The Development of Mining Engineering Education at the Federal University of Minas Gerais State - Brazil

SALUM, Maria Jose Gazzi¹ & GALERY, Roberto

Rua Espirito Santo 35, sala 702, Belo Horizonte - MG, Brasil, CEP: 30160030, Escola de Engenharia da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, ¹gazzi@demin.ufmg.br

Abstract: This paper presents a discussion about the current mining curriculum at UFMG, comparing it to other universities around the world, such as the USA, and Australia. It also discusses the changes proposed by faculty for the mining curriculum based upon the Engineering Education Modernization Program implemented by the Engineering School of UFMG in 1995 for all the engineering courses. The proposed curriculum changes include: a) a decrease in the total number of credit-hours; b) an increase in the environmental content; c) an increase in the Human and Social Science content; d) more flexibility of the curriculum; e) the implementation of exchange programs with other countries and a new structure for the trainee programs, in which the there is an increase in relations involving the student, the industry and the Mining Engineering Course. Every change is sustained by a teaching model in which the student is responsible for his own learning, while keeping the professor as an advisor in the search for knowledge.

Keywords: mining, engineering, education, curriculum

1  Introduction

In 1995 the Engineering School of the Federal University of Minas Gerais State implemented a project in order to modernize the engineering curricula. In this context, the mining engineering faculty had started to work based upon on the general principals stipulated by the Engineering School, which are:

• lower total credit-hours in order to allow the students time for independent study, absorption of learned concepts and extra curriculum activities, such as laboratory research, trainee programs in industry and so forth;

• a larger number of elective courses, allowing to students different options of careers;

• lower dependency of the students upon their teachers, so that the latter do not become the only source of information;

• larger environmental issues in the curricula, not necessarily as a course but as part of the subjects of many courses;

• larger number of courses in Human and Social Science;

• implementation of student's exchange programs in other countries and a new structure for the trainee programs in industry

These items will be discussed below, comparing the present situation in the mining curriculum around the world.

2  The Mining Engineering Curriculum At UFMG

2.1  Credit-Hours

The total credits-hour necessary for graduation from UFMG is 261, distributed among five years of studies, in a semester system. It is supposed to be 15 weeks per semester.

These total credit-hours can be considered too much compared to those demanded by other universities in the world, except in Brazil, as presented in Table 1 for seven different universities.

Considering that one credit- hour corresponds to one hour class, the 261 credits required by UFMG represents 26.1 class-hours per week.. Now, supposing an average of two hours study-time as necessary for deeper understanding, a student from UFMG will spend 73.5 hours per week dedicated to studies. Observe that some of the universities mentioned in Table 1 suggest 3 hours study-time per credit. In this case a student from UFMG will spend 99.6 hours per week between classes and independent studies.

Otherwise, it is important to point out that the Mining Engineering curriculum in Brazil includes the area of mineral processing, while it is not always present in the curriculum or at least so deeply study in the other universities mentioned in Table 1. For example, in the UFMG mining engineering curriculum the area of mineral processing requires 21 credit-hours. However, without computing the credit-hours dedicated to this field the UFMG curriculum has still a higher number of credit-hours.

Table 1. Credit-hours required to graduate a B.Sc. in Mining Engineering

With such a high number of credits the students learn only what they hear in the classroom, without time to enlarger their knowledge through independent investigation. This situation causes the teacher to become a mentor and not just a guide pointing out the way toward knowledge.

Actually, the Brazilian regulation for engineering education are changing. There is a tendency to decrease the minimum credit-hours stipulated by it from 240 to 200 credits-hour.

2.2  Flexibility of the Curriculum

In the context of this paper flexibility in the curriculum is measured by the number of elective courses in the curriculum, permitting the students to make their own choice of studies.

The data from Table 2 are not easy to discuss because important parameters were not clearly represented on them. For example, the number of elective courses presented for the universities outside Brazil, do not take in account that the required credits in general education can be choosed by the students from a large list of courses. Which means a certain degree of freedom. In Brazil, as it will be discusses below, the general education represents few required credits and usually in pre-established courses.

Table 2 presents the relationship between elective courses and required courses in the universities mentioned before.

Another important aspect to be discussed refers to the fact that all the universities included in Table 2 present a type of standard curriculum to graduate a mining engineering. Their curricula do not show a clear interface with other fields of engineering or either with other areas of knowledge, except in the basic science and geology areas. In all of those universities the students are not able to make their own program of studies. In fact, the possibility of different ways to graduate an engineer is not so easily assimilated by the major part of faculty or professional societies. Usually, the universities that offer this kind of flexibility in graduation demand a straight tutor system in order to guarantee a minimum of knowledge to define a graduation in engineering. In Brazil there is no university or college adopting this system of flexibility in engineering graduation. The present regulation in Brazil is very straight and inflexible. There are proposals from some engineering schools and the Brazilian Association for Engineering Education in changing this regulation, permitting a more flexible curriculum.

Table 2. Required and elective Courses

Finally, it can be observed from Table 2 that in USA the two universities studied have, approximately, the same percentage of elective courses, while in Brazil the numbers are very from one university to another. In the USA other undergraduate courses seem to present, on average, the same percentage of elective courses. In reality, the major part of them follow the standard curriculum proposed by the Grinter Report, from the American Society for Engineering Education.

2.3  Human and Social Sciences in the Curriculum

At present, the industry has demanded engineers with a broad profile, including abilities in human relationships, communication in more than one language and prepared to be a leader. In this context the Human and Social Sciences in the engineering curricula take an important role.

In general, Brazil's engineering curricula present a lower number of credits in the area of Human and Social Sciences, compared to other countries. This comparison is presented in Table 3.

Since 1958, as suggested by the American Society for Engineering Education, in the Grinter Report, the engineering curricula in USA have an average of 20% of the total credits dedicated to Liberal Education, which includes Human and Social Science courses. In Brazil the regulation suggests 10 credits in this area, 2 in Sociology and the rest in economics and administrative subjects.

The changes implemented in the civil engineering course, based upon the principles proposed by the Engineering School faculty, has been taken as a good reference for the mining course.

In the new civil engineering curriculum the number of credits in Social Science subjects increased from 2 (sociology classes) to 8. These 8 credits can be chosen by the students from a list of 19 courses, of 2 to 3 credits each one. These courses are offered by the departments of Sociology, Psychology, Philosophy, Political Science and others.

Table 3. Required credits in Human and Social Sciences

* Do not include credits in economy, administration and technical communication

This improvement was accomplished by a new methodology in teaching these subjects. In the past the students took sociology classes at the Engineering School and some report showed that both professor and students were very unmotivated and not interested in teaching or learning, respectively. One of the things pointed out by the Sociology faculty as unmotivated was the environment of the Engineering School. For them to be designated to teach for engineering students were considered as a kind of "punishment".

In order to become more comfortable for the faculty and to expose the engineering student to another environment, it was decided to send the students to take classes in the Human and Science Department. It was also decided do not separate them from students of other areas of knowledge, such as: law, philosophy, history and so forth. The faculty of the Civil Engineering Department expect that with this new methodology of teaching students and faculty will become more motivated.

2.4  Environmental Issues

All the mining engineering courses discussed above present in their curriculum environmental courses, in a larger or smaller numbers. Some of them, such as MTU, allow the student the possibility of specializing in this field, which will add some credits to those necessary for graduation.

At present the mining engineering curricula of UFMG require 3 credit-hours in environmental protection, offered as one course in the last year of studies. One elective course of 3 credit-hours is also available for students.

The UFMG Engineering Education Modernization Program has a proposal for an increase in the environmental content in the curriculum. This increase is not necessarily accomplished by an increase in the number of credits.

The proposal consists in introducing environmental concepts in some of the courses, which are traditionally offered in the curricula, as required credits. Although the link between specific mining subjects and environmental issues is very clear, it is not always related by professors to the students, at least in a systematic way. In the new proposal, environmental issues will take part, officially, in the program of many courses, such us underground mining, open pit mining, rock mechanics, etc. In this way, these courses can offer the students a broad view about the techniques themselves, the extension of impact they can cause to environment and, mainly, possibilities of changes in the techniques in order to minimize the environmental impact.

2.5  Student's Exchange programs and new structure of trainee programs in the industry

In 1997 an exchange program was implemented between the Mining Department of UFMG and the Michigan Technological University, in USA. The program involved 14 undergraduate students, that took classes during the regular winter quarter. The goals of this program are: to extend technical and social experiences living in a country with a very different culture and opportunity to improve English understanding and speech. Every student has reported the experience as excellent, regarding personal and technical growth. The Mining Department recognizes the important support given to its students by the Mining Department of MTU, especially by its Dean, Professor Francis Otueny. Students from MTU will be received by UFMG, probably next year, and a special program will be elaborated for them in order to minimize the difficulties with respect to the language.

Regarding the new structure for trainee programs the faculty of the Mining Engineering Department has a proposal that includes a smaller mining industries in Minas Gerais State and not the biggest one as usual. These mining companies, normally, present problems of environmental impacts that would be minimize with the use of more adequate technologies. In general, there are many small industries working in a region with the same kind of ore, such as limestone, granite, quartzite and others industrial minerals, used as aggregate for civil construction, generating high volumes of waste.

The program presuppose a first step of diagnosing the situation, made by professors and assisted by students, a second step where the students should be trained to solve the problem and finally the local action of students, advised by professors. Presently the Mining Department is submitting a project to government agencies in order to receive financial support to start the program. The Department believes that after implementation, the program can be supported by the industry.

The main gains of the students in a program like this are the development of self-confidence, leadership ability, problem solving and technical learning.

3  Conclusions

The mining engineering faculty is working on the curricula in order to attend the challenge of graduating an engineer for the next century. The goal is to graduate engineers with a strong technical and scientific knowledge and abilities in communication in more than one language, ease in developing human relationships, social and environmental conscience and, finally, able to learn continuously. In order to achieve this goal the faculty proposed changes in the curricula that included:

• a decrease in the number of credit-hours, giving to students time for independent studies and as a consequence changing the system of teaching from professor as a mentor to professor as a guide toward knowledge;

• an increase in the Human and Social Science content; in order to develop other than technical abilities in the students,

• an increase in the environmental content, preparing students to work with non-renewable resources

• more flexible curriculum, meeting the demand for different engineers profile and the individual vocation of students.

• exchange programs in other countries in order to expose students to other cultures, languages and technical environments;

• a trainee program in the small mining industry in order to help students to develop their abilities and become active self-starting problem solvers.

4  References

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MICHIGAN TECHNOLOGICAL UNIVERSITY. Undergraduate Catalog. USA, 1995

MEC-DAU. Novas Diretrizes Para o Ensino de Engenharia - Corpo Doutrinario. Brasilia, 1976

THE UNIVERSITY OF UTAH. Undergraduate Catalog. USA, 1998

THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES. Faculty of Engineering Handbook. Australia, 1998

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