Engineering Education in China: Status Quo, Problems and Countermeasures
Mei Wang 1, Min-min Wei 1, Chang-hao Dai2
2
1
School of Education, Tianjin University, Tianjin, P. R. China
Suzhou Industrial Park Institute of Vocational Technology Suzhou, P. R. China
(wangmei@tju.edu.cn)
Abstract - Higher engineering education in China
outputs a great number of qualified personnel for the
country, while there are still some highlighted problems in
this sector, which restricts the training of engineering
personnel and development of the society to some extent.
This paper analyzes causes of the problems and whereby
comes up with corresponding countermeasures, including
implementation of large-scale engineering concept, change of
assessment method, encouragement of production-teaching
combination, etc.
Keywords - Higher engineering education; Qualified
personnel training; Engineering practice; Combination of
production and teaching
I. INTRODUCTION
Higher engineering education is a special education
branch with science and technology as the main
foundation, aiming at producing engineers that can
transfer scientific technologies into productivity, and it is
the fundamental guarantee for driving science progress
and technology innovation[1]. As the globalized economy
and modern technology develops radically, the new
technology revolution marked by IT, biological
technology, energy technology, etc. has caused great
revolution of economic structure, industrial structure and
social structure. The engineering technological personnel
at all levels of different categories produced through
engineering education will become the main force to drive
the development of national economy and guarantee the
international competitive edge of China. This brings new
developing opportunities and severe challenges for higher
engineering education. However, in recent years, Chinese
engineering education has been of less high quality so that
the output of engineering personnel is in great shortage
and the competence of graduates can hardly meet the
quickly developing and increasingly complex engineering
technologies. Such problem has aroused more and more
concern[2].
II. PROBLEMS WITH CURRENT ENGINEERING
EDUCATION IN CHINA
A. The mode of engineering education is less diversified
and adaptive
The stage of economic development differs from
area to area, and higher education institutions at different
levels have different teaching schemes for students.
However, most institutions do not have an evidently
engineering-characterized training mode. The students are
cultivated under a uniform standard, without opportunities
to achieve differentiated development and further bring
into play their potentials and innovation abilities.
Current teaching mode is academic-oriented, which
highlights the teaching of professional knowledge and
overlooks the development of ability and comprehensive
caliber as well as the configuration of such subjects as
social development and economic environment including
humanities and ecological view. For so many years, this
has significantly hindered the development of Chinese
engineering education, and as a result the students
produced have narrow range of knowledge, poor
innovation and learning abilities. Moreover, the colleges
and universities ignore the training of students in team
spirit, communication skill, systematic control ability,
sense of responsibility, professional ethics, etc., so that
the graduates are often confronted with a great many
difficulties when they go into the real world.
B. Engineering education does not involve enough
practical training, which does not link personnel
training with social demand
On the one hand, the concept of former engineering
education in China emphasizes “knowledge” while
overlooks “skills”[3], i.e., teaching of knowledge is paid
much more attention to than training of practical ability.
The rapid expansion of student population further
weakens the necessary practice involvement in
engineering education. In addition, there are a very
limited number of teachers who have rich practical
engineering experience. The engineering technological
personnel produced by higher engineering education
cannot apply theories to practice. After they go into the
real world, they cannot directly take up jobs, but have to
spend much time, energy and resources on learning
practical operation. On the other hand, in terms of
management, concept, teaching force, etc., Chinese
engineering education runs counter with the general
principles of higher education and deviates from social
development. Although lots of investment is put in
manpower, property and capital, few excellent human
resources are outputted. The quality of the produced
engineering personnel can hardly meet the demand of
social economic development.
C. There is not a clearly identified training aim for
higher engineering education in China, leading to a
sharp conflict between supply and demand
In China, many academic-oriented personnel
specialized in engineering have been produced through
higher engineering education, which can basically meet
the need of enterprises for senior professionals. However,
the development of application-oriented personnel is
neglected, so the urgent need of senior applicationoriented personnel for economic and social development
cannot be met well. Enterprises urgently need a large
number of engineering technological personnel with
practical competence to be put to production frontline to
promote technological progress, transformation and
innovation.
III. REASONS FOR THE EXISTING PROBLEMS
A. Different higher education institutions adopt
undiversified training standard and identical training
mode
After many engineering colleges are upgraded into
comprehensive universities, engineering education are
attached less importance to, and the former engineeringfocused feature of engineering education almost
disappears[4]. What is more, the government carries out
evaluation of academic universities and apply technology
institutions with the same standard[5]. This unreasonable
orientation greatly bypasses the differences among
institutions and differences among students, as well as the
differences among areas with different stages of economic
development. Therefore, the undiversified education
modes of higher education institutions cannot deliver
qualified personnel that can meet the needs of the society.
B. Practical training is overlooked in engineering
education; teaching in colleges and practice in
enterprises are not closely related
The assessment system applied in engineering
education in China lays weight on thesis and graduation
project as well as teaching of scientific knowledge but
makes light of practical training, which constrains the
development and improvement of practical ability of
students. Both the higher education institutions and
teachers do not put enough value on development and
improvement of practical engineering ability, and there
are a very limited number of teachers who hold rich
practical engineering experience.
Enterprises and colleges and universities are
expressly separated, without an effective joint mechanism
formed for joint training of personnel. Higher education
institutions train students with a uniform assessment
standard, and do not adjust their training directions and
modes according to actual social demands, resulting in
gaps between personnel’s competences and enterprise’s
requirements. Enterprises attach little importance to
participation in personnel training, because enterprises in
the market economy environment aim at profit
maximization and fear that undertaking of personnel
training may affect production and operation to some
extent. In particular, if any safety accident happens to any
student, it would generate an enormous negative impact
on the enterprise, not only leading to poor KPIs of the
enterprise, but also overwhelming public criticism upon
it[6].
C. Higher education institutions do not have a definite
positioning of engineering education
Engineering technological personnel are divided into
four levels: scientists, engineers, senior technicians and
common technical workers. Engineering education should
aim at training different levels of personnel. In recent
years, higher education institutions at different levels in
China do not adopt diversified assessment standards, and
they do not have a definite positioning in terms of training
target, specialty setting, training program and
management system.
IV. COUNTERMEASURES
A. Implementation of large-scale engineering concept
In the environment of emphasizing on intensive
development and realizing a harmonious society, if
engineering education really takes the future development
of the nation as the basis, the large system and large-scale
engineering concepts must be highly valued, and training
should target at producing all-around engineering
technological personnel with the guidance of ecological,
social and human concepts [7]. The essence of the new
engineering education philosophy is such a large-scale
engineering concept that calls for balance between human
beings and social development and balance between
prosperity of natural ecology and engineering technology
progress, and training people to achieve individualized
development based on scientific construction and social
demands as well as in favor of industrial interests.
Engineering education in China’s higher education
institutions should experience further transformation, and
science and technology education and humanities
education should be integrated. Engineering technology
should be regarded as the core, with humanities courses
serving as supplement, to break the boundary of specialty
and broaden knowledge range. Students should be trained
for comprehensive, integrated and systematic thinking,
and rich engineering knowledge background and
enhanced comprehensive engineering application
ability[8].
B. Improve the way of assessment
The government should cancel the uniform
assessment standard for engineering education, actually
implement the autonomy of higher education institutions,
provide legal assistance, capital facility, policy guidance,
information service, etc., and enhance the flexibility of
education[9]. In terms of assessment of learning results,
teamwork, communication, coordination, comprehensive
ability and other forms should be introduced in to let
students change their attitude towards learning and life
through self-assessment and mutual assessment.
Diversified assessment forms also allow the diversity of
learning modes of students, which is good for improving
students’ comprehensive
technology[10].
ability
on
engineering
C. Encourage the combination of production and
teaching
First, renovate concept, promote institutionenterprise cooperation, and understand that high quality
engineering personnel should be produced jointly by
higher education institutions and enterprises. Providing
internship sites for students by enterprises will necessarily
benefit the training of industrial personnel and also is a
way for enterprises to fulfill their social responsibility.
Enterprises should be more active to undertake
engineering personnel training. Higher education
institutions possess much scientific and technological
human resources, so technological cooperation between
with higher education institutions and enterprises can
strengthen R&D and innovation capacities of enterprises,
enabling them to achieve better competitiveness[11].
Second, use case study to improve the quality of
practical teaching. In the process of teaching, teachers
guide students through case study, with active
participation of the students, to make students more active
in learning before, during and after classes and trained for
practical skills; students are required to complete tasks in
groups, so that they gain communication and cooperation
abilities and develop good sense of responsibility; also,
students are required to find ways to solve problems by
making good use of the knowledge they learnt and careful
study, so that they get diverse thinking, the ability of
knowledge learning and application as well as solving
practical problems[12].
Finally, improve the practical engineering abilities of
teachers.
First is to employ “bi-teachers” to provide students
with relevant cases and personal experience. Most of the
teachers specialized in engineering education are
academic type, while CDIO requires “bi-teachers”. Biteachers have rich experience of work in enterprises and
engineering practice, so they can easily get students on
track during engineering training. Second is to reduce the
teacher-student ratio. Generally speaking, the teacherstudent ratio of engineering faculties in teaching-oriented
higher education institutions is about 1:18[13], so that the
teachers have to bear heavy teaching tasks and completely
devote themselves to teaching and scientific research.
This limits the time and opportunities of the teachers to
improve their own engineering abilities.
D. Determine the targets of training according to social
demands
The higher engineering education in China should be
adapted to the requirements of social development. The
key features of senior engineering technicians needed in
the future should be identified, and the higher engineering
institutions in China should set their education targets
according to their own positioning, and they should avoid
blindly imitating others or bypassing the reality. In the
future, there will be great demand for diversified higher
engineering personnel, which include not only scientists
but also technology-oriented, application-oriented and
comprehensive engineering technical talents. The higher
engineering education should commit itself to outputting
high quality engineers suitable for the future development
of China[14].
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Special thanks to our colleagues from the school of
education at the University of Tianjin, Prof. Dr. Shibin
Wang, Prof. Dr. Zhigang Zhou and Prof. Dr. Fengxiang
Xiao.
REFERENCES
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
[6]
[7]
[8]
[9]
[10]
[11]
[12]
[13]
[14]
Jiang Yuanzhang, "A Study of the Issues of Improving the
Quality of China's Higher Engineering Education" vol.26,
pp. 94–98, August 2010.
Pan Haisheng, Wang Shibing and Yu Jianxing, "Research
on China's Engineering Education System in the New
Period and Its Construction Mechanism", pp. 39–43, March
2010.
Liu Defang, Wang Xuhua and Cheng Yang, "The capacitybuilding as the center of the mechanical engineering
application-oriented training system of exploration and
practice of teaching",pp. 85–87, 2009.
Zhu Gaofeng, "Engineering Education in China",pp.1–7,
April 2007.
Wang Gang, "Reform and Practice of Engineering
Education Model",pp. 28–32, January 2011.
Liu Yilun and Liu Tiexiong, "Urged reform in engineering
education in the school-enterprise integration depth",pp.
22–24, June 2011.
Chen Jin and Zhu Ling, "For innovation-oriented country _
Promote China's reform of engineering education",pp.4–8,
March 2006.
Deng Hongxing ,Sun Fengying and Zhang Wenhui,"Based
on the concept of modern engineering and innovative
training",pp.73–74, 2010.
Pan Haisheng and Zhou Zhigang,"Higher Engineering
Education set up dynamic adjustment mechanism",pp.52–
56, July 2010.
Yang Ming, "Engineering Education in the teacher's role
changes and re-positioning",pp.7–9, July 2010.
Wei Yinxia, "Higher engineering education and industrial
research with long-term mechanism",pp.99–100, 2010.
Mi Weizhe, "Application of Case-oriented Teaching
Methed in Engineering Practice Teaching",vol.29,pp.145–
147, March 2010.
Li Dongsheng, Li Wenjun and Mao Chen, "On the In-depth
Cooperation Model in Engineering Education Between
Universities and Enterprise",pp.88–92, 2011.
Li Xiubin,Yao Xiuying,He Zhenxiong,Li Yulan and Shao
Fuqiu, "Higher engineering talents Investigation and
Analysis",pp.66–71, April 2010.