New Role of Employer in the Educational Process of Metallurgy Programme

Modern engineering education uses practice-oriented approach to achieve specific learning outcomes. The industrial enterprises interested in training future engineers should take an active and key role in the practical side of the educational process. However, there is a trending passiveness among the industries resulting in the estrangement from the learning process. Commonly, the industries declare the list of demanded engineering skills leaving universities on their own in the educational process and skills formation. Siberian Federal University is implementing worldwide CDIO initiative in the framework of two undergraduate programs: Metallurgy and Heat Engineering, both are highly demanded by the industries of Siberian Region of Russia. This paper describes new ways in cooperation between higher education and an employer in terms of CDIO-based Metallurgy programme. A new role of industrial enterprises in higher education is substantiated, including the expansion of cooperation under key positions within the confines of Industry Training module of the SibFU’s Metallurgy programme. In terms of collaboration between SibFU and UC RUSAL and JSC “Krasnoyarsk Plant of Non-ferrous Metals” recent successful employer-university cooperation practice is exemplified. The paper discusses the content of Industry Training module and the changes it made to the role of the employer. During the implementation of the module the involvement range of the employer is expanding in various learning activities forming the educational partnership between university and industries. The supplementary agreement between educational stakeholders for target training programs is discussed. The program enables students to take in-depth internship in order to receive a working qualification and enhance their professional skills. Proposed collaboration model between stakeholders of higher education gives a broad range of possibilities for universities to enrich engineering education, and for industries to educate anticipated highly specialized engineers with deeper understanding of professional issues and actual working experience.

Proceedings of the 12th International CDIO Conference, Turku, Finland, June 12-16 2016