Educating engineers for the market place

The decline in student applications for engineering is alarming-25,000 in 1994, 21,000 in 1995 and 17,000 in 1996 (UCAS report 1996). Standards in numerical subjects are falling and students´ A-level profiles are becoming broader. At the same time, products are becoming more complex, the markets more sophisticated and the required workplace skills wider. Here, the author describes how the challenge to universities offering engineering courses is somehow to address these somewhat conflicting scenarios