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Home page > Engineering Education > The National Doctrine of Engineering Education. Basic principles Download the whole document (DOC, 389K)
THE NATIONAL DOCTRINE OF ENGINEERINNG EDUCATION
5. Transition to new educational technologies in the engineering education Search for non-traditional, technological, social and pedagogical decisions, the use of ideas and essentially new "advanced" technologies, to provide repeated efficiency increase in pedagogical and educational labor, creation of mass "production of talents", use of distance learning - all these combined are likely to play a key role in implementing the Doctrine of the Engineering Education. Now all over the world in engineer's training, radical transition from "the school of memory" to the institute in which the student is taught to use his own thinking is being carried out. Transformation of the engineering education system into the sphere of cognitive and engineering activity development, communicative and engineering culture is radically changing the university image including its teaching and educational process. The major direction of engineering education development in this respect is the special organization of student's work throughout the period of study at university in complex multidisciplinary practice-biased teams, students' involvement into a creative activity, maintenance of their mass participation in research, creation of purpose-biased education. All these should create favorable preconditions of evolutionary transition in the engineering education from the educational ("the school of memory") to the research and educational processes. Nowadays, the educational process can be presented as the system of workshops led by creative, skilled and prominent researchers and leading engineers. The updated community of students, competitors for bachelor's and master's degree and engineering status, post-graduate students and people working for a doctoral degree form creative teams, a kind of scientific school capable of maintaining the continuity of cognitive activity, awareness of the world and the individual's place in it, ideals, values and objectives of the scientific and engineering work. Modern education technologies in the system of engineering education embrace widespread academic mobility. Today all-sufficiency of the university in any country, which is aimed at professional training of engineers competitive on the world market of intellectual labor, has been exposed to fair criticism. The need for academic mobility expansion is considered crucial for changing the qualitative status of specialist's training. In the system of Russian engineering education the student academic mobility is not highly developed and the exchanges among students come to less than 1%. Academic mobility has been highly developed and has got the necessary state support in many foreign universities and in some countries (e.g. in Germany) student internships in domestic and foreign universities are essential in getting valid professional education. It is worth noting that to increase students' academic mobility opportunities within the country, US universities have been practicing contractual relationships between the universities. The Association for Engineering Education, the Association for engineering universities should consider the possible solutions to some academic mobility problems; there is a need for "included" education abroad, "route" education technologies, including the use of telecommunication facilities, exchange of leading scientists and professors between educational establishments at home and abroad. The export of educational services to the far and near foreign countries on the basis of an integrated part-time and full-time education based on the use of distance learning will contribute a lot to the improvement of the Russian engineering education. During the last few years, higher educational establishments of various countries have been carrying on an intensive work on the integration into the international market of educational services through traditional and distance learning technologies. The harsh competition is a distinguishing feature of the present-day international market of educational services. In accordance with the expert evaluation, US universities control about 30-40% of the international market of educational services. Almost 3, 000 US universities are functioning successfully on this market, more than 1,000 international students are studying in 80 American universities. International student's education in American universities has turned into the significant source of revenue for the development of the higher education and the national economy. Tomsk Polytechnic University is working hard on joining the international market of educational services on the basis of an integrated part-time and full-time education using distance learning technologies. Now teaching resource in English for four specialist's courses has been developed at the university: computer sciences, chemistry and applied chemistry, mechanics, power engineering and electrical and mechanical engineering. Contemporary distance learning infrastructure has been established, including the creation of the university representative office in Russia and in near foreign countries; the main representative office for students from Africa, Mediterranean Sea and Europe has been functioning in Cyprus. Our practice and the experience of other Russian universities show that professional and educational specialist's training programs in the sphere of science, which have been formed in accordance with the traditional European, African and American nomenclatures, and whose content and structure meet the international requirements are of great demand on the international market of educational services. Professional and educational programs, which have been designed in accordance with the stated requirements of the international market of educational services, provide adequate training of highly qualified specialists. However, there are some discrepancies in the existing requirements of Russian state educational standards, and this creates some difficulty for graduates in getting diplomas of the state standard. This obviously stands in the way of many Russian higher educational establishments to the international market of educational services. When developing educational state standards of a new generation it is advisable to ponder previous experience and eliminate contradictions for further improvement and implementation of the state educational standard system adjusted to the international practice of specialist's training.
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