Undergraduate engineering programs in many countries are primarily designed to help graduates develop the skills required of them to become competent professional engineers. Additionally, recent engineering graduates often have ambitions to seek employment internationally, and this necessitates the use of common benchmarks around the world to maintain similar learning outcomes and consistent standards of output.

 During the last two decades, many efforts were dedicated to improve the education of engineering graduates to better equip them to face the challenges and the changing dynamics of the modern world, and to give them the luxury of international mobility. In many instances this has meant redefining the key skills required from a graduating engineer and this in turn has greatly influenced the way engineering degree programs are now designed. In addition, the curricula, teaching, learning and assessment methods have changed significantly and of equal importance, the overall quality of output across a range of engineering degree programs must now be quality assured by implementing an agreed upon set of procedures.

This workshop aims to present the experience and thoughts of some international and local specialists in this area in order to disseminate awareness in the Arab World, such as deans of engineering schools, faculty members involved in program design, employers and government representatives influential in defining educational priorities.

International status and trends in engineering education: different approaches to engineering education worldwide and the need to rationalize. The training of engineers in different countries and the transferable knowledge and skills required of graduate engineers to satisfy the demands of the international workplace.

Engineering education systems: worldwide developments and the present status in the region.

Admission policies for degree level engineering study in general, including specific policies in some parts of the region.

Academic reference standards for engineering education: an overview of the knowledge, skills and ethics that an undergraduate engineer should acquire.

Program development methods, essential core content, development of open ended problem solving, development of self learning, and assessment methods including external input.

Relationship between engineering institutes or universities and the industrial sector and/or other sectors.

Quality of engineering education: presentation of quality systems and best practices in education in general and in engineering education in particular.

Institutional and departmental resources and procedures required to support a quality assured engineering education.

Dr. John A. Tinker

Director of Undergraduate Studies in one of the largest Civil Engineering Schools in the UK with responsibility for developing programme specifications, monitoring and enhancement; and annually reviewing all aspects of QA on eight BEng and MEng engineering programmes. As an educational consultant specialising in developing engineering degree programmes, Dr Tinker has advised on the development of degree programmes in many universities in different countries including Malaysia, Indonesia, Brazil and presently Vietnam. Working for the United Nations, he authored a major overview report evaluating the present engineering provision in 19 universities in the middle-east (including two in Syria) and assessed their potential for improvement and for capacity building. Dr Tinker was also responsible for identifying areas of good practice and for recommending priorities for strategic reform in the region (cf. Report ‘Quality Assessment in Engineering Programmes in Arab Universities’. February 2009. ISBN: 978-92-1-126240-7).

 E-mail: J.A.Tinker@leeds.ac.uk

Professor Dr Saw Sor Heoh 

Professor and Vice-President for Teaching and Learning and responsible for the Quality Management System at INTI University College (INTI-UC). Professor Saw Sor Heoh heads the Centre for Plasma Research, the Quality Assurance Office  and the Centre for Instructional and Technology Support at INTI University College, Nilai, Malaysia. She chaired the International Conference on Teaching and Learning (ICTL2007 and ICTL2009) and worked as the International Advisor for International Conference on Recent and Emerging Advanced Technologies in Engineering, iCREATE 2009 (November 22-24).

E-mail: saw_sorheoh@intimal.edu.my

 Dr. John A. Tinker         

(cf. above)

Professor Dr Lee Sing

Professor Dr Lee Sing is an internationally known scientist and scientist mentor. He headed for several years the Division of Physics at Nanyang Technological University, National Institute of Education (NTU/NIE) in Singapore and was among the pioneers who built up the School of Science (SSC) to support the training of teachers at university level in Singapore.

E-mail: leesing@optusnet.com.au

Dr Georges Michailesco

Director of Lifelong Learning department at the University Paris-Sud 11, former director of the IUT de Cachan. In addition to his teaching and administrative activities, Professor Michailesco has worked as a consultant on elaborating and setting up of undergraduate and postgraduate engineering programmes in France and internationally (Morocco, Lebanon, Turkey, Vietnam, etc)

 E-mail: georges.michailesco@u-psud.fr

Dr Najib Abdul Wahed (Chairman), Deputy Minister, Ministry of Higher Education, Syria

Dr Ghassan Assi, General Director of the Higher Commission for Scientific Research, Syria

Dr Wael Khansa, Director of the Higher Institute for Applied Sciences and Technology (HIAST), Syria

Dr Hassan Charif, Scientific Consultant at the National Council for Scientific Research, Lebanon

Dr Rakan Razouk, Vice-president of the University of Damascus, Syria

Dr Fouad Shoukri Kourdi, Vice-president of the University of Aleppo, Syria

Dr Mahmoud Said, Vice-president of the University, Latakia, Syria

Dr Shokri Almekdad, Deputy Director for Educational Affaires, HIAST, Syria

Dr Rady Khazem, Lecturer and researcher, head of department at HIAST, Syria

Dr Bashar Abdul Ghani, head of division at the Atomic Energy Commission, Syria

Dr Nawar Al-Awa, Associate Professor at the University of Damascus

Dr Maher AGI, Lecturer and Researcher at HIAST, Secretary General of ASST, Syria

The workshop programme contains 12-hour lecture series given by the international lecturers, and 9 short contributions presented by specialists in higher education and representatives of higher education stakeholders from Syria and Lebanon (cf. workshop programme).

All presentation files are available on the CD distributed to the participants and on the ASST internet site.

About 120 participants are registered in this workshop. They are mainly teachers, researchers and scientific staff in higher education institutions in Syria Lebanon and Jordan.

The workshop is held at the amphitheater of the Higher Institute for Applied Sciences and Technology (HIAST) in Damascus.

Dr. Maher AGI                        ASST Secretary General

Ms. Violet KALEMKERIAN   Secretariat

Mrs. Sahar SHALATI

Mrs. Alia KOUATLY

Ms. Nagham NASSIF

Mr Ismail ELKHEN

Mr Ramzi RIFAI

Mr Muthana ALAMEDDIN

All queries about the conference should be sent to the following address:

Arab School for Science and Technology (ASST)

P.O. Box 7028

Damascus, Syria

Tel.: (+963-11) 511 8904

Fax: (+963-11) 511 1083

E-mail: asst@

 http://www.arabschool.org.sy

Workshop on 

Engineering Education, Present Status, Trends and Challenges

Damascus; 19 – 21 July, 2010 

Programme outline

Day 1

Opening session and registration

8:45- 9:15        Registration

9:15-9:20         Welcoming speech by Dr Maher AGI, ASST secretary General

9:20-9:30         Dr Amr Armanazi, General Director of SSRC, member of the Higher Supervisory Committee of ASST

9:30-9:40         His Excellency Dr Ghiath Barakat, Minister of Higher Education

9:40-10:00       Introduction to the workshop by Dr John A. Tinker – the workshop consultant

10:00 - 10:30   Coffee break 

Session 1      International situation and trends in engineering education

10:30-11:00   International situation and trends in engineering education (Dr John A. Tinker)   

11:00-11:45   Engineering education situation and trends in France and Europe (Dr Georges Michailesco)

 Session 2     Engineering education systems. Worldwide developments and the status in     the region

11:45- 12:15  Overview of engineering education systems worldwide (Dr John A. Tinker)

12.15- 12.45  Present status and vision of engineering education in Syria (Dr Najib Abdul Wahed)

12.45- 13:15    The HIAST: an experience questioning engineering education system in Syria (Dr Wael Khansa)

13:15-14:30    Lunch break

Session 3      Admission criteria for degree level engineering studies

14:30-15:00     Admission policies in the UK (Dr John A.Tinker)

15:00-15.30     Admission policies in Europe and specifically in France (Dr Georges Michailesco)

15.30-16:00    Admission policies in the Far-East (Prof. Saw Sor Heoh/Prof. Lee Sing)

16:00-16:15    Coffee break

16:15- 16:45    Admission policies in Lebanon (Dr Zouhair Hajj)

Day 2 

Session 4         Academic reference standards for engineering education: overview of the knowledge, skills and ethics that an undergraduate engineer should acquire

9:00–9.45      Reference standards: overview of knowledge required in UK degree programmes (Dr John A. Tinker)

9.45-10.30      Overview of knowledge required in Far East degree programmes (Prof. Lee Sing)

10.30-11:00     Development of Academic Reference Standards in Syria (Dr Fouad Shoukri Kourdi)

11:00-11:15    Coffee break

Session 5       Programme development methods

11:15-12.15    Programme development methods in UK (Dr John A. Tinker)

12.15-12.45    Introducing quality aspects in curriculum transformation process (Dr Mohammad Kayal)

12:45-14:00    Lunch break

Session 6        Relationship between engineering institutes or universities and the input from the industrial sector and other external sectors

14.00-15:00     External input into programme development, and control of output standards (Dr Georges Michailesco)

15:00-15:30     External input and control of QA in UK degree programmes (Dr John.A.Tinker)

15:30-15: 45   Coffee break

15.45-16.15    Engineering degree programmes: the point of view of the Order of Engineers in Syria  (Dr Nabil Alachraf)

16.15-16.45    Management sciences for engineering degree programmes (Dr Rady Khazem)

16.45-17.15    Engineering competencies required by the industrial sector: a case study from the industrial sector in Syria  (Dr Haytham Yafi)

Day 3 

Session 7       Engineering education quality: presentation of quality systems and best practices in education in general and in engineering education in particular 

9.00-10.00      Quality assurance in engineering education in the Far East (Prof. Saw Sor Heoh)

10.00-11.00    Overview of present situation in the Middle East; the main challenges (Dr John A. Tinker)

11.00-11.15     Coffee break

Session 8       Institutional and departmental resources and procedures required to support a quality assured engineering education

11.15-12.00     Institutional and departmental resources required to support QA – an Asian case study (Prof. Saw Sor Heoh)

12.00-12:30     Quality Assurance in The Syrian Higher Education System: A Multi-dimensional Challenge and Shared Responsibility (Dr Lama Youssef)

12:30-13:45    Lunch break

13:45-14:45     Future role of engineering education in promoting sustainability (Prof. Lee Sing)

14.45-15:00     Coffee break

15:00 -            Discussion and recommendations