"Engineering education is not dead. It just needs to be redefined"

The character of the relationship between Swedish businesses and academia is a product of history. Industrialism in Sweden was born during the second half of the 18th century, during the reign of King Gustaf III. His government poured money into (relatively) large-scale production of china, tobacco and woollen fabrics. The projects enhanced the wealth of the rich and the poverty of the poor. Nothing useful was produced. The chests in the royal treasury were emptied.

This policy of governmental intervention has continued for two and a half centuries.

When the expansion in the academic sector started in the 1950’ies the process was based on the same vision with the government as a service provider. The universities were designed to fulfil the needs of the large-scale Swedish manufacturing industries, as well as the public sectors of health and education. Educational diversity was not in vogue, and the assembly line was used the model for education program design. The involvement of industry was limited to paying taxes.

When you compare how businesses and academia in Sweden interact to other OECD countries, the basic pattern is clear: the cooperation on institutional level is very weak, and the willingness to invest in real joint ventures is low.

This is especially true when it comes to engineering educations. As a rule, involvement from industry is limited to supervision of thesis projects. This is good but not enough.

Let us use the French system of Grandes Écoles (elite schools) for comparison. To be accepted, the students compete based on their performance in their Classe Préparatoire. The “prépas” (preparation) is extremely theoretical, very tough and competitive beyond comparison. As far from the Swedish system as you can get. The idea behind the prépas is to select the best brains. But the main point is that once the students have qualified for their 3 years of education at a Grandes Écoles, the students get an education as generalists doing internships every single year. With the huge support businesses and alumni of their school, the students have many opportunities to develop their professional identity and to liberate all their entrepreneurial potential. These engineers are trained to deal with open-ended questions, are masters of project management and teamwork, and can pick up an academic subject in a minute. No unemployment here!

We should not try to implement this very French model in Sweden. But we should learn from it, because we need to find new models for higher engineering education in a still more dynamic world. The Swedish educational policy-makers want “diversity” but at the same time they practice that one flavour is enough. While we all know that innovative ideas come from cross-disciplinary fields, multi-ethnical, global, systematic and accidental collaborations. Our enemies are tradition, the accreditation authorities and the international ranking institutes that force universities to put all their focus on pouring out scientific papers.

We need new partnerships, new ways of developing people. Engineering education is not dead. It just needs to be redefined.

Per Warfvinge
Vice President LTH
www.lth.se

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