Incorporating general education components into an engineering curriculum

• Autores: Jacek Uziak, M. Tunde Oladiran, Marian Gizejowski, Kurt Becker
• Localización: The International journal of engineering education, ISSN-e 0949-149X, Vol. 33, no. 6 (Parte A), 2017, págs. 1900-1911
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Engineering curricula should provide a graduate not only with specialized knowledge in a particular engineering subjectbut should also infuse general skills and abilities in preparation for life of work. The General Education part of acurriculum can be the source of such transferable intellectual skills as critical thinking, written and oral communication,problem solving and teamwork. The paper presents an assessment of an attempt to introduce General Education intocurricula at the University of Botswana, with special emphasis on engineering students. It shows general education coursesenrolment realities over a period of 12 academic years. It contrasts the results with the previous study covering a shorterperiod of time. The paper concludes that the attempt of the broadening the perspective of students by the introduction ofthe general education courses was not successful. The engineering students were not getting the broad education thatgeneral education courses were designed for. The same applied to students with limited elements of science and technologyin their university curriculum as general education courses from Science and Technology area attracted almost no studentsfrom other faculties. The paper proposes a different model for incorporation of general education into the curriculum.