The following article is from the Study of Higher Education in China, written by Lin Jianhua.
Lin Jianhua | China Education Online/Photo
Excerpt
With the changes in economic and social needs, the engineering education model has become more and more abundant, and the construction of new engineering disciplines has also become a hot topic in recent years.
Starting from the origin of modern engineering education, this paper introduces the changes in engineering education models and the basic overview of engineering education in various countries, and puts forward some views and suggestions on the reform of engineering education and the construction of new engineering disciplines in China.
Written by | Lin Jianhua
● ● ●
The origins of engineering education in China can be traced back to the Westernization movement in the late Qing Dynasty. After the Sino-Japanese War, the first few modern schools were mainly based on science and engineering and practicality. In the early 1950s, after the adjustment of faculties and departments, China's engineering education system was basically established. Since the reform and opening up, China's higher education has made great progress and progress, the scale of engineering education has ranked first in the world, but the quality is not high, according to the 2009 "World Competitiveness Yearbook" report, the overall qualification of engineers is still at the end of the world.
Overall, China's engineering education is still dominated by traditional engineering fields, not only lacking in the layout of new economic fields such as big data, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, and network security, but also having a large talent gap in the fields of information technology, new materials, power equipment, and high-end CNC machine tools. At the same time, there are problems in the content, mode, teaching methods, learning methods and other aspects of engineering education, and the emphasis on knowledge over ability, the emphasis on classroom over practice, and the emphasis on grades over education have not been well solved.
In recent years, the construction of new engineering has become a hot topic. In 2017 alone, the Ministry of Education held three consecutive conferences related to engineering education, forming the "Fudan Consensus", "Tianda Action" and "Beijing Guide" for the construction of new engineering disciplines. Under the deployment and guidance of the Ministry of Education, schools have taken action to establish new engineering majors for emerging industries, establish future technical colleges, and comprehensively promote the reform and innovation of engineering education. At the same time, the pedagogical research on new engineering has also gradually begun to explore the connotation of new engineering construction, as well as the evolutionary history and future trend of engineering education.
Recently, we undertook the Chinese Academy of Engineering consulting project on the world's top engineering colleges, this study will briefly introduce the three main models of engineering education, and combined with the construction of new engineering disciplines, put forward some preliminary views on the reform of engineering education in China.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="22" > the change of engineering education model</h1>
If you count from the establishment of Napoleon's college of engineering, the world's engineering education has a history of more than two hundred years. Throughout the development process, the engineering education model has undergone three important transformations. Engineering education is directly related to the country's economic and social development, and it will inevitably evolve with the development and change of the industry. In the era of machine industry, engineering education was dominated by engineering technology. In the information age, engineering problems have become more complex, and many need breakthroughs in science to be truly solved. Today, engineering problems are no longer just technical or scientific problems, but are closely linked to people, society, and nature, and only in a broader perspective can we truly understand the key and core of engineering problems.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="130" > engineering technology education model</h1>
Modern engineering education first appeared in France during the Revolution. In view of the antiquated conservatism of the traditional universities, Napoleon closed the French universities and re-established the system of colleges and universities, the Paris High School is one of the most famous. Napoleon embraced pragmatism, believing that university education should directly serve the state and society. The new-style schools have swept away the old university scholasticism, enabled outstanding talents, and attached importance to science and technology education and training.
Napoleon's higher education reform brought education and academic prosperity to France, not only cultivating a large number of outstanding engineering and technical talents, but also greatly improving the level of scientific research in France. But Napoleon's centralized management of the university, as well as the militarized management of students, and the inclusion of teachers in the government civil service, hurt the university's tradition of autonomy and academic freedom, and deprived the university of its proper intrinsic vitality. As a result, France's educational and academic leadership did not last long before it was surpassed by Germany.
After the defeat in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, France rethinked higher education and restored the comprehensive university system. Napoleon's pragmatic model of engineering education had a great influence on world higher education. Engineering universities in European countries, the Morrell Act and land-grant colleges in the United States are inextricably linked.
At the beginning of the 20th century, this pragmatic education was brought to the extreme in the Soviet Union. In order to speed up the process of industrialization, the Soviet Union carried out a thorough transformation of the old universities, setting up universities according to industrial fields, dividing majors according to production positions, and implementing highly specialized education and training of students. In the planned economy, students are like "screws" in specific positions, arranged in enterprises or research institutions according to their needs. From a pragmatic point of view, the training of engineering talents in the SOVIET Union was very successful. The choice of major is consistent with job employment, theoretical learning and skills training, and students are fully prepared for their careers before entering the actual job.
This specialized mode of education played a huge role in the early stages of Soviet industrialization, not only cultivating a large number of scarce professionals for the country, but also laying a strong academic and industrial foundation for the victory over Nazi Germany. After World War II, this model of specialized education was extended to Eastern Europe, and in the early 1950s, China completely transformed universities according to this model.
Engineering and technology education is a product of the era of industrialization. At that time, engineering and technology were based on classical mechanics and electricity, and most of these scientific principles were discovered decades or even hundreds of years ago. Engineering technology and modern science are like two cars running on the road, independent of each other and not in contact. Of course, engineering and technical personnel must learn and master scientific principles, design, invent and manufacture new products, and solve practical problems in production. Most of the research of scientists is oriented by personal interests, focusing on exploring the unknown world, and does not care about practical applications.
In fact, most of the early inventors were also single-handed, and some were self-taught amateur inventors. It was not until around the time of World War I that some large companies began to establish their own R&D institutions, but mainly to develop technology and improve corporate profits. This cultural tradition of pragmatism during the industrial period had a great influence on university education.
It is widely believed that the purpose of engineering education is to train engineering technicians in specific positions, who need to master basic scientific principles, but there is no need to understand the frontiers of science and the academic way of thinking. In the training program, the requirements for the application of engineering technology and practical skills are much higher than speculation and inquiry, not to mention humanistic literacy and social science knowledge.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="131" > engineering science education model</h1>
The Second World War was not only a contest between good and evil, but also a war of science and technology.
In the early stages of the war, Nazi Germany had the advantage in military equipment and military strategy. With a strong industrial base, especially the excellent work of a large number of university scientists, the Allies not only surpassed Germany and Japan in conventional military equipment, but also invented advanced radars, accurate detonators, efficient battleships, automatic artillery control systems and high-performance fighters on the basis of the latest scientific discoveries, and of course, powerful atomic bombs and efficient code-breaking technology.
After World War II, in Science: Endless Frontiers, Van Neva Bush systematically summarized the successful experience of US wartime research and expounded the significance of frontier science in maintaining US strategic superiority in peacetime. At Bush's suggestion, in the 1950s, the National Natural Science Foundation was established in the United States to support academic research at universities. From the perspective of the university, the establishment of the National Research Fund is a far-reaching event, marking the transformation of the university's scientific research from an individual attribute to a national attribute, and since then, the research university system in various countries in the world has gradually been established.
During World War II, the excellent cooperation between scientists and engineers gave people an important lesson: scientific research and engineering technology are no longer two cars running on the road, they have been very closely integrated. In the era of new scientific discoveries, engineers can no longer just stick to technology, but need to understand the engineering significance of new scientific discoveries, and should participate in the whole process from scientific discovery, to engineering technology invention, to product creation.
This understanding led to a revolution in engineering education in the United States in the 1950s, that is, a shift from engineering technology to engineering science. Mr. Qian Xuesen was one of the first scholars to recognize this trend. In 1947, Qian Xuesen gave lectures on engineering science at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Zhejiang University and Tsinghua University, clearly proposing to pay attention to the cultivation of talents in engineering science. But in the midst of the civil war, it was clear that these ideas could not be realized in China.
The middle of the 20th century was a golden age of scientific discovery and technological progress, and many major technological applications were the result of the close integration of cutting-edge science and engineering. Semiconductor materials were a major scientific discovery at Bell Labs, and semiconductor materials were soon used in practice as rectifier devices. Subsequently, the invention and application of large-scale integrated circuits gave birth to the computer and information industries. Laser discovery and application is also an example of the combination of science and engineering. The laser principle was proposed by Albert Einstein in the early 20th century. But it wasn't until the 1950s that laser output was actually realized. Today, laser technology has been widely used in all aspects of production and life.
In the middle of the 20th century, a number of top engineering colleges in the United States successively shifted from traditional engineering technology education to engineering science education. Mr. Qian Xuesen has long expounded the concept and ideas of cultivating engineering science talents. He believes that engineering science talents not only need to have a solid scientific foundation, academic research literacy and ability, but also have a strong perception and practical ability of actual engineering. Judging from the undergraduate teaching plans of some top engineering colleges abroad, there are indeed more and more heavy science courses, while engineering courses are mainly based on engineering principles, standards and norms, and more are through participation in practical projects, training students in engineering thinking and methods.
In general, the adaptability and creativity of engineering science talents are stronger, especially the complex engineering problems that need to be innovated in scientific principles, and engineering science talents have more advantages. In terms of employment, many engineering science graduates continue their studies and eventually pursue academic work, of course, more in companies or research institutions for research and development and other types of work.
The transformation of engineering education, the massive government investment in scientific research, the rise of research universities, etc., are crucial to the development of science in the United States and the rise of high-tech industries. The engineering science talent training model, which was subsequently accepted by Europe and other countries, became the consensus of engineering talent training. However, during the same period, engineering education in the Soviet Union, Eastern European countries and China did not change much, and it was still a traditional education model based on engineering technology.
Moreover, under the unified plan of the state, scientific research is mainly undertaken by specialized research institutions. This separation of talent development from academic research keeps the university's engineering education at the forefront of scientific discovery. Due to the lack of talents who can truly understand the significance of the engineering of the latest scientific discoveries, the Eastern camp is lagging behind in the new wave of information technology and biomedicine.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="132" > engineering leads the educational model</h1>
In the 21st century, information technology and the knowledge economy have developed rapidly, and people's lifestyles, value orientations, consumer demand, and industrial forms have undergone tremendous changes. Many traditional industries, despite their long history, have been subverted by those cross-border new formats. Industrial change is no longer a simple technological innovation, but also requires a deep understanding of people's lifestyles and value pursuits in order to design and create new products, new services and new business models that lead consumption. The rapid changes in society and industry have put forward new requirements for university engineering education: to cultivate engineering talents who can lead industrial change.
Not all of them agree with this statement. People are more willing to believe that the outstanding talents who lead the industrial transformation are not cultivated by universities, but are actually honed. This is undoubtedly true, but it does not in any way diminish the fundamental significance of engineering education for human growth. The fundamental task of university education is to "liberate" the minds of students, unleash their inner potential and prepare them for the future. Preparing for future industrial change is obviously one of the important tasks of university education.
In 2009, the World Economic Forum released a report on innovation and entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurial universities, which systematically sorted out the situation of cultivating new entrepreneurial talents. In fact, the basic ideas of engineering leadership and innovation and entrepreneurship are the same, and they are all literacy and ability to turn ideas into actions, and this quality and ability are not unique to entrepreneurs, but are very much needed for people working in any position.
From the perspective of education and growth concepts, engineering technology and engineering science belong to professional education. Engineering leadership requires not only a strong scientific and technological knowledge base, but also pays more attention to students' social experience and humanistic literacy, so it is an educational model that combines professional education and general education. In recent years, some universities in developed countries have begun to try to cultivate engineering-led talents from different perspectives. Due to different understandings, each school has its own training methods, but some basic consensus has been formed.
The first is to strengthen the literacy of humanities and social sciences. The future of engineering is not only the combination of science and technology, but also requires a deep understanding of people, society and nature, in order to have a broader vision, as well as the spirit of criticism, questioning and creativity, in order to keenly discover new problems and new opportunities. In the teaching programs of Caltech and Stanford University, the humanities and social sciences courses have exceeded 1/4 of the total credits. Harvey Mudd College, which is well-known in the field of engineering education, claims to be a unique liberal arts school for engineering education.
The second is the unity of knowledge and action. The most important thing for engineering leaders is not what they know, but to think and act creatively. The New Olympian Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Switzerland and the New Olympian Institute of Technology in the United States has made a good attempt to integrate engineering projects into the teaching plan, so that students can discover the charm of knowledge and theory in the research and practice of the project, so as to learn and practice more actively. Participating in and organizing engineering projects together is a great test of students' teamwork, bravery in the face of failure, and leadership and management skills.
The third is the integration of industry and education. In the era of open knowledge, society is rich in educational and academic resources, many of which universities cannot provide. Some colleges and universities in North America have implemented the education model (COOP) of industry-education integration for many years, which shows the unique advantages of cultivating students' comprehensive literacy under the new historical conditions. The University of Waterloo in Canada has always practiced COOP education, and due to the excellence of its graduates in the industry, the University of Waterloo is listed as one of the ten most popular universities by Silicon Valley in the United States, which is also the only university outside the United States among the most popular universities.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="133" > basic overview of engineering education in various countries</h1>
Engineering technology, engineering science, and engineering leadership are three different models of engineering education. These educational models have gradually emerged and developed under different historical conditions and social environments, but each model has its own social needs, which does not mean that the latter can replace the former. In fact, engineering education in various countries in the world is not a single model, but according to the actual situation and needs of industrial development, the above three kinds of engineering education are reasonably combined.
Engineering and technical personnel are the foundation of manufacturing. Engineering and technology education is a popular education model, which, together with vocational education, provides talent support for the manufacturing industry. Both engineering science and engineering leadership belong to elite education, mainly the educational model adopted by some top engineering colleges. Generally speaking, the number of talents in these two categories will not be too large, but the competition is extremely fierce, and only the top ones can stand out. In order to intuitively understand the situation of engineering education in various countries in the world, this study takes the above three engineering education models as typical and constructs a schematic diagram as shown in Figure 1.
In the early days, engineering education in various countries was mainly based on engineering technology. By the middle of the 20th century, most of the top engineering schools in North America and Europe had largely completed their transition to engineering science. For research universities, the transition to engineering science education is a strong intrinsic driver. Strengthening students' scientific literacy and ability is not only familiar to scholars, but also in line with their own academic development needs. The focus of engineering-led talent training is very different, not only scientific knowledge and skills, but also to cultivate students' ability to think independently, think critically and act creatively. This puts forward higher requirements for teachers, whether it is educational concepts or teaching methods, they must be changed.
Therefore, the transition to engineering leadership does not occur naturally, but will encounter resistance from teachers. Establishing new schools, hiring teachers with enthusiasm for educational reform, and fundamentally reshaping engineering education are effective ways to establish engineering to lead the cultivation of talents. Olin Institute of Technology is a new school dedicated to the reform of engineering education. After 20 years of hard work, the reform of Olin Institute of Technology has achieved very good results, and the graduates have been widely recognized. Some established engineering schools, such as the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have also begun to learn from the experience of Olin Institute of Technology to carry out engineering education reforms.
The development and evolution of engineering education has always been closely related to industrial development. U.S. manufacturing used to be strong. With the economic globalization, a large number of manufacturing industries have shifted abroad, and the United States has become a country dominated by high-tech emerging industries and service industries. The resulting changes in the job market have had a great impact on U.S. higher education. The decline in students' willingness to choose the field of engineering and the shortage of science and engineering students have become a serious problem facing American universities.
According to statistics, less than 5% of students who obtained a bachelor's degree in 2017 studied in the field of engineering. Moreover, only about half of the students who choose to major in engineering at the time of admission will be able to graduate from that major, and many will switch to other majors halfway through. This situation is a huge challenge and pressure for universities, and one of the important incentives for engineering education reform in the United States.
Unlike the United States, most European countries are very careful to maintain their manufacturing base, and the demand for engineering and technical personnel is relatively stable, so the pressure for engineering education change is relatively small. Germany has always maintained a sound technical university and vocational education system, and the skills training of students is very strict and standardized. The French university system is mainly responsible for the popularization of higher education, and the training of elite engineers is carried out in colleges and universities. In recent years, in addition to strengthening scientific literacy and academic training, colleges and universities have begun to pay attention to students' comprehensive literacy and practical ability to cultivate outstanding talents who lead industrial change.
It should be pointed out that the above three engineering education models all refer to more typical ideal situations. The typical and ideal models abstracted from reality are very necessary and beneficial for revealing the laws of engineering education and understanding the process of development. However, the educational model of any school cannot be simple or ideal, but mainly based on one model and then integrated into the elements of other models. For example, China's engineering universities are mainly based on engineering technology models.
In recent years, some schools have implemented the "Strong Foundation Plan" to strengthen students' basic science and scientific research training, so it has a certain engineering science component. Similarly, the education models of the top engineering colleges in the United States and Europe are mostly engineering sciences, but they are also very concerned about students' humanistic qualities and engineering practices, so they also have the characteristics of engineering-led education models.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="134" > China's engineering education needs to be transformed</h1>
Engineering education in China originated in the Soviet Union. In the early 1950s, faculties and departments were adjusted, and colleges and universities were re-established according to industrial fields, and majors were re-set according to the positions in the industrial process, forming a very typical pragmatic education system. After the reform and opening up, through the merger of universities and the adjustment of disciplines, the comprehensive disciplines of colleges and universities have been strengthened, and the academic research ability and level have been greatly improved.
In terms of talent training, through measures such as adjusting professional settings, broadening professional foundation, and strengthening quality education, students' humanistic literacy and academic vision have been improved. But overall, China's engineering education is still dominated by engineering technology, and even first-class engineering colleges have not fully realized the transformation to engineering science.
China is a big country, all kinds of engineering talents are in great need, need a large number of excellent engineering and technical personnel, but also need a large number of skilled craftsmen who are proficient in practical operation. Therefore, from the perspective of employment, the pressure for the reform of engineering education in Chinese universities is not great. But that doesn't mean we can sit back and relax. On the contrary, in recent years, some emerging technology industries, such as big data, artificial intelligence, biomedicine, etc., as well as many "card neck" key technologies, have put forward new requirements for China's engineering education. These problems faced by emerging industries are not solved by simple engineering technology, but must have new discoveries in mathematical methods, scientific research and system integration. And these jobs require not only good scientists, but also engineering and scientific talents who can integrate scientific discovery and engineering technology.
In the cultivation of engineering-led talents, we are just getting started. Under the vigorous advocacy of the state, various colleges and universities have made some useful attempts in the curriculum and practice of innovation and entrepreneurship. However, the cultivation of engineering-led talents is not achieved by taking some innovation and entrepreneurship classes or participating in some entrepreneurial practices, but by integrating students' critical thinking ability, ability to discover problems and solve problems, and courage to pioneer into the entire process of learning and growth. Obviously, the cultivation of engineering-led talents cannot be limited to books, classrooms or campuses, but must break boundaries and fully mobilize all kinds of educational and academic resources of schools and society, so that students can learn in creation and grow in practice.
China's engineering education should be diversified and multi-level, requiring both practical engineering and technical talents, engineering scientific talents with good scientific literacy and ability to solve complex problems, and engineering talents who can lead industrial change. The engineering colleges of local universities should focus on the cultivation of engineering and technical personnel, combine the actual conditions of local industries, strengthen cooperation with industries, and improve the quality of training engineering and technical personnel. The engineering colleges of the ministry's colleges and universities should realize the transformation to engineering science as soon as possible, and cultivate students' stronger scientific foundation, creative thinking, and ability to explore the unknown. At the same time, all colleges and universities should give full play to their own advantages, actively explore the methods and paths of engineering-led talent training, and strive to cultivate and cultivate a group of outstanding talents who can lead industrial change.
After more than two hundred years of development and evolution, engineering education has gradually formed three different training models. The goals of these models are different, and the teaching content and learning methods are also different. From the overall point of view, we should not only reform engineering and technical education and improve the quality and level of engineering and technical personnel, but also pay attention to the cultivation of engineering scientific talents and engineering leading talents. In the training of the latter two types of engineering talents, we not only have a large gap, but in many ways may have just begun. Therefore, the construction of new engineering should be a perfect opportunity to reflect on China's engineering education. If we can use the construction of new engineering disciplines, we can clarify our respective positions, and realize the reform and innovation of engineering education, which will be an important event of historical significance for the development of China's higher education.
This article is the keynote report of the author at the seminar on "University Transformation and Development" held at Lanzhou University on June 18, 2021, and the original article was published in China Higher Education Research, No. 7, 2021, pages 15-19, and "Intellectuals" was reprinted with the right to reprint.
About the Author
Lin Jianhua is the director of the Research Center for Future Education and Management at Peking University and a professor at the School of Chemical and Molecular Engineering.