Flexibility and adaptability in engineering education: an academic institution perspective

To survive in the highly competitive environment, an engineering education institution must offer its students an attractive system of study. Essential features of such a system are flexibility and adaptability. Flexibility means that the system provides a large number of diverse opportunities and allows the students to take advantage of the existing diversity. A flexible system of study should provide for multiple entry and exit points, and for several areas of concentration within one or more fields of study. Student's freedom in design of his/her individual program of study should not be restricted by an excessive number of compulsory courses. The student should also be allowed to adjust the course load in each term to his/her background and speed of learning. Adaptability of a system of study means that adjustments in curricula, reflecting advances in science and technology, trends on the labor market, and evolution of international standards of engineering education, can easily be performed. In this paper, the authors discuss how to restructure a system of study to make it more flexible and adaptable. The general ideas are illustrated with an example of a recently restructured system of engineering education at their institution-the Faculty of Electronics and Information Technology, Warsaw University of Technology, Poland. They demonstrate that flexibility and adaptability of the system of study contribute to the overall quality of education.