The historical evolution of engineering education in the Brazilian schools clearly show the passage from an initial phase, built up upon the transfer of empirical knowledge, to a phase of scientific organization, occurred in the early 60s and prevalent until now. But presently, the emphasis on the scientific basis of engineering is not sufficient to grant the newly graduated engineer entrance into an working environment driven at technological innovation. Assuming that science and technology operate over diverse settings, and assuming the existence of the technological knowledge as an independent structure of discernment, one concludes that present engineering education should not be based on a model conceiving technology as applied science. The coalition project REESC, led by the Federal University of Santa Catarina - UFSC is tackling this very question. Upon the belief that "technological knowledge is one side of an interactive model, in which technology and science are independent forms of knowledge that integrate on several levels and manners", this project aims at the production and operation of environments where the students will engender the knowledge necessary for the technological innovation.

In 1995, as the result of an institutional concern, and responding to an initiative of FINEP, a Brazilian agency dedicated to the financing of projects for scientific and technological development, the Center of Technology and Science - CTC of the Federal University of Santa Catarina engaged itself in a process of reformulation of its engineering education programs. This task was undertaken in coalition with five other universities in the state of Santa Catarina (UDESC - Universidade do Desenvolvimento do Estado de Santa Catarina, UNISUL - Universidade do Sul, UNOESC - Universidade do Oeste de Santa Catarina, FURB - Fundação Universidade da Região de Blumenau, and FUCRI - Fundação Universidade de Criciúma ), and is focused on the reformulation of the several steps present in the process of the academic education of an engineer, aiming at the practicing engineer for the coming century. It is important to register that the focal points are both form and contents. Pedagogical aspects involved in the construction of knowledge are being revised, and meaningful changes shall be implemented; the course contents are also being examined. Changes in the professional profile and in the amplitude of the field of professional actuation of the future engineer, as well as consequences of the existence of the technological knowledge, are the motivating aspects for the changes in contents that will be tested.

There are several themes related to contents that are being examined. Nonetheless, it is of fundamental importance to gather a general perception of the depth of the prospective changes. It is essential to characterize the engineer most likely to be needed by Society in the beginning of next century. To do that, it is necessary to portray the present professional engineer within an engineering epistemology and, from this point on, define the changes in form and contents that should be needed for the production of the desired professional, with acceptable limits of prediction. To characterize the present Brazilian engineer it is advisable to observe historical aspects of engineering education in the country.

In Brazil, engineering education for the needs of the civil society, patterned upon the French model, began by the turn of the century, with emphasis on the building of civil works. Teaching was merely a transferal of experience, acquired mostly from actual empirical usage, from teacher to novices. This kind of education, centered upon the training for the use of engineering handbooks, prevailed for many years. Only in the late 50s the engineering curricula started to change, incorporating the classical engineering sciences; at the same time some schools began to employ full time teachers. Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering and Chemical Engineering were the first diversified curricula, followed by the appearance of many other careers and by a large growth in the number of schools, specially in the last 25 years.

The validation of the notion that science and technology are independent forms of knowledge drives one to observe that the engineer, successfully educated in accordance with the model presently prevailing in the Brazilian schools, exhibits adequate scientific basis, but is generally not well prepared for the context of technological innovation, Faulkner[1].

To better differentiate the present professional from the future one, objective of this project, it is important to conceptualize technological knowledge and to differentiate it from the scientific knowledge, Mello and Andrade [2].

The historical aspects, cited above, as well as several other factors, stipulate the kind of engineer presently formed by the schools of engineering in Brazil. Clearly, there are variations. This text refers to the standards of the best programs in the country.

A very fundamental aspect in the academic formation of an engineer, inasmuch as a precise definition is absent, has to do with the conceptualization of science and technology. Undoubtedly, many of the existing programs prepare the so called scientist-engineers, Soares [3]. They agree to a model that sees technology as applied science only; supporters of this model believe that once dominated the basic scientific knowledge, the full outgrowth for the exercise of the technological corresponding option is fully attained. It is evident that a basis established upon the scientific knowledge is fundamental for engineering education. However, within the present context, the acceptance that technology is an original source of novel technological knowledge, in addition to being a source for its own systematization, drives at the necessity of a reformulation of contents and, sometimes a reformulation of structure for the educational process in existence.

By accepting the existence of a relation between science and technology based upon a differentiation between scientific and technological knowledge, it is necessary to establish a model for this relationship to be used as a guide for the sought reformulation of engineering education.

For the time being it is accepted as a definition that "technological knowledge is one side of an interactive model, in which technology and science are independent forms of knowledge that integrate on several levels and manners".

To better visualize how this definition for the relationship between scientific and technological knowledge can intervene on the process of construction of scholarship along an undergraduate engineering program, it is necessary to present a description of the different modes of the engineering practice, as seen here.

Several authors have postulated three kinds of profiles for the engineer, the engineer-scientist, the engineer-designer, and the systems-engineer. The first two kind deal mostly with activities related to manipulation and use of stocks of scientific and technological knowledge. The systems-engineer, on the other hand, relates to the organization of production and operations on a qualitative and quantitative way.

The changes researched for this project must be selected upon a competent analysis of the activities of the engineer-designer, since the curricular move toward sciences, that happened in the 60s, privileged strongly the education of an engineer-scientist. The activities of the systems-engineer, on the other hand, are not rooted as deeply in technological development, but are rather involved with its insertion into society; as such, its analysis must be done with the involvement of strong competence in sociology.

To characterize the necessity of changes lets examine the actions of the designer-engineer with two different optics. If we consider the act of design as simply the formal utilization of the available knowledge, either scientific or technological, there exists a high probability of achievement of the design objective. However, if the design activity is related to revolutionary instead of evolutionary reforms, the required knowledge would be very diversified and complex, and would not be formally structured and available, as in the first case, Mello and Andrade [2].

As such, the contents and methods of the existing engineering education paradigm were developed for the production of a designer-engineer to operate sequences of predefined tasks, mostly repetitive, being able to cover, at most, the first kind of the two appointed types of activities.

To reach the profile of the second kind of designer-engineer, ways should be found and provided to involve the student with challenging activities, as far as technological knowledge is concerned. The two types of design activities mentioned above are structured in hierarchic steps inter-related on different levels. The complexity of these inter-relations define the class of project sought.

The nonexistence of challenge and the availability of structured knowledge inhibit creativity, and discourage the interest for the construction of technological knowledge, fundamental when the objective is innovation.

On the teaching point of view, one could say that the student should be driven to a knowledge frontier, for him or her to feel the necessity of the construction of knowledge, what could render unfeasible this learning phase. However, the construction of the technological development can be done on several different levels of complexity, and what is really fundamental is to have the student facing the challenges of a major design project. An essential step that should be made mandatory is the systematization of this kind of teaching methodology, as an evolution of the educational process, and not, necessarily, the involvement in the conception of a novel technology.

Its adequate to remember at this point that the proposed changes to be made over contents and form for this phase of engineering education is only justified upon the validity of the postulated concept of technological knowledge.

With respect to this matter, even though the subject has gained more and more space in the literature, the former paradigm of technology understood as applied science continues very strong in the academic environment, where the current for an absolute curricular drive towards science still prevails in engineering courses.

But the differentiation is clear. Technological products are not permanent; they are rather subject to decay and elimination by the environment, while scientific theories are timeless within their frame of hypothesis. Soon or later bridges fall, cars break down, machines rust, etc.; hypothesis and conditionings of the engineering setting are conceptually different from the ones in world of science. One of the main contrasts resides in the design simplifications necessarily assumed by the engineer. The failure by the engineering educator in accepting and understanding this duality of paradigm will inhibit the process of construction of knowledge in the technological environment and jeopardize the yield of innovative minds, able to generate the said scholarship.

The implementation of these ideas in Santa Catarina involve the induction of change in the prevailing conception of the engineering educators. It is important to reason that the cognitive aspects of the new engineering vision must evolve in tune with the advances of the innovation in the technological environment. The curricular drive toward sciences was undoubtedly necessary; however it is not sufficient at the moment. To bring up the technological praxis into the educational process is essential for the production of engineers able to generate technological knowledge and, consequently, to contribute to the generation of technological innovation.

In this paper, only one major curricular alteration has been discussed. However, this is only one part of a larger educational research for a better future engineer. Among the other themes under exam, the improvement of the social and psychological aspects of the engineering curriculum is also very important and is receiving a great deal of attention.

[1] FAULKNER,W. "Conceptualizing Knowledge used in Innovation Science, Technology & Human Values, London, V.19, n.4, p.425, Autumn, 1994.

[2] MELLO, J.M.C. and ANDRADE, E.P., " A Dimensão Cognitiva da Engenharia" Ensaio, vol.4, p.15, 1996.

[3] SOARES, J.P. Definindo Tecnologia, Revista Politécnica, São Paulo, v.89, n.204, p.78, 1992.

Back to Table of Contents