic research infrastructure support provided to engineering schools is insufficient to maintain international competitiveness. This could be redressed through taxation incentives to industry for collaborative research activities that provide new equipment and facilities for university partners.
Engineering education is currently undergoing a major change in culture to produce graduates who will be better fitted to lead the profession in its involvement with the great social, economic, environmental and cultural challenges of our time. The contribution of engineers to modern society is critical to sustainable development, to responsible wealth creation and to international competitiveness. Only with strong support from government and industry, in partnership with universities, will it be possible for engineering schools to help Australia meet the challenges we face in surviving as a leading nation in the Asia Pacific region.
1. "Changing the Culture: Engineering Education into the Future", The Institution of Engineers Australia, ISBN 858256630, 1996.
2. Johnston,S. et al, "Engineering and Society: An Australian Perspective". Harper, Ed., ISBN 006 312145 X, 1995.
3. Ubbelohde, A.R., "The Engineer as the Saviour of the City", Chem and Industry, 54, 1970.
4. "Engineering and Australia", Prime Minister’s Science Council Report, ISBN 0 644 145145, May 1991.