Engineering as an engine of industrial development in Euskal Herria

1992/10/01 Alvarez Isasi, Ricardo Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Ingeniaritza

As you know, the Bilbao School of Engineers was born in 1897 thanks to the initiative of the Provincial Council of Bizkaia and the Bilbao City Council. In order to consolidate the industrial development that was taking place in the area of the Bilbao River, the need arises for the Engineers, who responded to this demand. The relationship between industrial development at the time and school was very beneficial. It should be noted that other factors directly influenced this fact, such as indigenous raw materials, capital creation and profitability, the climate of peace generated by the lack of Spanish participation in the First World War, the presence of qualified professionals in Deusto and the Commercial School of Bilbao and the Basque dynamism.

and for work… but the creation of the School of Engineers was fundamental to achieving that development.

A hundred years have passed and although the external situation is different or the economic situation is different, the premises remain useful. In Euskal Herria we no longer have raw materials or important sources of energy. Our society is not rural. Low primary sector weight. We have to work on the development of the second and third sectors. Now, in addition, we are in need of facing a new situation, the competition that will be created in the coming months when the Simple European Act enters into force.

The conditions of European convergence designed in Maastricht will be very harsh if we want to climb the first train cars that will depart in 1996. The challenge is over. The answer is immediate but possible. While here we are in the middle of birthday celebrations, exhibitions and games, the countries around us, which will be our closest competitors, are preparing for this effort.

In a Council of Ministers of recent times in France, every year it has been decided to promote all kinds of measures for the creation of 37,500 new engineers. This means doubling the number of current graduates. The Council document reads as follows: “Industrial development and economic growth are largely based on the capacity to renovate technical cadres and, especially, engineers.” Remember that in Spain the number of graduates does not reach 20% of them. It must be said, however, that the Ministry of Education has begun to show its concern for this issue and that it calls for more first cycle engineers to be formed.

You know that France is helping other countries solve this problem. We of the School of Bilbao, thanks to a cross-border agreement between Aquitaine and the Basque Country, have signed an agreement with the Chamber of Commerce of Baiona and are imparting to a group of students of the School of Industrial Organization the studies of Industrial Engineering. The programme has been very successful and welcomed by French industries. Many of them are increasingly interested in Spain. The French have realized that engineering is the engine of industrial development and therefore of all economic activity.

But we will analyze the concrete aspects that concern us and take a look at the future that comes. A complicated but very interesting future. Imagination and professionalism will be fundamental. This is an attractive challenge and a fascinating time worth living. The high Public Deficit makes the industrial situation confusing. This means establishing excessively high interest rates. In addition, we have an overvalued currency, the trade deficit is too high, the profits of entrepreneurs have been reduced, investments in industry have stagnated and, therefore, the possibilities of stability in unemployment and the creation of new jobs have disappeared.

As a consequence of the agreements adopted in Maastricht for European convergence, the weakness generated by this situation is accentuated when at the beginning of next year we joined the Single Market. All this places us before the challenge we must face. In order to face the difficulties that arise, it will be essential to foresee the future. Only if we analyze our weaknesses well, design a good action plan and are able to work with desire and without despair, will we face all these difficulties. Yes, everyone, people and institutions, we have to act generously in this important task for all.

The competition that comes is going to be tremendous. It will not only come from the countries that make up the European Union. We will also have to compete with the United States, Japan, Southeast Asian countries and Central and Eastern European countries. Moreover, not only will companies participate in this competition. State and Autonomous Community Administrations will also participate, offering appropriate structures and special treatments. If we are to respond to this challenge, we will have such a future.

In order to boost the economy, employers constantly demand from the Administration a job flexibility, a more adequate fiscal treatment, a reduction in public spending, a reduction in interest rates and a streamlining of the administrative bureaucracy. Although all these issues are very important, I will not treat them here. I think you can give answers at any time, getting immediate results without too much delay.

However, there are two other basic conditions that are essential to start well prepared for this competition. These two conditions cannot be addressed for free. On the contrary, prior training requires a long time and continued effort, but the results will not be seen in the long term. The first requirement is to have access to infrastructure in its broadest sense. Infrastructures for the transport of people and goods (railways, highways, metro, airports and sea ports), telecommunications networks: data and audiovisual transmission networks, computer interconnection networks and other computers and remote databases. Access to energy networks is also necessary; the power grid, to provide sufficient and economical energy. Gas network, gasification plants, oil refineries, coal import and port access.

The Basque Government, the Provincial Councils and the Town Councils have become aware of this issue and for some time great efforts are being made to solve it.

The second essential condition is education. Education at all levels of education and in relation to the process of European convergence, especially in the technological field (both in vocational training and engineering). Undoubtedly, it is essential that citizens learn and have cults. And our capacity for coexistence is based on that. This requirement is essential and I think it is well raised at the level of EGB and high school.

At the university level I have greater uncertainties and we also have a new professional training, both regulated, occupational and third degree. Knowledge of new technologies is the most important intangible asset of industrial societies. Transmitting this knowledge and training a broad group of young people with up-to-date technological education is our biggest challenge today. This is what has begun to be called the “Revolution of Knowledge” and we cannot lose that war.

I will analyze our shortcomings and try to project a model that facilitates the progress of our society. Our curricula have been both general and encyclopedist. Each teacher teaches their subject and for each teacher the most important thing is their subject. Long cycle studies have a minimum duration of 6 years and the student is asked to know “everything”. At the end of the course the student is offered the possibility of taking the Master's degree.

And why not do a second complementary race? (such as Economics or at least Master in Business Administration). The student who overcomes all these obstacles is very tired of learning with about 30 years and willing to work without wanting to update the knowledge. And, paradoxically from today's society, he is then required to have professional experience and language knowledge in order to gain access to his first job. Finally, if you haven't been able to choose the company at age 50, you can find a conversion plan and early retirement.

We have designed an educational model based on the personal sacrifice of the human being, something ineffective and stimulating for society.

I think the studies should be shorter. Programs with fewer topics and more experimental studies. The organization of the studies should be cyclical and continuous. I think the desire of some Technical Engineering Schools to prolong their studies is wrong. If so far the organization of studies has been based on the interest of teachers, it is time to prioritize rationality and, above all, to seek the use of students.

Engineering studies should be designed harmoniously, educating a growing number of students on these issues and designing an integrative process with great social impact. The first cycles of studies should be simple, accessible to many people. In these cycles students will receive general basic training and some degree of specialization. Research and laboratory studies would be more important than mere theory and problem application. It must be flexible, so that the student can move from one career to another if desired. Encourage personal work and initiative (library consultations, project realization, tutoring interviews) without losing sight of passivity to master classes. Finally, offer internships in companies, as well as the possibility to learn languages and attend Engineering Schools abroad.

To become aware of the practical dimension of industrial reality, it would be advisable that before the end of the first cycle and the beginning of the second cycle, many students worked for a time (one or two years) in a company. From there you can start 2nd cycle studies. They would be more differentiated, but in progressive difficulty collecting the part of basic general and advanced studies. This second two-year cycle could be compatible with the work of the company and would obtain the degree of Engineer. Subsequently, students wishing to do so will be able to finish their training in the degree of doctor.

Several State Technical Engineering Schools, supported by Professional Associations, have created an unsustainable tension that can lead to the failure of technical engineering reform, so important for future economic development. Two false claims are that Engineers will not be homologated in Europe if they have not completed 4 years of studies” and “Expertise in Industrial Engineering (mechanics, electricity, automatic and electronic, industrial organization, chemistry, etc.) end in the first cycle.

The minimum credit approval of curricula applies only to those careers of direct social impact, such as architecture and health sciences (doctors, dentists and nurses). In addition to fleeing uniformity in other studies, the aim is to promote enriching diversity in Europe. The degree in engineering can be obtained by strictly academic means or through mixed programs, based on stays in the industry and even only by profession.

Moreover, it is appropriate to organize the knowledge of special races in two continuous cycles. Thus were designed the studies of 2nd cycle that lasted two years offering the following titles: Engineering in Mechanics and Manufacturing, Engineering in Electricity and Power, Automatic and Electronics

Industrial Engineer, Industrial Chemistry Engineer and Industrial Organization Engineer.

This gave natural continuity to the current studies of Technical Engineering, giving continuity to the existing specialties.

With a maximum of 270 credits, students who for 3 years would study Technical Engineering would have two options: prepare for several months an End of Career Project and make a stay in an appropriate industry directed from the School. Or move directly to the second cycle of your specialty to complete 180 more credits.

Students who opt for the first option would obtain the degree of Technical Engineer and could work with the same attribution they currently have. The student who decides to continue the studies would not have to prepare the Project of end of career of the first cycle and would start immediately in the 2nd cycle, ending with the Graduate Project.

Several University Schools of Technical Engineering would expand their studies by establishing 2nd cycle specialties adapted to the local industry. On the other hand, the studies would be more flexible, offering different options to students and offering the possibility to move from one specialty to another.

This flexible and harmonious project, which is a copy of the American design, would become a dynamic for our economy, as it would stimulate the formation of many young people. However, in order to maintain the corporate interests of some teaching professionals, all this reform is getting complicated.

The professional who works in a company must update his knowledge several times throughout his professional life. The seminar, postgraduate courses, technical meetings or topics of new incorporation into curricula. This is just a normal view of an engineer's ongoing training. We will extend the training that the student must receive throughout his career and professional life, and we will leave aside the tendency that in some years that knowledge is received in a way that cannot be serialized.

Let us accompany this system with the third professional training course so that students can rationally join the educational system and feel part of a single organization. In the relations between the students who have studied in the same centers (although the initial training is different and have chosen to finish in different phases for having a different final degree) the polemics that currently exist between Engineers and Technical Engineers and between the different Schools and the different Professional Schools would not make much sense. These debates, which do not take us anywhere, were long overtaken in advanced countries and only involve economic delay and social loss.

Harmonic teaching of studies requires a coherent organization that serves the system. For the development of this project we propose the construction of the Technological University of the Basque Country. We think this is a good time. On the one hand, they are about to approve new curricula and on the other hand, to face this “Knowledge Revolution” that comes in the technical field, we have to train many professionals in engineering. We need a university, decentralized on 3 campuses, socially rooted and sensitive to the needs and projects of society, that is not closed in its glass cage and that is not obsessed with its autonomy.

If we are asking for this solution on many occasions, it is not because we want to be privileged. Not for comfort, but because it is our responsibility. Our youth is still abundant. Until the age of 10 the pyramid does not begin to decrease. So that our society does not retreat we must educate that youth in the technological field. It's time and we don't have time to waste it. With this help we will make a qualitative leap in tune with the most advanced countries in Europe.

* Director of the Technical School of Industrial Engineers and Telecommunications Engineers of Bilbao. April 14, 1992 “Jose Mª. Translation of the conference organized at the Polytechnic School of Mondragón “Arizmendiarrieta” in the act of delivering diplomas to students who have just finished their studies. Translated by Elhuyar.