The Expansion of Telecommunications Market and its Influence on Engineering Schools in Brazil

GIACOMINI, Renato & LA NEVE, Alessandro

FEI- Faculdade de Engenharia Industrial-Av.H.A.Castelo Branco, 3972 - ZIP 09850-901, S.Bernardo do Campo - SP - Brazil, renato@cci.fei.br, alaneve@cci.fei.br, http:\\www.fei.br/eletrica

Abstract: This work describes the increasing need for partnerships, and their effects, between telecommunication companies and engineering schools in Brazil. This practice has become more and more necessary because of the increasing demand for qualified professionals in the field, and FEI - Faculty of Industrial Engineering, has been taken as an example, due to its long tradition and experience in partnerships with industry. The expansion of telecommunications in Brazil, consolidated with the privatization of state owned Telebras and subsidiaries, for an amount of US$ 22 billion, gave new life to the Brazilian market of mobile and fixed telephony. With the participation of private companies, billions of dollars are being invested in equipment manufacturing, fixed and mobile communication networks and the creation of infrastructure. The goal, to be reached by the year of 2003, is a total of 40 million fixed terminals and 23 million cellular phones.

Keywords: partnerships, telecommunications, engineering, and schools

1 Introduction

The Brazilian telecommunications development model, as in most of Latin-American countries was based, until the first half of the nineties, on public investments and in the monopoly of public companies to construct, maintain and operate facilities and explore services.

This model was useful in the eighties and seventies, when the government made investments in infrastructure and directed the resources to some regions private companies wouldn't be interested, because there was no reasonable consumer market. This contributed to a fast development of these regions. However, with the burst of the economic crises in 1982, the government stopped investing. Coincidentally in this period there ware significant technological improvements in the area and commercial of cellular telephony was just starting.

Three factors, namely, the absence of investments from the companies that had the monopoly, the possibility of cellular telephony, and the natural growth of economically active population in the country, created an enormous demand for new telephone terminals. In 1992 a simple fixed terminal would cost up to US$ 7,000.00 in Sao Paulo, SP. A distorted parallel market started operating appeared and telephone terminals were considered as a profitable investment.

Recently, the Brazilian government decided to privatize the sector and all state telephone companies were negotiated, at reasonable overprice, and put an end to the monopoly.

The investment of the new private companies was massive, and at generated such a demand for qualified professionals in the field that it created the urgent need for an increase in new and specialized courses adequate to the new technologies.

The lack of qualified technicians and engineers was a limiting factor for telecommunications growth. Silvana Publiese says [Publiese 98]: " the debt of qualification of the workers, starts to be a factor that compromises its development " (of the companies)". Some interested to investing in the Brazilian market, companies are trying out some alternatives for staff formation. One of them Motorola, implanted, the Technological Qualification Program - PCT (Programa de Capacitacao Tecnologica), at FEI in 1998.

This work describes how these institution implemented the program, the participation of the company and the institution in PCT and the benefits derived advantages obtained for each of then.

2 The Technological Qualification Program

This TQP program aims at the qualification of middle and upper-level professionals, with the specific functions for the company. The students are prepared be appropriate courses, seminaries and events, along their under-graduate activities and are hired by the company right graduation.

FEI - Faculdade de Engenharia Industrial (Faculty of Industrial Engineering) belongs to FCA - Fundacao de Ciencias Aplicadas (Foundation for Applied Science), a no-profit entity run by Jesuits. Since its foundation, more than 50 years ago, this institution has been characterized by its strong interaction with the industrial sector, offering professionals with solid basic formation and tuned to the necessities of contemporary industrial work. Keeping this tradition, FEI has recently celebrated some accords for scientific cooperation with prominent companies in the market, in such fields as Electronics, Computation, Networks and Telecommunication areas.

This way, Motorola initiative, through its Technological Qualification Program was welcomed by an institution. Such PCT is a way of integration between companies and engineering schools, for the FEI this also meant another opportunity to verify the adequacy of courses to the industry reality. Beside this, it was a way to expand and increase facilities and laboratories.

PCT offered FEI, during the first year of the program, equipment imported from a traditional Italian supplier, which was used to assemble a new laboratory, to be used for research and digital telecommunications. Motorola also sponsored in 1998 three courses in quality, digital communications and cellular telephony for a selected group of students at FEI, these students also received a regular monthly payment from the company, while they were participating in the PCT program, which varies according to their undergraduate level

Motorola is a well-known multinational company of semiconductors and telecommunication products. All resources spent in PCT are justified mainly by need for high qualification the engineers to be hired though there are some card of additional advantages of the program, to be pointed out, like:

• Reinforcement of the modern and innovative image of the company to be shown in the best education institutions and in academic community;

• Use of Brazilian Law 8248/91 [lei 8248], which gives some tax deductions to industries that spend 5% of gross results in research, development, training and education activities.
• Personnel to be employed hired while still at school, eliminating salary costs during training.

3 Implementation

Motorola initiated the program in two fronts: the initial contact with the education institutions and the professional survey of positions and profiles in the company. A team of consultants in engineering and human resources made the initial contact with FEI, to present a sketch of the program with was better defined, detailed and finally later revered. Some aspects of the program are dynamic and are still being modified.

A survey of posts and profiles was presented to the institutions in the form of two tables that relate topics of specific knowledge to the posts that would be offered to the future professionals. It was possible in this way to compare the profile of the graduating group, inserted in the regular program, with the needs of the different posts in the company. The posts offered by Motorola are listed in table 1. Since FEI participated of PCT just in Electrical, Telecommunication and Computer areas, the positions offered to our students are those marked with *, in table 1.

Table 1. Positions offered by Motorola

Table 2 presents all topics found relevant in the carriers of table 1.

Table 2. Relevant Topics of Motorola Engineers Formation

The complementary program consists of such activities as courses, training and research, which cover aspects of the formation demanded for the posts in the company that are not covered by conventional curricular disciplines. FEI currently offers a course of Electric Engineering, with option in four specific emphases, that is:

• Electronics
• Info-Telecom
• Computers
• Production

Info-Telecom emphasis is a new option, directed to computer networks, audio, video, digital cellular telephony and digital communications in general. The course offers a basic formation in electronics with more specific subjects in the last year. By the time the PCT started in 1998, the first group who opted for Info-Telecom, was attending the forth year and the disciplines of the fifth year had already their summary defined, but it would accept modifications if necessary.

So, the problem of complementation for PCT participants was divided in two: the students who would need some special attention, up to 1998, and the others. The students who would graduate in 1999 could already attend the set of regular disciplines of the Info-Telecom course, so they would need less backing courses. This allowed that the telecommunications backing courses offered to PCT participants graduating in 1998 served as models for the disciplines that would be normally offered in the following Info-Telecom courses.

Thus, the acquisition of lab equipment, the development of educational material and the lesson plans were anticipated and have been partially sponsored by PCT. Table 3 presents a summary of the main topics of specific disciplines of the fifth year of the Info-Telecom emphasis.

All this described a transitory situation about between two groups, considering that the year of 1998 was the last year to form students who had not been able to opt to the emphasis of Info-Telecom. From 1999 the backing courses started to exclusively offer subjects that FEI decided not to include in the normal course.

Table 3 - Disciplines offered in the Info-Telecom Course (fifth year)

Scholarships offered by Motorola intend to stimulate the student's participation in the program allows the student to work as trainees either at Motorola or at other companies. There is no sharp attendance control but the presence of the students in the courses and special events, as well as good grades, is required. The value of scholarships varies according to the undergraduate years of the student.

Teachers are paid directly by Motorola, according to their dedication. Fees are considered high, in comparison with normal teacher's earnings in Brazil.

PCT offers payments to all activities done by teachers, including didactic material preparation, students tutoring and orientation, and program coordination inside the institution but FEI decided to cover all expenses, except teaching classes.

All equipment and lab materials furnished by PCT are officially loaned and will be donated at the end of the program. All this material can be used for other purposes other than PCT in normal classes.

The program interested quite a lot of students at FEI, which was evident by the number of application proposals received. Despite the short time FEI had to promote PCT, almost two hundred students applied, which corresponds to thirty percent of telecommunications students in whole school, from third to fifth year of the course. No other partnership program had mobilized as many students as this in such a short time.

PCT foresaw a previous selection to be carried through by the institution, that would have to indicate about three students for each scholarship offered. After that there would be another selection at Motorola, to indicate the students whose profile was appropriate to company's needs. This last selection, however, was not carried out due to the urgency of the program.

This way, FEI was entirely responsible for the indication of the scholarship holders and it selected them according to its more traditional ways of evaluation: grades averages. On the other hand, a document called of the "Student Scholarship Holder Manual", [BRA 98] mentioned that eighty percent of the scholarship holders would be contracted as engineers by the company, when graduated, since they fitted in the adequate position's profile.

Unfortunately it happened that the criteria used for selection by FEI were not coincident with Motorola's, as it was verified later. So, not all of the students were candidates to Motorola's posts. Moreover, by the time the students would be hired the country faced a financial crisis due to the Asian crisis in 1998 that had strong reflections on the Electro-electronics market and this affected Motorola.

Anyway, the company used in its selective process the very common and interesting way of choice of professionals by companies, called group dynamics [BER 99]. This process selects people based not only in their technical capacity and devotion to studies but also in the adequacy to the professional performance in the context of the post to be held. "Companies understand that technology advances quickly, therefore they always need to train people to follow it. It is important to invest in professionals who have qualities which help the company's growth", says Viviane Mass, supervisor of the CIEE, a governmental organization for industry-school integration in Brazil [CON 99].

The program was effectively implanted at FEI in the middle of 1998 and the following backing courses were offered, to twenty-seven students:

Quality Assurance Tools - 40 hours

Digital Communications - 40 hours

Cellular Telephony - 40 hours

Electromagnetic Compatibility - 12 hours

Statistic Process Control - 40 hours

For laboratories complementation Motorola acquired didactic boards, workstations and electronic laboratory equipment. In 1998, the program offered equipment imported from Italy for a new laboratory room, which is being used for education and research in digital telecommunications.

4 Conclusions

The experience with Motorola's Technological Qualification Program and FEI has been an innovative and advantageous way of interaction between industry and school. This experience was favored by the telecommunications market expansion in Brazil and stimulated companies and educational institutions, as the example presented in this article, to look for creative solutions for the right qualification of professionals. The problems faced with the discrepancies between the company and the school selection criteria may indicate new trends in the proper student evaluation at school and certainly influence curricular reviews.

A question raised by this problem is to what extent engineers should be prepared at school to face not only technical challenges but also to be ready to answer the labor market according to companies specific needs. As to backing courses, we believe they indicate aspects that should either be included in a regular engineering curriculum or offered as options, apart from regular courses.

References

[BER 99] BERTELLI, LUIZ GONZAGA; CONCEICAO, ELIZABETH DA. No ritmo das dinamicas. Agitacao - Revista de Divulgacao CIEE-CENTRO DE INTEGRACAO EMPRESA-ESCOLA - CIEE. MTb Brasilia, 1/99.

[CON 99] CONCEICAO, ELIZABETH DA. O profissional que faz a diferenca. Agitacao - Revista de Divulgacao CIEE-CENTRO DE INTEGRACAO EMPRESA-ESCOLA - CIEE. MTb Brasilia, 1/99.

[PUB 98] PUBLIESE, SILVANA ROMAGNOLE. Um modelo de integracao. Monografia apresentada para o Concurso de monografias sobre a relacao universidade x empresa, promovido em parceria pelo Instituto Euvaldo Lodi do Parana (IEL), atraves da Comissao de Universidade/Empresa (IEL/COMINT) e pelo Instituto Paranaense de Desenvolvimento Economico e Social (IPARDES), atraves do Centro de Treinamento para o Desenvolvimento (CTD) MANDAGUARI, 1998.

[LEI 91] Lei Federal 8248/91 de 1991, sobre incentivos fiscais a investimentos de P&D em informatica. Texto extraido de publicacao no site http://cecae.usp.br - CECAE Coordenadoria Executiva de Cooperacao Universitaria e de Atividades Especiais da USP.

[BRA 98] BRASIL, CELIO. Manual do Estudante Bolsista do PCT. Motorola Industrial Ltd. Sao Paulo, 1998.