AAEE Plenary - Engineering Education: A National Integrated Approach

Engineering Education in any country is influenced by the teachers, institutions, professional bodies, accreditation bodies and international agreements such as the Washington Accord. Through these various, and hopefully integrated processes, it is expected that institutions equip graduates to meet the needs of industry and the international market. Institutions (and thus teachers) must develop their graduates‟ attributes through outcomes based education programs that can be indirectly verified by demonstrating both high and satisfactory graduate employability. To accompany the educational process and maintain the credibility of accreditation there must be good linkages between industries, the profession, accreditation authorities, required graduate attributes and educators. To help ensure a high quality outcome educators have a responsibility to maintain not only their technical skills and knowledge but also scholarship in the learning and teaching domain. Australia is unique in the world by having very close links between the universities, the professional body, the accrediting authorities and most importantly the educators. This is achieved through an integrated approach by linking the professional industry body, Engineers Australia (EA) (who also accredit engineering teaching programs); the Australian Association for Engineering Education, a technical society of EA and the Australian Council of Engineering Deans. The outcome is a very special, active and dynamic partnership between industry, accreditation authorities and educations. This paper discusses these partnerships, advantages and challenges for the future in Australia and how the partnership flows into a global market.