From
experience of A.N.Tupolev KSTU-KAI About
problems and prospects of engineering education G.L.Degtyarev, N.N.Malivanov, I.K.NasyrovA.N.Tupolev Kazan State Technical University K.Marx, 10, Kazan, 420111, Russia 1.
Introduction. Brief description of University
Kazan Aviation Institute was formed
from the Aerodynamic Department of Kazan State University on March 5, 1932.
According to the Decree of the Council of Ministers of RSFSR of May 17, 1973 it
was named after Academician A. N. Tupolev. In accordance with the Order N1133
of the Ministry for Science, Higher School and Engineering Policy of Russian
Federation of December 24, 1992 Kazan Aviation Institute was granted a status of
Kazan State Technical University named after A. N. Tupolev (KSTU named after A.
N. Tupolev). KSTU
named after A. N. Tupolev consists of 3 Institutes (Institute for Aviation,
Surface Transport and Power Engineering, Institute for Radio Electronics and
Telecommunications and Institute for Engineering Economics), 7 Faculties
(Automatics and Electronic Instrument Making; Engineering Cybernetics and
Information Science; Physics and Mathematics; Management, Economics, Finance
and Business; Psychology and Business Management; Economic Theory and Law, and
Humanitarian Faculty). KSTU named after A. N. Tupolev has 11 Branches in
Tatarstan, Mary El and Kirov region. The educational process at the
University is based on 82 main educational programs: 64 for the University
degree, 18 for bachelor's degree and master's degree, 32 for post-graduate
students, and 11 for extended higher-school degree. There are three forms of studying
at the University: day-time, evening-time and correspondence. There are also
external studies for 9 areas of knowledge and 13 specialties. A pre-university educational
program was developed at the University. The University implies the project on
second and extended higher education. The University is the regional
representative of Center of Centralized Testing. Affiliated to the University are
Institute of Further Training, 5 Research Institutes, 9 Research and
Technological Centres, 42 Research Labs, Leading Centre of Welding Research,
Metrological Centre, Research and Educational Centre of Engineering, and Design
Office for knowledge-intensive high technology. On the basis of the University
Centre of Energy-Saving and Regional Innovation Centre function. 2.
Quality control of Engineering Education
The concept of Russian educational
system renovation intended for the period till 2010 has defined the priority
directions of the state educational policy At the present stage of the
renovation these directions are: -
development of the modern system of
continuous education; -
education quality improvement; -
quality assurance of general
education "for everybody"; -
increasing of investment
attractiveness of education. The implementation of these statements requires that availability of
education, quality of professional training,
economic efficiency of education, and investment attractiveness become an
operational mechanism determining functioning of each high school unit to
achieve the goals. The higher education reforms in
Russia directed to integration with the global education system pursues a
purpose of forming a continuous and multilevel system of professional
education. Thus the problem of quality is a major category in educational
process in higher school and determines the activity of an institute of higher
education. A guarantee of educational fundamentality
and conformity to actual and perspective needs of a person remains the prior
direction of the Russian education system. However creation of a unified
monitoring system and system of estimating the quality of education is
complicated by numerous factors, and, first of all by absence of the generally
accepted interpretation of the terms quality of education, and assessment of
the quality of education. These terms are often interpreted as a condition of
material resources of an educational institute, the formation of scientific and
pedagogical staff, contents of syllabus, and methodical supply of a learning
process, its forms and methods, etc. It is also necessary to consider
the main characteristics of the developing institute: a mission of the University
and priorities of the development. Under present circumstances an
organizational quality control in higher education system and in particular in
KSTU named after A. N. Tupolev can be represented as an interdependent
algorithm: -
gaining information from the
potential social customers; -
formation of the order; -
selection of the most preferential
mission of KSTU; -
correlating the selected mission
version with the capabilities of a territorial system and correcting the
selected purposes and educational results; -
choosing the type of
result-oriented control; -
choosing educational paradigm; -
identifying parameters for
estimating the educational activity at the University; -
ratio of desirable results to
present ones; -
selection of the factors, whose
implementation is supposed to allow to get the specialists of new quality; -
comparing the obtained results with
the purposes. The mission of
the Kazan State Technical University - KAI is defined as follows: satisfaction
of a person, society and state needs in the education and culture of high
standards, cementing the leading position of the University among the
educational institutions in Russia on the basis of: -
deployment of fundamental and
applied scientific researches; -
usingš IT andš educational
technologies; -
effective tools of increasing the
quality of education. For these goals the University
turns the efforts to: -
development of the University as
higher educational institute on the basis of advanced quality improvement and
extended scientific researches, and their advanced influence on the educational
process; -
defining and implementation of the
current and future needs of industries,š
science and education in qualified specialists; -
creation of the optimalš internal environment at the University, in
which a teacher is the main element in assuring the quality of education; -
formation and implementation of
system approach to an interdependent process control in education and
scientific activity at the University, creation of a high-performance system of
quality management; -
building business relations with
secondary and specialized secondary schools as the suppliers of the University
with entrants possessing appropriate knowledge. There are several approaches to analyze the main conditions, in which a
technical university should operate.š We
have chosen the most popular one in strategic management - SWOT analysis: inner
Strengths, Weaknesses of the organization, Opportunities and Threats in the
outer environment (Tavernier 1991). SWOT can help to arrange and formulate a
great piece of separate, and often intuitive, information, which is often known
only to the leading and active employees. The presence of these data allows
analysing the University activities and its environment in terms of business
world: the University produces its own product, possesses certain resources,
competes in the certain market and has its share of the market. The University
has its own production process, co-operates with the suppliers, customers, etc.
For all the aspects the University analyses its inner strengths and weaknesses,
opportunities and threats from the environment. The complexity of the concept of students'
acquired knowledge quality, and, therefore, and functional complexity of
quality control requires the system approach. Under the system approach it is
necessary to join all factors describing the education system at the entrance,
at the exit and during the educational process, and to establish the nature of
interactions observed. In turn, the whole education management system can be
divided into several subsystems, each of them having its own input, process and
output, its own pattern of quality control, its own subgoals, and consequently
its own quality characteristics. In our case there are three subsystems which
are interconnected in such a way, that the output of the first subsystem is the
input for the second one, and the output of the second is the input for the
third one. The goal of the first subsystem is
an entrant selection according to the level of the knowledge acquired and
professional relevance to the requirements of Technical University as a higher
education institute. The output of the first subsystem is an entrant having the
required level of the qualifying characteristics approved at the State
Educational Qualification (SEQ). The second subsystem is responsible
for the teaching and educational process. The goal of the second subsystem is a
training of specialists, Bachelors, Masters according to the SEQ demanded
qualifying characteristic for Higher School graduates. The quality control
model allows to define the basic processes during the training of the students. The third subsystem implies the
graduate of higher school has an ability to continue his or her education
within the framework of the postgraduate educational system (PES) or an
extended higher educational system (EHES) (the last one can be get
simultaneously with the main higher education). The goal of the third stage
(the third subsystem) is to output the alumni with the qualifying
characteristic meeting the requirements of State Commission for Academic Degree
and Titles (for Candidates of Science) for PES, or the alumni with the required
qualifying characteristic for the diploma approved by the state authority for
EHES. The quality control of education for the whole system is a combination of
controls for each subsystem. The process control is implied not
only in view of a finished product (the ultimate aim), but also on the basis of
the information about the process of obtaining this finished product
(achievement of the aim) by means of the knowledge standard control during the
current and total certification and self-examination of knowledge on separate
subjects, a unit of subjects and an interdisciplinary testing. The applying of the given scheme
includes the development of two kinds of programmes for education quality
control: main/basic and regulating. The main program is made on the basis of
the process design, taking into consideration the learning process features.
The regulating program is worked out only during a learning process on the
basis of analysing the data received through a feedback channel. The main quality control programme
is supposed to be constructed as a hierarchy of some elements. The method is to
decompose a problem on simpler components. The hierarchy is built from the top
(goals, in terms of control) through the intermediate levels (criteria, which
the subsequent levels depend on), and to the lowest level that is usually a
list of alternatives or parameters. So at the first level of teaching
and educational process quality control hierarchy it is supposed to specify
some characteristics for accreditation, for example, the quality of the main
educational program, the level of the organization of teaching and
methodological work, etc. For postgraduate education, except for the referred
factors, it should be taken into consideration such characteristics as presence
of scientific schools and authoring scientific programs, quantity of
Dissertation Commissions and their activity quality, a possibility of scientific
results approbation for post-graduate students. All the data
of one level of hierarchy should meet the requirements of completeness and
approximately identical influencing on the goal set by the experts. Each factor
of the first level of hierarchy generates the factors of the second level. So
the quality ensuring factor (upper level) is evaluated according to the
following factors: financing, logistics, and space for a trainee (lower level);
the main educational program quality factor (upper level) generates such
factors as a curriculum quality, quality of work plans for the curriculum,
quality of programs for practical training (lower level). 3. Some experience gained by the University Complex
"Tatarstan Open Technical University"
Cooperation of different
educational institutions and organizations improves training quality and
increases a practicable contribution of higher schools, technical schools,
research institutes, and design offices to local social and economic
development on the basis of intellectual and material resource consolidation.
Tatarstan Open Technical University was founded as an attached to Kazan State
Technical University named after A.N.Tupolev organization on the associative
basis. Its founders are two institutes of higher education, six manufacturing
enterprises, Kazan Scientific Centre of Russian Academy of Sciences, and six
technical schools. The organization departments of
Tatarstan Open Technical University are found in 10 cities of Tatarstan,
Mary-El Republic and Kirov Region. More than 50 enterprises and organizations
of Tatarstan Republic are the trustees of that complex. The main lines of the complex
activity are: -
implementation of the concept of
continuous education, -
co-design of methodical support for
educational programs, -
logistics of educational process, -
forming common educational and
scientific space for the educational and scientific investigations, -
assistance to the University
Educational and Scientific Innovative Complex (UESIC) in full cycle of high
technologies development, -
adaptation of the higher education
institutes and their graduates to the social, economical and cultural needs of
society, -
education and science integration
on the main scientific and educational trends, -
contributing in increase of effectiveness
of intellectual, financial, and information Association resources utilizing, -
job placement of the graduates;
qualified scientific and pedagogical staff training, -
strengthening of practical training
of engineers. According to the Decree of the Council
of Ministers of RF ¿ 3918 of December 29, 2000 Kazan State Technical University
as a leading higher school, was given the status of "Tatarstan Republic
University Complex System" (according to the model of legal entities
association). Now under the work (services) specifications the conjugate
professionally educational programs of different levels are being worked out.
Within the framework of this task it is necessary to create and approve: -
a unified complex management system
providing joint management with the purpose of obtaining a high-quality
management; -
the unified infomedia and hardware
environment system; -
new schemes of application of the
innovations and implementation of the investment projects; -
management systems of educational
process quality during the realization of the continuous educational programs; -
new organizational economical
mechanisms of interaction. On the basis of manufacturing capabilities of some enterprises, research
institutes, design offices a number of new departments and research labs for
KSTU named after A.N.Tupolev was set up. They are departments of
optical-electronic systems (on the basis of State Institute for Applied Optics
attached to Kazan Optical and Engineering Works), electronic instrument making
(on the basis of Kazan instrument-making design office), radio electronics (on
the basis of joint-stock company Radiopribor and Federal Scientific Production
Association Radioelectronika). There is an affiliate of Institute for Aviation,
Surface Transport and Power Engineering at Kazan Engine Works. The training and
scientific centre of CALS-technology and quality control was established on the
basis of Kazan Research Institute of Aviation Technology. The retraining system of raising
the level of teachers' and specialists' skills was created.š Institute of raising the level of lectures'
skills, Interbranch Institute of Extended Education, Head Certifying Centre on
Welding, and Tatarstan Republic Energy-Saving Technologies Centre operate.
Several direct agreements of raising the level of professional skill for the
economy and management, and information and high technologies specialists are
concluded. Job Placement Centre for Higher Schools Graduates was created and
operates. The realization of reference
directions of Complex activity is based on an application of modern IT that
allows gaining access to common information resources, applying new forms of
organization and pre-university educational programs, and performing distance
learning. The regional micro-portal Virtual University
of Tatarstan operates in KSTU-KAI. It should become the basis of infomedia for
open education of Tatarstan Republic. KSTU named after A. N. Tupolev is one of
members of the founders of Association of Open Education and a regional
representative of Russian Portal for open education OPENET.RU. Today the
University has a website on the portal and makes efforts to connect other
educational institutions of the region. All institutes of higher education of
Russian Federation should work together to create some new electronic training
aids, and their competitive availability and accessibility should improve the
used material quality. 4. Strategic partnership with manufacture
Building the mutual relations with
the enterprises and organizations of the relative professional areas the
University has the major task to create a network of the strategic associates
interested in mutually beneficial cooperation in the field of personnel
training, industry modernization and production. The strategic partnership of businesses
and higher school is a bilateral contractual relation inclusive the following
distinctive features: -
a long-term program of professional training for firms in view of
prospects for the branch or firm development; -
a special component in student teaching
realizable jointly by a higher school institute and a firm, including advanced professional training for development of new
kinds of goods and services and technologies; -
creation of practical training base
for students; -
joint R&D, engaging scientists
to the modernization and creation of new goods and services and technologies; -
foundation of new
scientific-research labs and re-equipment of the available ones; -
target training of highly-skilled
staff; -
organizational, material and
financial contributing to engaging to scientific work of the 'target' students
and post-graduate students; -
presence of collegiate expert and
analytical deliberative bodies to coordinateš
interplay between a higher school institute and a firm; -
establishment of joint
scientific-educational structures, including departments with a new functional
load and economic-organizing pattern. The given strategic partnership constituent list is not full and much
less 'rigid'. In each particular case it should be made based on mutual
interests, forming the complex program for cooperation activity of "higher
school - business" system. This program can be changed and corrected along with
external condition changes, for example, along with the firm or branch
re-structuring. The system of the strategic associates provides feedbacks of
higher school institutions with industry to assure the further development of
engineering education. The main incentive of partner
relations is the mutual interest in raising the level of professional training. Just the desire to
have the specialists of high quality causes firms and organizations to invest
in the higher education system. Investing in the development of higher school
institutions the strategic associates gain the rights and obligations in
assessing the quality of the graduates, educational programs and plans,
developing new training forms, and evaluating the quality of scientific
researches of the higher school institutions and competence of the teaching
stuff. The unity of educational and
scientific activity in KSTU-KAI is based on the main scientific and educational
directions stated by Academic Council. They constitute the basis of a strategic
plan for development the all-round activity of the University. The quality of
the specialists' training is directly defined from the level of faculty and
department researches in accordance with the graduating student's speciality. The relevant component in the
solution of the set problems and the strengthening of cooperation between the
University and businesses on the contract basis is Educational Scientific
Innovative Complex (ESIC). At the moment the University is cooperating with 19
firms. These Complexes allow to create an
integrated educational and information environment, where the learning process
and fundamental knowledge acquiring is integrated to production, and using the
acquired knowledge in applied development of new techniques and technologies,
experimental researches and production testing, creating the pre-production and
production samples, when a student, a post-graduate student, a person working
for a doctor's degree, and a scientist work side by side with an engineer, a
designer, and a technologist. It is plain now that a continuous
integrated multilevel system of professional
training should include related educational programs of all levels. Kazan State Technical University
named after A.N.Tupolev prepares the specialists for many sectors of the
national economy: Aviation building, rocket production, mechanical engineering,
metal processing, instrument-making industry, radio electronics industry,
motor-car construction, economics, banking, tax and regulatory bodies,
sociology, and administration. The great experience and old traditions of usage
of the integrated "teaching-research-industry" scheme foršš professional
training and educational process organization joint with a real
production or researches and experimental development has been already gained. For strengthening of practical
training of engineers with support from enterprises of the founders and the
curators, KSTU-KAI Academic Council has made a decision and applied new
effective technology of organization of educational process at the completion
phase. One year before getting a degree the student is sent to an enterprise
and during a semester studies and works simultaneously. So, the subject for
practical training, pre-graduation practical training, and for a graduation
project is chosen by the enterprise. This certainly raises the level of
engineer's practical training, gives him a possibility to fulfil himself and
helps to solve the problem of his employment. Moreover a teacher comes with the
student to the firm to decide some specific manufacturing problems. This kind of training organization
allows: -
to improve the quality of professional training and to shorten the
adaptation period at work, since the graduate as a young engineer is ready to
participate in the production process; -
to increase the level of
proficiency of the lecturers and enterprise's employees by engaging the first
ones to the production process, and the second ones to the educational process; -
to speed up application of the
scientific achievements to production, using manufacturing capabilities of the
enterprise for the solution of industrial problems. 5. Innovative University
as a perspective model for Technical Higher School in XXI century
One of the strategic goals of
development of Ministry of Science and Higher School system in Russia is an
establishment of new-type University Complexes - federal innovative universities
of science and education with great integration of scientific, educational and
innovative activity which ensures steady development, quality and demand for
higher education, and surpassing personnel, scientific and technical support to
the national economy and priority industries. Innovative University is a
University of an enterprise model, which is directed to the continuous changes
according to the changing requirements, and whose the main kinds of activity
are scientific and educational activity based on innovative technologies and
management principles. Innovative management principles
for a University Complex assume the full cycle realization from new knowledge
acquirement to its practical application on a proper market. The new knowledge
acquired during fundamental and scouting researches is applied further within
the framework of innovative cycle stages in different trends. The scientific and technical
(technological) innovative process is traditionally put into effect through a
chain "fundamental research and research work - applied research and
experimental design - development works - professional
training, preproduction, logistical support - output and sales of
science intensive products and rendering of services". The teaching and
educational innovative process is realized through an obligatory stage of
scientific and methodological researches, that can follow either the stage of
basic research and research work, or the stage of applied research and
experimental design. As a result at the further stage of teaching and
educational innovative projects the new training technologies, courses of
lectures, laboratory practical works can be developed. The results and the process of
applied research, experimental design, and development works can be used for
professional training, raising the level of teachers' skill and personnel
retraining as well as for advance training of personnel for new products or
technologies. At any stage of an innovative cycle the associates and co-authors
can participate. Pacing factor for innovative
management in higher school is the detection and record of new scientific
discoveries made at the stages of basic research, applied researches, and
development works, assessment of their innovative potential; and marketing research
of appropriate market segments. The innovative potential realization of
scientific results requires the appropriate resources - personnel, financial,
material, managerial, structural and infrastructural. Innovative activity
always has an objective and for successful implementation of innovative
projects at any field a resources management system should be activated in a
higher school. Only then one can assess a real effectiveness of an innovative
project. Innovative management is based on
the strategic plan of the University complex development structured on
interdependent directions and containing a list of measures and signal
indicators of plan execution. To make a strategic plan of higher school
development, to control and analyse its execution, it is necessary to establish
a powerful analytical services for integrating and supporting all lines of
activity in a combined and closed technological circuit: making recommendations
- effectiveness control - complex analysis of the results - forecasting of a
situation development - guidelines development. Implementation of the innovative
principles of higher school management requires modernization of the
organizational and functional pattern of a higher school institution,
development of its innovative infrastructure, forming a network of strategic
partners. This problem can not be solved without a deep-laid personnel policy
and peopleware of innovative activity in the area of science and education. The target complex program
Specialists is run at the University.š
It not only includes all the aspects of training activity and ensures
the increase of a personnel potential, but is also supported by the
organizational pattern, the methods of this activity, appropriate financial
resources and regular monitoring of personnel maintenance. As a part of the Program for
innovative education in Tatarstan the "Program for an Innovative Activity of
KSTU named after A. N. Tupolev for 2005-2010" was developed. The mission of the program is to
create an innovative scientific and educational complex, which should provide
economic, legal and managerial conditions for stage-by-stage transition of
university's subdivisions to an innovative course of development. The guidelines of the program are: -
development of an infrastructure supporting
the innovative activity of the higher school; -
working-out normative, legal and
methodological support forš development
of the innovative activity of the higher school; -
providing the innovative activity
agents with the information; -
involving the students in an
innovative activity of the higher school institution. Establishing the
conditions under which students could develop their capability in science or in
knowledge-intensive business. -
providing favourable conditions for
the development of UESIC attached to Kazan State Technical University named
after A.N.Tupolev. -
integration of educational,
scientific and innovative activity; -
creation and development of a
system of training and retraining of the higher school staff in the area of
innovations, personnel training for innovative activity; -
financing the innovative projects
worked-up at KSTU named after A.N.Tupolev; -
science intensive innovative
project implementation, development and distribution of innovative
technologies; -
cooperation of KSTU's innovative
system with the regional and all-Russian innovative system and its annexation
to the last ones; -
marketing support for an innovative
activity; -
arrangement of conditions for the
completion of intellectual property rights inš
KSTU named after A.N.Tupolev -
cooperation of KSTU named after A.
N. Tupolev with foreign innovative structures and Funds; contacts with new
foreign partners. The priority trends for the
innovative activity of higher school given here are not all-embracing and will
be the subject of adjustment during the program implementation. |
© 1995-2008 Kazan State University