The Anglo Saxon Model For Engineering Education: A Feasible Alternative For Colombia?

The Bologna Declaration on the creation of the European Higher Education Area in 2010 has given rise, in that continent, to a process that favors the convergence of various educational systems in order to achieve greater transparency and compatibility for study programs and degrees. This process has certainly had a large repercussion worldwide. The European Community’s adoption of a higher education system essentially based on two main cycles — undergraduate and graduate — strengthens the widespread tendency towards the Anglo-Saxon educational model (BSc (4 years) / MSc system), particularly in the case of higher education programs in Engineering. Even though in Colombia we also have an undergraduategraduate system, the problem lies in the length and scope of study programs in the undergraduate cycle. In the field of Engineering, majors last 5 years, which is enough time for students to be granted the professional license required to practice their profession. This alternative should be analyzed in order to identify the positive and negative aspects of the model, and to make the most convenient decision based on the analysis of intervening factors and on the evaluation of the repercussions and social impact that an eventual change in the Colombian model might have. Any proposal for curriculum changes in Engineering programs should be inspired by basic agreements on which kind of engineers should be educated in universities, and the competences they should have as professionals, always acknowledging differences between engineering disciplines. The analysis should not only include worldwide trends in a context characterized by globalization, competitiveness, quality assurance, and mobility of students and professionals; it should also take into account the articulation of the higher education system within the general Colombian educational system, graduates’ performance on the job, the reality of the national productive sector, financial opportunities and students’ equal access to graduate programs, as well as the relationship between formal university education and technical and technological education. Greater efficiency in the time required to educate engineers should be the result of a series of strategies and adjustments in terms of pedagogy, evaluation and learning, flexible curricula, Page 9.228.1 “Proceedings of the 2004 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference & Exposition Copyright © 2004, American Society for Engineering Education” optimization of academic periods, and the application of ICTs. All this without risking the quality of engineers’ education that should be assured in engineering schools. By virtue of the similarities of the region’s conditions, this analysis is relevant for all countries in Latin America.