Engineering education, accreditation and the Bologna Declaration: a New Zealand view

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1 Engineering education, accreditation and the Bologna Declaration: a New Zealand view R. M. Hodgson 1 and B. R. Williams 2 1 School of Engineering and Technology, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand 2 Institution of Professional Engineers, New Zealand R.M.Hodgson@massey.ac.nz, bwilliams@ipenz.org.nz Abstract This paper briefly describes professional engineering education in New Zealand concentrating on four year professional degrees. The role of the Institution of Professional Engineers (IPENZ) in the accreditation of degrees and as the national signatory of the Washington Accord is explained. The Bologna process and its implications for New Zealand are briefly considered in the context of the current situation. This leads to the conclusion that the rapid development of the Bologna process and the consequent need to reconcile and relate this to the Washington Accord standards may afford a timely opportunity for review and reform of engineering education in New Zealand and beyond. Keywords Bologna Declaration; engineering education; New Zealand; Washington Accord New Zealand is a developed, democratic and, for most of the world, remote country. It has a population of approximately four million ( on 15/8/06) living in an area 15% larger than the UK. The New Zealand economy and international trade is based on a diverse range of raw and value-added primary products, a vigorous niche manufacturing sector, a growing service sector and tourism. There is little smokestack industry beyond an oil refinery, a small steel works and a hydroelectricity powered aluminium smelter. New Zealand has over students enrolled in tertiary education, of which about are university students and about 6500 studying for degrees in engineering and related technologies. New Zealand has eight universities. Of the universities, Auckland and Canterbury have conventional engineering schools and Massey University has a school distributed across three campuses and offers little in infrastructure-related engineering. These three universities are responsible for over 90% of the annual, national output of four year professional engineering graduates. Waikato and Auckland University of Technology are both developing engineering schools and in addition two Auckland-based polytechnics, Manukau and Unitech, offer at least one accredited four year engineering degree. New Zealand is entering into a major period of infrastructure renewal and redevelopment and, as is consistent with a vibrant economy, there is a shortage of skilled and experienced engineers of all categories. Each year about 800 students graduate from professional engineering programmes, with about a third of the graduates in electrical engineering and related subjects. A similar situation exists in respect of technical engineers (also known as engineering technologists) graduating from three year degree programmes. The government has a growth and innovation

2 A New Zealand view 125 strategy in place that has an emphasis on workforce skill development, and in addition a change in tertiary education funding is to be introduced that will shift from an annual student demand basis bums on seats to a system based on a rolling three year funding model that is, in part, driven by anticipated national need. This is likely to result in a greater emphasis being placed on engineering and technology. New Zealand has a long history of compensating for skill shortages by recruitment from overseas but future world demographics mitigate against this approach in the future, so the need will be for New Zealand to educate and train more of its own engineers. Accreditation and the Institution of Professional Engineers Engineering education programmes in New Zealand are subject to general quality assurance requirements as a precondition of government funding. To date, all of the New Zealand tertiary providers of engineering degrees have also chosen to seek and maintain accreditation from the national professional body The Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand (IPENZ). 1 The IPENZ Mission is to uphold and promote the profession of engineering, provide leadership and engineering advice to society on key issues and meet the professional needs of members. To achieve this Mission, a key strategic goal is to ensure that internationally-benchmarked engineering qualification and competence quality marks are widely recognised and used. To this end, since 1980 and in advance of the establishment of the Washington Accord, IPENZ has operated a formal accreditation process for professional engineering degree programmes. Programmes that are accredited are typically four year Bachelor of Engineering degrees. More recently accreditation has been extended to Technical Engineering and Engineering Technician qualifications. IPENZ is an active participant in the Washington, Sydney and Dublin Accords. This paper focuses on four year professional engineering programmes. As the New Zealand national representative, IPENZ is a founding signatory to the Washington Accord, the multilateral agreement established in The Washington Accord recognises the substantial equivalence of the accreditation systems of signatory organisations and the engineering education programmes accredited by them. It also provides an assurance that graduates of accredited programmes are adequately prepared to practise engineering at the entry level. Jurisdictions currently covered by the Accord are Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, the USA and the UK. While the accreditation processes of the Washington Accord signatories focuses on an assessment of the substantial equivalence of graduate outcomes rather than programme inputs, all accredited programmes in New Zealand involve four years of full time study. IPENZ accreditation provides graduates from accredited programmes right of entry to the Graduate Membership class (GIPENZ), assurance that their qualification satisfies the benchmark engineering knowledge requirement for professional membership (MIPENZ) and Chartered Professional Engineer registration, and international recognition under the Washington Accord.

3 126 R. M. Hodgson and B. R. Williams The Bologna process The Bologna Declaration arose from a meeting held in Bologna in 1989 of European Ministers of Education who established a process to align higher education systems and structures to create an integrated European Higher Education Area (EHEA) by Key objectives are to: Ensure degrees are easily readable and comparable; Establish uniform degree structures based on a three cycle (Bachelor, Masters, Doctorate) model; Establish a system of credits to promote widespread student mobility; Promote cooperation over quality assurance procedures; Promote the European dimension in Higher Education internationally. Each of these objectives has potential alignment implications for New Zealand, but it is the proposal to develop uniform degree structures, based on a three year first cycle Bachelors degree and two year second cycle Masters degree, that has the potential to have the greatest impact. Both the Washington Accord and professional engineering education programmes in New Zealand are currently based on a four year first cycle degree model. Implications for the Washington Accord The Washington Accord is essentially an international quality mark for engineering education programmes. Growing the brand of Washington Accord accreditation is seen as central to the Accord s future. Recent developments have been very positive in this regard. Germany, Korea, Malaysia, and Chinese Taipei are now all provisional signatories to the Accord, while Russia, China and India are among countries that have signalled an intention to apply for signatory status. In addition, proposed rule changes would allow signatories to accredit engineering programmes delivered outside their own territorial boundaries. Examples would be an Australasian university operating on an offshore or international campus and offering professional engineering degrees or universities operating in non-signatory countries. This would enable recognition of programmes in countries which do not have the accreditation infrastructure to support signatory status in their own right. The development of a European Higher Education Area, with academic requirements for professional qualifications that are not substantially equivalent to those of the Washington Accord presents a serious limitation to the future development of the Accord. Washington Accord signatories have been monitoring developments with the Bologna Process with interest. Two signatories to the Accord, the Institution of Engineers Ireland and the Engineering Council UK, will be directly impacted by the process, so their response is being watched closely. At the same time, there has been increasing interest in the Washington Accord from other European Union countries, including Germany (already a provisional signatory to the Accord) and Russia. A key question for each of these countries will be where they benchmark their requirements for professional recognition. Up to now the response has been inconsistent.

4 A New Zealand view 127 Ireland has indicated that it will move to a Masters (second cycle) degree as the benchmark for professional engineers, while Germany has indicated that it sees both 3 and 5 year (first and second cycle) programmes as providing substantial equivalence under the Washington Accord and therefore meeting academic requirements for professional engineers. Germany s position has yet to be accepted by the Accord signatories, but the potential inconsistency within the EU needs to be addressed. At a recent workshop of signatories to the Washington Accord in Dublin, signatories gave consideration to a paper on managing change in higher education. This paper arose, in large part, from consideration of the implications of the Bologna process. To date there has been no systematic attempt to reconcile the two systems. The Bologna process applies to all degree disciplines and is still evolving, in contrast to the Washington Accord process which is mature and stable with a steady accretion of provisional members and signatories. Implications for New Zealand IPENZ has a longstanding and active commitment to the Washington Accord and other multilateral international agreements and will continue to be active internationally to benchmark accreditation and competence assessment standards and procedures, and maximise international mobility and recognition for members. As a professional body responsible for maintaining standards for the profession, IPENZ must also consider international developments in engineering education to ensure that New Zealand engineering programmes serve to maintain New Zealand s international competitiveness, align with national needs and the needs of the profession. These developments are also being closely followed by the tertiary providers represented on the New Zealand Council of Engineering Deans (NZCED). This is a consultative body consisting of a representative from each tertiary provider offering one or more accredited professional engineering degrees. 2 A large proportion of New Zealand engineering graduates spend some of their careers working overseas and in addition there is a substantial level of New Zealand based, international consulting and design in infrastructure projects mainly in South East Asia and the Pacific. For these graduates, international portability and recognition of qualifications is becoming increasingly important. Similar considerations apply to Australia. 3 An opportunity for review and reform? In considering the vital contribution that engineers make to New Zealand s economic growth and development, the challenges represented by a significant shift in international accreditation processes may present a timely opportunity to reassess the effectiveness and relevance of current course design, curriculum content and the provision of engineering degrees. The large scale success of New Zealand companies such as Fisher & Paykel (an international exporter of white-ware), Navman (a designer and manufacturer of GPS modules and navigation systems) and Tait Communications (an exporter of VHF

5 128 R. M. Hodgson and B. R. Williams and UHF radio systems) demonstrate that applied engineering- and design-based research and development (investigating how to do things) is more likely to lead to intellectual capital value of sufficient quality to be internationally competitive than conventional, science-based research and development. Engineers are at the heart of this research and development effort. The question needs to be asked: are current engineering degree programmes producing graduates in the right proportion with the level of highly developed design-based research skills needed by productdeveloping exporters? At the same time, engineers also have a central role to play in the commercialisation of new products and ideas, as these activities involve high levels of engineering and technical risk. IPENZ considers that greater utilisation of engineers skills in innovation and capital investment decision-making will improve the decision-making process by ensuring optimal investment decisions in process improvements and new capital plant. Given the mix of technical and business skills that are required, engineers and technologists who have fully adapted to the business environment have the best developed professional competencies to drive the innovation process that develops and applies intellectual property. A further question to be asked is then: are current engineering programmes producing engineering graduates in the right proportions with the complementary business skills needed to facilitate a rapid integration into the business world? These are two of many questions that IPENZ and the New Zealand universities see as needing careful consideration. Conclusion The rapid development of the Bologna process and the consequent need to reconcile and relate this to the Washington Accord standards may afford a timely opportunity for review and reform of engineering education in New Zealand. References 1 Institution of Professional Engineers, New Zealand, accessed August 31, New Zealand Council of Engineering Deans, accessed August 31, Australian Government, The Bologna Process and Australia: Next Steps (DEST, Department of Education, Science and Training, April 2006).