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Report highlights the changing nature of engineering practice

Report highlights the changing nature of engineering practice

Report highlights projections for Australia’s engineering futureA new report has highlighted the need for more diversity in engineering education, while calling for changes in engineering education of professional engineers to address a broad range of stakeholders.

The Engineering 2035 report, commissioned by the Australian Council of Engineering Deans (ACED), considers the changing nature of professional engineering practice and the implications for engineering education in Australia.

The report focuses on best practices, to ensure that engineering in Australia can remain a competitive industry. It aims to provide solutions to expected barriers for the future of engineering within Australia, as well as offer alternative methods for graduate education and the expansion of engineering education programs domestically.

As the report states, innovations within industry such as artificial intelligence, data analysis and robotics have the potential to heavily influence professional engineering work.

As such it recommends universities much undertake further consultation with more industry and government employers and end users to ascertain the nature of their future needs for and expectations of graduate professional engineers.

The distinction between professional engineers and other members of the engineering team should also be explored. A challenge will be to cover adequately emerging areas, start-ups and SMEs as well as traditional engineering industries.

It also suggests that a greater emphasis on practical aspects of engineering degrees will play an important role in preparing Australian graduates for the industry.

The study also finds that Australia must retain its ability to produce engineering graduates to meet the demand and requirements of domestic infrastructure projects in order to reduce Australia’s reliance on international skilled migration.

It is stated in the report that domestic enrolments have remained static for the past five years. Before the pandemic, growth areas within engineering were in international enrolments.

The 2016 census data revealed that more than half (58.5 per cent) of Australia’s engineering workforce were born overseas. Since 2012, around 30,000 qualified engineers have entered the Australian workforce each year through skilled migration. This represents more than two third of the total workforce, while domestic students at Australian universities make up the remainder.

The predicted increase in the diversity of engineering work will necessitate a greater variety of educational programs and pathways in the Australian engineering education system. It is desirable that diversification also includes greater gender, ethic, and cognitive diversity in the engineering student and graduate cohorts.

This increase in diversity also accounts for an expectation in an increasingly globalised engineering landscape, which the report says will require engineers to “… not only have deep insights into the technical development trend in some fields, but also the ability to cooperate with professionals from different disciplines and different countries to find creative and comprehensive solutions for complex engineering problems.”

The year 2035 was selected for the report, as the year represents the expected turnover period for formal education graduates. School students from 2018 will graduate from university in 2035.

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