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REENGE, THE BRAZILIAN ENGINEERING EDUCATION REFORM PROGRAM
ABSTRACT
It is estimated that around 80 % of the present scientific and technological knowledge have been produced after the Second World War, and if this dynamics is not changed in the next decade about 50% of all products to be used have not been invented yet. It is called attention to the continuous changes of knowledge, techniques and skills required to be introduced and mastered by the work force. In this scenario, engineers will play important roles since they are involved in almost all technological developments, as well as in the production of goods and services. The engineers are constantly being challenged by the technical progress promoted by themselves. If they are not properly trained to cope with the changing environment of modern society they risk to become obsolete just after or even before leaving university. Therefore, the universities are urged to "reengineer" their educational programs in order to prepare professionals with upgraded intellectual background to face this new reality. Several recommendations are made with respect to courses contents and also on educational methodologies.
As far as technology development is concerned it is proposed an strategy for optimizing the existing potential through organization of cooperative networks involving the participation of universities, R&D institutes and enterprises. These should be organized as "business units" to develop products and services according to partners interests, as well as to respond to external demands from Brazilian clients or from other countries.
The on going actions in Brazil to cope with these issues are presented. The Program for Engineering Development-PRODENGE is described, with particular emphasis in one of its subprograms wich deals with engineering education. The financial resources to support PRODENGE come from the Brazilian Government and through a loan from IDB - Interamerican Development Bank. The Program is jointly implemented by the Ministry of Science and Technology and Ministry of Education through their S&T agencies (FINEP, CNPq and CAPES) and also by state foundations.
INTRODUCTION
The challenges faced by society are strongly related to the continuous and radical changes led by the high rate of generation of new scientific and technical knowledge, and also as a result of its rapid diffusion into productive activities, giving rise to severe impacts over all aspects of human life.
At present, the complex demands of modern societies are fulfilled by technologies with increasing scientific contents [1].
Since the nineteenth century, science is no longer just a cultural asset but became increasingly important basis for economic progress due to successful systematic and large scale appropriation of scientific knowledge for technology development. It is estimated that around 80% of the stock of scientific and technological knowledge was generated after the Second World War and is being duplicated every 10 or 15 years [2]. If the technological dynamics is to keep its present pace, within a period of ten years around 50% of the products to be used have not been invented yet [3].
No parallel can be remembered in history as in the present, which produced similar highly speeded changes with deeper effects on humans, natural environment and social institutions. In particular, the institutions have been suffering strong impacts by frequent introduction of new technologies leading to changes in habits, values and traditions, which seemed would never change.
The introduction of new technologies, results almost always from a decision taken by the productive sector without any discussion involving societal participation or concerns. Serious crisis are generated on social institutions as a result of the strong and unexpected impacts produced by innovations and because they are not able to adjust themselves as quickly as it would be necessary. These are the cases of families, religious institutions, armed forces and universities [4].
A gap is established between the technical and scientific progress with respect to the capacity of social groups and institutions to deal with the challenges imposed by the new reality. As these the products of modern technologies come from applications of scientific knowledge they can not be easily understood or reproduced. The people not competent in science will not be able to master new technologies and will be condemned to a marginal appropriation of their potential benefits.
The generation of scientific-based technologies requires intense and continuos capital investments on R&D for production of high quality goods and services, as well as to engage the most talented brains and managerial capacity to deal with a large spectrum of knowledge. The result has been the concentration of power at all levels. In the productive sector it has been observed the formation of technological complexes as well as the fusion of companies. To a certain extent the same pattern happens among countries. At the end of this century the trend is the formation of political, economic and military blocks , true "planetary systems" with many countries orbiting around few countries with technological leadership.
The readiness by which the nations through their universities and enterprises will be able to produce innovation from appropriation of scientific knowledge will be an essential factor to cope with the established competition. A study about 500 cases in the period from 1953 up to 1973 showed that the average timing taken between a scientific breakthrough and introduction of innovation was 7.7. years in UK, 7.4 in USA, 5.2 years in Germany and only 3.2 years in Japan [7]. The capacity to transform inventions produced by themselves or by others into innovations in rather short periods of time can explain the economic success of enterprises and countries like Japan [8].
The engineers are the ones which enable the overwhelming majority of innovations from the availability of scientific knowledge and inventions. The capacity "to engineer" new concepts into innovation to be first in the market and deliver a better quality with lower prices is essential to win the competition. Therefore, competence on engineering of products and processes is essential for commercial success even for the countries with less scientific development.
As mentioned before, proper timing is also decisive in addition to quality and productivity to achieve competitiveness. The linear sequential practice of research, development and experimental engineering of products and processes is out of date. These steps must be integrated considering at the same time all issues involved, from technical solutions to market requirements, to shortening the time lag between creation and innovation. This is the purpose of "simultaneous engineering" , which practices is a key factor for success within an environment where the life cycle of products and services is shortened. Thus, scientific knowledge can lead to radical technological innovations faster than engineers could be educated.
In addition, it is necessary to understand that the technological progress produced radical changes in the production processes, as well as on the distribution of work force and on the division of labor, and also on the qualifications required. Nowadays, in the post industrial era, the distribution of work force in the leading countries, more than 70% have been shifted to services, 20% to 30% will remain on industrial activities and less than 5% in agriculture, all with increased requirements of technical qualifications and using machines and techniques less demanders of unqualified personnel.
It is increasing the number of individuals that are engaged in job opportunities but are not formally or permanently employed, which require complementary and other competence in addition to their specific professional field. In this new reality, higher qualifications are required to undertake the jobs in any of the production sectors, putting great pressure on the population educational needs. With frequent technological changes, the individuals unable to follow and adapt themselves will become prematurely disabled to work. This is called as structural unemployment.
The loss of qualification for the job market, either due to lack of good education or to professional obsolescence, leads to what has been known as "technological illiteracy". Even if the economy recovers its best pace these individuals would not have a place in the job market.
ENGINEERING EDUCATION
In order to cope with its roles in this changing world, modern universities are to be more than a set of unconnected higher education professional schools. The contemporary universities must be play important roles for innovation and knowledge diffusion, in addition to its main traditional function which is to prepare the citizens for modern life, qualifying them for a profession, among other endeavors The universities should be committed not only to the diffusion and use of consolidated knowledge and with culture acquired from the books , but mainly the development of research and to the use of its results.
The challenges faced by the universities are enormous specially with respect to the evolution of engineering education and research, areas involved and directly affected by the technological development .
In synthesis, one can state that the engineers must be prepared to master, generate, improve and apply technological knowledge to produce goods and services for timely fulfilling society needs with adequate quality and costs.
The evolution proved to be faster than it has been possible to cope with the new requirements for engineering skills, leading to an urgent need for a complete review on the contents and methodologies at all levels of their education.
The following topics are proposed to be considered in the process for redesigning engineering education:
THE SCOPE AND STRUCTURE OF PRODENGE
Considering the issues presented before, the Ministry of Science and Technology, through Studies and Projects Financing Agency FINEP conceived and launched a Program for Engineering Development - PRODENGE. Its objective is to produce impact for structuring and modernizing engineering education , as well as on the implementation of cooperative research. Therefore, the Program is organize into two complementary components: Engineering Education-REENGE and Cooperative Research Networks-RECOPE. Both involve cooperation among universities, research institutes and enterprises for the development of engineering.
Taking into consideration the scope of the Program, FINEP established partnerships with the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development -CNPq, and with the Ministry of Education and Sports through its Higher Education Secretariat-SESU and Coordination for the Development of Higher Education Personnel -CAPES. Partnership with these institutions enabled the delivery of packages of coherent funding instruments, including research grants, scholarships, fellowships, support for consulting activities, and loans to participating enterprises according to project needs.
Entrepreneurs, professional engineers and their associations, R&D institutes, as well as scientific leaderships and university authorities, have been mobilized for program design and implementation.
Therefore, PRODENGE is a product of joint effort of all stockholders concerned with the development of engineering in the country. A Steering Committee headed by an appointed General Coordinator and supported by a group of FINEP's staff was established for coordination and managerial purposes at national level.
In order to back its financial commitments with this program, FINEP borrowed a loan from Interamerican Development Bank-IDB and will invest counterpart resources from the National Fund for Scientific and Technological Development to award research grants up to a total of US$ 50 million for the next three years (first phase), in addition to the investments provided by federal agencies and other partners at local levels which altogether already committed around US$ 28 million. In order to provide loans for enterprises involved in cooperative projects it made available funds up to U$ 224 million from IDB and through Program for the Development of National Technology - ADTEN, the instrument FINEP uses to support the development of indigenous technology.
The Basic Document of PRODENGE was delivered to the public during an International Seminar of Engineering Programs promoted by FINEP in September 95 in Rio, which involved the participation of representatives from USA, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Argentina.
"REENGINEERING" THE ENGINEERING EDUCATION-REENGE
During the last decades Brazil invested considerably on graduate programs and their associated research. At present, there are more than 120 masters and 60 doctorates courses on engineering qualifying around 7000 and 3000 graduate students respectively. On the other hand, the quality of engineering education at undergraduate level and high school teaching became poorer, specially with respect to mathematics and sciences (physics, chemistry and biology). There are around 136,000 students enrolled in 160 colleges of engineering undergraduate programs which represents only about 10% of total higher education enrollments.
The difficulties on engineering education in Brazil came from the reduction of university students enrollment on engineering and the poor understanding of the difficulties on the development of a strong industrial society and a dynamic service sector, in a post-industrial era.
Several seminars were organized by one of the authors with the objective to discuss the problems, to measure the extent of the colleges of engineering awareness of them and of the real possibility to involve the industrial sector.
Them a set of workshops involving a group of professors from engineering and basic science institutes was held to evaluate the possible response of the universities to a call for action presented by a national program. This step was also a moment to increase nationwide the degree of awareness to the problems, even outside the academic sector.
The third step was the organization of a seminar involving practically all the Brazilian schools of engineering, with the presence of international guest speakers. These speakers brought their personal experience in engineering education from Japan, Argentina, Germany, Italy, France, United Kingdom and the United States.
At the end of the two-day seminar, REENGE was launched. A call for action was posted by September 1995, with dead lines for proposals in November. A national board of peer reviewers chose 24 institutions to be supported immediately by REENGE, contracts being signed on December 1995. In October 1996 a new round of selection occurred resulting in the admission of additional 16 engineering colleges in the REENGE. Every project was set for two years.
Projects have been selected through an ex-ante evaluation process in the basis their long term plan according to the following criteria:
i) definition of the professional profile of the new engineers they plan to deliver to society, as well as the contents and methodologies they will introduce to achieve planned results;
ii) educational plan to develop systemic skills and thinking on engineering education;
iii) partnerships proposed with high schools to enlarge their actions to promote engineering education and to improve the quality of their future students; and
iv) plan to establish internal coalitions with their own departments on engineering and basic scientific disciplines, at undergraduate and graduate levels.
This REENGE program was born as a collaborative toil. Associations between engineering schools were welcomed, as well as associations between the academy and the industrial sector. It was kept in mind that all the proposals compatible with the objectives of REENGE and with clear goals should be approved, provided that corrections proposed by the referees would be accepted by the authors.
The main concern at the time was the lack of experiences in dealing with an educational program at undergraduate level. Although several programs were designed to deal with research activities and technology transfer to the industrial sector, this program was unique. The real need to involve as many institutions as possible convinced the organizers to recall presenters with good prospective bad let them rewrite their proposals in the case that corrections were asked by the board of referees.
The agencies (CNPq and CAPES) made available a total of US$ 12 million by the beginning of 1996 and US$ 12 million by the beginning of 1997. MEC-SESu invested US$ 4 million by the end of 1996.
As the REENGE program evolved along 1996 the concept, of "hands-on" activities matured toward the objective of having engineering students starting design and production related tasks in the very beginning of their freshman courses. A call for "hands-on" projects was posted in October 1996. The selected projects will start along the first semester of 1997. FINEP made available US$ 4 million for these projects.
NETWORK OF TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION
In August 96, the Brazilian Network of Engineering-RBE was created and became operational, establishing a satellite communication link to connect all interested institutions on technological education in the country. The Vanzolini Foundation was hired by PRODENGE to produce and provide engineering education programs to be broadcaster from the state of Rio de Janeiro and reach all the Brazilian territory, according to a program scheduled and defined by participating institutions and by the general coordination. All universities supported by REENGE are stimulated to present and disseminate their educational experiences through RBE satellite link. During 96, RBE addressed engineering education and broadcaster several programs and interviews, including educational experiences developed in other countries. All 40 institutions under REENGE have been supported to install rooms and the necessary equipment to receive the RBE signals and to multiply its programs. RECOPE cooperative projects also use the network in addition to INTERNET to disseminate and exchange experiences. RBE is connected to World Engineering Network trough INTERNET.
During 97 and 98, US$ 3 million will be made available to RBE to take steps in the direction of creating a "virtual university".
CONCLUSIONS
A mid-term review for the first 24 projects is scheduled may 1997. Although we do not have yet a complete analysis of the first year of the program, several conclusions can already be drawn:
1 - University professors are not used to a program on undergraduate education, although a few programs, without the extension of REENGE, have been organized previously by CAPES. The proposal tended sometimes to boost the research infrastructure with very loose ties with education. Some other proposals were centered on specific problems, like "curricular reforms" on the meaning of modernization of disciplines syllabus. The understanding of "hands-on" activities as a practical discipline of projects was rather poor, with several projects being related to one research activity that could involve one or two students.
2 - CAPES has a long experience on graduate courses evaluation and it has already an well respected analysis and grade of all the Brazilian courses on this level. Nevertheless, a set of evaluating parameters is not yet developed for undergraduate courses.
3 - Undergraduate activities are yet considered second class compared with graduate ones. All the reward mechanisms, generally based on research productivity or simply on the number and prestige of internationally refereed papers, point to the graduate activities. Even the career track is dominated by the research and graduate studies activities.
4 - Modifications on the vision of undergraduate courses must take into account that the teacher-student relations must be more at ease. Authoritarian aspects must be changed and the students participation need to be increased. The lack of maturity of freshman students is certainly an impairment to the program.
The overall evaluation before the mid term review cannot be accurate. Nevertheless, the authors has been visiting several institutions and could feel a reinvigorated enthusiasm with the program, besides several new laboratories built with REENGE funds.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors acknowledge the effort of a vast number of engaged professors, that clearly are changing the landscape the engineering education in Brazil.
One of the authors (L.C. Scavarda do Carmo) would like to acknowledge the help of his staff of vice-deans (Prof. J. A. Pimenta Bueno, Prof. Therezinha Costa, Prof. Maria A. Davidovich and Prof. J. A. Parise) for their support in the difficult mission of starding a REENGE program in his institution (PUC/Rio) and also participate in the definition of the program as a whole.
REFERENCES