Embedding Sustainability Principles in Engineering Education in Regional Australia

Abstract

This paper reports on the development of Bachelor of Engineering Technology (BEngTech) at the University of New England (UNE), Armidale, New South Wales (NSW). The degree has co-jointly dealt with the engineering challenge of sustaining regional areas by addressing an identified professional skills shortage in regional Australia, whilst embedding sustainability principles in the curricula. This challenge has been successfully achieved in two ways. Firstly, the BEngTech was developed to address in part the skills shortage of engineers in regional areas of New South Wales in the early 2000s. Since the commencement of the degree in 2008, there are now over 100 students are currently enrolled across the two majors of Civil and Environmental engineering. One of the distinguishing features of the degree is the number of students sponsored by industry partners. The current cohort comprises at least 10 state government agency cadets studying full-time and at least 30 trainees with regional employers (local government, consultancies, etc.) studying in off-campus (external) mode. Of the total cohort about 43% are studying off-campus. It is a goal and a hope that a large proportion of the graduates will be retained in regional Australia. Secondly, UNE has a strong record for over 40 years of embedding sustainability principles in teaching, and was one of the pioneers in Australia teaching Natural Resources, Resource Engineering, Environmental Engineering and presently Civil and Environmental Engineering. With this background, sustainability is strongly embedded as an underlying imperative in both majors of the BEngTech at UNE.