TOMSK, Dec 2 – RIA Tomsk. Tomsk Polytechnic University (TPU) opened the final session of the Synergy International
Conference on engineering education on its online and offline venues on
Thursday; it features experts from Russia, Europe and the US, RIA Tomsk
correspondent reports from the opening ceremony.
The
Synergy International Research-to-Practice Networking Conference has
been held since 2016. In 2021, its events have already been held in
Kazan, Tomsk, and Dresden (Germany), and the final session Regional
Development: New Challenges for Engineering Education - Synergy-2021 on
standards of training specialists for the oil and gas and chemical
industry kicked off at TPU on December 2.
"Engineering
education is a directed training. On the one hand, we prepare a student
for the workplace, on the other hand, an engineer has to take into
account a very wide range of issues. How to find the right balance and
ratios between this "broad" education and narrowly focused professional
training is a challenge for many of us now," Acting TPU Rector Dmitry
Sednev said at the opening.
As Yury Pokholkov, President
of the Association for Engineering Education of Russia and ex-rector of
TPU, noted during the opening session, at present the current trends of
engineers' training in Russia and abroad are contradictory. Thus, in his
opinion, interdisciplinarity, promoted in all fields of education, will
be effective in training engineers when there is success in training
specialists in specific areas.
"We keep saying "quality of
engineering education". The very notion of "quality" is the degree to
which the needs of the product's customers are met. And they, the
customers, are many. We are stepping on a path where we have to train
everyone for everyone. It is a dead end, it seems to me. Rather, we
should think of diversification of education and training of specialists
for particular tasks," he said.
International participation
The
session at TPU is also attended by Vice President of the European
Network for Accreditation of Engineering Education (ENAEE) José Carlos
Quadrado, Director of the Institute of Additional Professional Education
of Kazan National Research Technological University Mansur Galikhanov,
Professor of Purdue University (USA) Phillip Sanger and others.
According
to the TPU website, the session will take place online simultaneously
in five areas covering current problems of interaction between
engineering education and high-tech business and industry, the digital
education environment, models of digital competencies and mechanisms for
their independent attestation, and the training of highly qualified
personnel for scientific, educational and business communities.
Experts
will also discuss vocational education and trends in engineering
education under conditions of digital transformation of society.
The
conference is organized by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education
of the Russian Federation, International Society for Engineering
Pedagogy (IGIP), Association for Engineering Education of Russia (AEER),
Kazan National Research
Technological University (KNRTU) and major international engineering education societies.
Transformation
of engineering education is one of the key strategic stakes of Tomsk
Polytechnic University laid down in the university development program
for the next 10 years. With it, TPU has recently entered the Priority
2030 program of the Russian Ministry of Science and Higher Education, in
the first group of universities in the Research Leadership track.