Tertiary institutions cannot meet 2014 engineering target, ECSA

However, Engineering Council of South Africa (ECSA) CEO Dr Oswald Franks says that tertiary institutions have only marginally increased their first-year intake of engineering students since 2008. The capacity of these institutions in respect of the number of engineering students they can accommodate, he adds, has not increased substantially.

Franks stresses that current throughput numbers at tertiary level highlight the problems that already exist at these institutions.?Currently, about 54% of students complete their four-year engineering degree in four to five years. "The rest take longer," says Franks. "And 27% do not complete their studies at all." The challenge is to achieve the growth government wants using existing facilities.

To make things worse, 15 000 to 20 000 South African engineering professionals work outside South Africa, compared with 38 000 professionals working locally. Franks says that the South African drive to increase numbers is bound to fail unless more resources are allocated to existing engineering faculties. ECSA, he adds, has already presented its research findings to the DHET.?"Together, we are planning a national summit on engineering education later this year, where we will focus on how we can improve the system's success rate."

Read the full article on www.engineeringnews.co.za.
Read the ECSA's research report (PDF).