Descriptive research into the role of ethics in engineering and its perceived need for engineering students and young graduate engineers

• Main Author: Dannhauser, George Frederik
• Published: 2012
• Subjects: Ethics; Engineering ethics; Engineering ethics > Study and teaching
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10210/7494

M.Ing. === Engineering is a combination of natural and human science skills and expertise. Engineers are required to satisfy the needs of their customers at a human science level, yet they are also expected to solve problems that require meticulous calculation at a natural science level. Engineers who can negotiate with customers, but who do not have the competencies to solve complex problems, will find the profession extremely complicated and frustrating. On the other hand if engineers have developed the required skills to tackle and solve the most intricate problems but are unable to communicate and interact with their clients, they will soon realise that they are isolated from the community. Because of the workload associated with the curriculum for engineering studies at tertiary level, academic staff find it difficult to include topics other than hard core engineering in the curriculum. Potential engineers have to realise that they are entering a profession that requires -a- lifelong learning commitment to stay abreast of developments, especially because of the explosion of developments in high technology. The challenge lies with educational institutions, employers and the engineering fraternity alike to ensure that qualified engineers, technologists and technicians are wellbalanced, highly-skilled professionals with the ability to interact with the public at large. Engineering students need to be exposed to a wide range of additional skills, such as motivational, communication, negotiating, financial and psychological. A subject that is seldom addressed in educational institutions is ethics and its role in an engineer's life. Because ethics is based on various complex foundations, such as the various religions, cultural backgrounds and different values and norms of groups of people, academic staff tend to avoid broaching the topic. This dissertation has probed the complexities of ethics and how it differs depending on the background of a specific group of people or a specific profession. It further investigated the perceived needs among engineering students and qualified engineers so that engineering students can be exposed to ethics and the importance of a basic knowledge of ethics before they can be regarded as fully-fledged engineers. Results of a market research has revealed that qualified engineers and engineering students are aware of the importance of an expanded curriculum that would include the additional subjects mentioned earlier. The findings correlate with similar results obtained in a market research in United States of America. Literature claimed that Europe was lagging behind USA with regard to the inclusion of ethics in their curriculum but that it was rectifying the situation. he issue under discussion is that all role-players in South Africa should join forces to incorporate ethics in the curriculum of tertiary education institutions and in the in-house-training programmes of businesses. This programme can later be extended to include other human science skills. Control measures should be introduced to ensure the work done in South Africa by the engineering fraternity is in line with international standards. This will enable South Africa to remain a competitive role-player in the global market.