A strategic approach for supporting the future of civil engineering education in Europe

Abstract

A new strategic vision of the extensively debated European higher education is proposed with focus on civil engineering. Civil engineering education for the future is considered with relevance to potential world-wide trends and anticipated societal requirements and, therefore, required employee qualifications of the construction-related providers to society. These employee qualifications include proper knowledge, skills and attitudes of the civil engineer to be developed with the proper civil engineering educational system. The influence on this system of intrinsic characteristics of knowledge, extrinsic requirements, constraints and drivers, and the ‘Bologna process’, is highlighted. It is emphasized that future civil engineering education in Europe should be developed in a systematic way. The strategic approach presented addresses the societal requirements influenced by world-wide trends, the requirements of the customers of civil engineering education, and several pertinent constraints and drivers. It is believed that the proposed strategic framework could have an impact towards the direction of making changes in a systematic way, with the implication of congruence and better communication among all stakeholders of European civil engineering education.

Keywords:

• Civil engineering education
• Knowledge
• Skills
• Attitudes
• Learning
• Strategic framework
• EHEA
• Bologna process

Acknowledgements

A previous version of this paper was presented as an invited paper at the International Meeting in Civil Engineering Education at the Universidad De Castilla–La Mancha, Ciudad Real, Spain, 18–20 September 2003. The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their very valuable comments and suggestions.