Figure 1
CHMELIK, Karel1 & BRIS, Radim2
1 VSB-TU Ostrava, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics,
karel.chmelik@vsb.cz
2 VSB-TU Ostrava, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics,
radim.bris@vsb.cz
Abstract: Lines within the electrical engineering branch rank among the industrial lines with fastest development. Products of the branch are applied in most of the fields of people's activity. Consequently the study of electrical engineering and informatics is very popular between young people. The contribution will deal with the reasons of unbalanced interest in the individual lines of study at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics (FEEI). The issue of particular interest is small interest in the lines of heavy-current engineering. Stagnation of the lines in research and development results in following two undesirable consequences: 1) young people seem to ignore the lines of study and dislike to be employed as design or projection engineer, but on the other hand 2) there is a shortage of graduates in the lines. We will try to answer the issue, what is the reason of the bad state. In final part of the paper we will deal with the ways, of how FEEI cares for saving and even increasing a good quality of the educational process.
Keywords: electrical engineering, educational process, quality of teaching, unbalanced interest
Electrical engineering and computer science rank among the branches where new knowledge, industrial products and information and telecommunication technologies have not only unexpected fast development but also the tendency to be quickly obsolete. In previous time this trend was in good accordance with the interest of students in study of different lines of electrical engineering and computer science. There were much more students within last twenty years graduated the lines than in any other engineering line.
The above mentioned fast development in all of the lines of electrical engineering and computer science was strictly connected with the rise of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics (FEEI) at Technical University Ostrava. It has been established on January 1, 1991, after long time lasting co-existence together with the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering. After nine year of successful existence we can say that we have modern faculty with a credit system, which is compatible with the European system of ECTS, providing largely M.Sc., then Ph.D. and more recently B.Sc. level study programs. Subjects of the study taught at the Faculty follow the structure and needs of the electrical engineering industry in the Czech Republic, and also the needs of companies and corporations especially in the area of north and central Moravia and east Bohemia. Level of knowledge of our graduates is high enough and comparable with the level of graduates from other foreign universities.
The wide-ranging offer of lines of studies and types of specialisation is positively reflected in the interest of secondary school students from the North Moravian region in studies at FEEI. Interesting comparison is given in the Figure 1 below.
Figure 1
First column demonstrates number of students enrolled, second total number of graduates, third number of graduates in power engineering and forth number of graduates in electrical power engineering. It can be noticed from the above introduced Figure 1 that the drop-out is to high during the first stage of study. Mastering the knowledge of theoretical principles from the field of electrical engineering and computer science and the ability to apply basic notions of mathematics and physics in relations with these theoretical principles is very difficult.
The Faculty is presented on the Internet with the WWW pages in Czech and English language versions. This form of information facilitates the deepening of national as well as international relations.
There are many strong academic links with institutions abroad, also contacts with corresponding foreign faculties . Relatively good are contacts with the Slovak Republic and Poland, especially in the area of conference organisation; in some cases work started on joint research programmes and we also co-operate on preparation of international projects.
We have also some examples of participation in European exchange programmes, as for example TEMPUS. Some students studied abroad, mostly in Europe and USA.
Few people - lecturers work or worked abroad.
From the very beginning of its existence, the Faculty has attempted to keep in touch with industrial and other companies to a maximum extent. The main reasons are:
For several years already the Faculty has organized a meeting with representatives of companies at the beginning of a year where the above mentioned principles are brought into focus. On average, about 50 representatives of companies from the Czech Republic, mostly from the north Moravian region, participate in this meeting. Co-operation of FEEI with industry and commercial companies and organizations ranks among points of particular interest.
The Faculty promptly introduced a credit system of studies immediately after it had been established in 1991. The credit system is applied at the faculty in all subjects of study and in the course of the whole length of studies. The credit systems contributes to a high degree of flexibility of the studies. That is true both in terms of the pace of studies and in terms of professional specialization through selection of the courses studied. The credit system makes it possible to increase students' independence and responsibility and at the same time create the profile of their qualifications. It supports mobility of students among all schools working under this system.
FEEI does its best to support handicapped students. The credit system makes it possible to modify the studies for handicapped students and, in fields that allow that, such programmes have already been realized.
The quality and effectiveness of the educational process with regard to application of acquired knowledge into practice is subject to a monitoring process (once or twice a year) carried out by a grant agency at the Ministry of Education of the Czech Republic. The last report of this kind was initiated in December 1997 and summarized a survey of 270 selected graduates of FEEI from the years 1992 - 1995. The report proved that the graduates of FEEI are highly satisfied both with the possibilities of self-realization, their standing in society and their salary, as well as with the possibility of career development. More than half (58%) of FEEI graduates would choose the same type of educational course, and further 13% would decide for a different field of study at FEEI. Only 13% of graduates would choose a completely different type of education or professional orientation which documents strong identification with the field. Graduates highly appreciate all aspects of instruction, with the most significant aspect being that FEEI has equipped them with a wide base of knowledge and good possibilities of professional specialization.
All the above mentioned facts prove that our graduates have good education for the work in electrical engineering industry and at the same time we can say that demands of industry on graduates of FEEI are continually growing.
Electrical engineering industry in Czech Republic involves sixteen production lines in total, supposing standard classification and also additional line including data processing and information services. It creates about 6% of gross national product and employees about 127 thousands workers. In addition this branch of industry incorporates a few thousands of tradesmen. Figure 2 from ref.[1] demonstrates partial productions all of the individual sublines at given value of electrical engineering industry in 1996.
Figure 2: Partial production all of the sublines of electrical engineering and data processing services in 1996
Figure 2 demonstrates the fact that the production in power engineering was (and until now is) prevailing. The production includes for example electrical apparatus, electric drives and power electronics, lights, cables and so on. The production was in first period after the year 1989 decreasing, but from the year 1993 until now again increasing. Highest fall (about 50%) after the year 1989 was apparent in production all of the fields of electronics (medical, office consumer), computer technology etc. This part of electrical engineering industry was not successful in the competition with the production of the countries from Western Europe. Some of the companies ended with the production, other show miserable existence.
As mentioned in the Report of Ministry of Business and Industry (ref. [2]) prevailing in economic growth in the year 1997 was processing industry, namely production of electrical and optical apparatus (growth of production about 24%, resulting in total share of industry production 5.6%). High dynamic growth is apparent in the field of data processing and related services.
Taking into account the fact that technical products should serve to meet the people needs and to make people's work and life easier, we must think about how we prepare our students for making the products in future time. We want to answer the question whether the graduates of FEEI are good educated for the work as for example designer, technologist or manager.
We revealed that greatest interest is in so lines of study of electrical engineering that are not able to compete against foreign production and so contribute to the passive balance of trade. The aim of our effort is to educate such graduates that are able to change the balance of trade.
Many people at that time consider the creative, particularly engineering work with contempt.
Young people, facing the problem of choosing their study line or occupation, are in many cases motivated rather by the light to achieve an education or possibilities to earn a lot of many etc., than the needs of their national economy. In implication of that we can see how classical engineering branches are moving to the margin of student's interest. Recently this trend also refers to the heavy-current engineering.
Stagnation of the branch in research and development results in following two undesirable consequences:
1) young people seem to ignore the line of study and dislike to be employed as design or projection engineer, but on the other hand 2) there is a shortage of workers in labour market in the branch. What is the reason of the bad state?
Big problem is a wrong idea of many young people about the contents of heavy-current engineering. Under the influence of the above mentioned fast development in last decade this tradition branch penetrates a new lines of electrical engineering. Particularly notable is penetration the information (and all other modern) technologies into industrial measurement and control systems and into electrical control drives. This effect is apparent also in the area of electrical appliance and consumer electronics. Similar situation we can see in many other non-electrical lines, as for example transport, power engineering etc. The contents of the heavy-current engineering was substantially changed but title is unvaried.
As we introduced in previous, the interest in the study of computer science is high. Taking into account that a lot of applicants apply for this kind of study every year, we introduced a new type of three year course, so called Bachelor level of study or B.Sc. We are pleased that the teaching in the line realizes a team of young people, mostly very advanced lecturers and research workers.
We can see also considerable interest in the study of Telecommunication Technology. The line is one of the youngest in our Faculty and is very good equipped with a new laboratory technique. The same we can say about the line Measurement and Control.
Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics does not rank among the faculties with a long tradition, nevertheless it won very good position between the other faculties of both VSB-Technical University Ostrava and electrical engineering in Czech Republic during the time of its short existence. The evidence of that is also contained in the conclusions of External Evaluation Report of Teaching and Learning of the FEEI, which was drawn up in the end of year 1998 at the occasion of the independent evaluation process done by the group of European experts within the Phare Multi-Country Programme in Higher Education ZZ-95.20 Quality Assurance in Higher Education. As a chair of the group was nominated Dr. Stephen Gergely, Fellow of the Institute of Electrical Engineering, Coventry University, UK, and project manager was Mrs. Anne-Kathrine Mandrup, Centre for Quality Assurance and Evaluation of Higher Education, Denmark.
The Report was written on the basis of many planned meetings between the external group and representatives of all participants of teaching and learning process of FEEI, further on the basis of many visits in offices, laboratories and other important rooms used for teaching and learning. As a good starting point for the evaluation served a self assessment document prepared by a team consisting of some of the leaders of the faculty. Main findings and recommendations described in the Report are as follows:
The Faculty provides a good, traditional, master level education in a large number of specialized streams. FEEI has excellent contacts with industry.
Strengths:
Weakness:
The Faculty now faces the challenge of change on many fronts. Many of these face engineering educators all over the world, so they are not specific only for Ostrava. Some of these are:
Points to consider of measures capable of implementation by the Faculty:
In addition of the external evaluation process, the FEEI undergoes a process of accreditation regularly (with the periodicity of about once every five years). The aim (and meaning) of this process is to verify whether the Faculty meets the demands laid on university institutions and furthermore to submit pursuant recommendations concerning facts and phenomena in which shortcomings occur at the faculty, according to an independent and external survey (a committee appointed by the Ministry of Education and Physical Training of the Czech Republic). Results of an accreditation are analysed by the faculty and have an immediate influence on its further work. Another feature which documents quality of instruction at FEEI is its graduate's opportunity to acquire the degree European Engineer (EUR ING), which makes professional practice in the countries of the European Union easier. This title is a confirmation of a high professional standard and moral qualities of the bearer and is granted by the European Federation of National Associations of Engineers (FEANI) seated in Paris. Granting of this degree has been possible since September 1995.
The Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics is a young faculty which, in spite of its short existence, confirmed its viability and recorded a remarkable and dynamic development in difficult times. This was proved especially by the fast increase in number of students applying for this kind of study and by total permanent interest in offered fields of study, although the interest was unbalanced, which - taking into account the generally low interest of the young generation in Czech Republic in studies of technical subjects - is a great merit of the Faculty.
[1] Ministery of Industry and Business of Czech Republic; http://www.mpo.cz/b/bc/bcg/bcgb/dcgbd.htm
[2] Ministery of Industry and Business of Czech Republic; http://www.mpo.cz/analýza/analýza2.htm
[3] Educational system in the view of coefficients of OECD. Institute for Information and Education, 1996, ISBN 80-221-0220-9