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Background
The 21st century is witnessing a rapid increase in the pace of knowledge creation in the sciences and engineering. Competing in this global economy requires a science and engineering workforce that is consistently at the technological forefront. Dr. Charles Vest, President of the National Academy of Engineering, in a speech at the University of Michigan on October 15, 2007, put it simply: prospering in the knowledge age requires people with knowledge. The purpose of the Lifelong Learning Imperative Workshop was to consider learning opportunities for the engineering professional. The participants in the workshop addressed the necessity of lifelong learning, the history of continuing education1, possible delivery systems, systems used by other professions, and the current state of learning when viewed in the light of the rapid rate of technological change.
Two decades ago, the U.S. National Research Council Panel on Continuing Education in its report, Continuing Education of Engineers, recommended a collaborative effort among industry, university, and government to “establish the spectrum of values and objectives of continuing education for individual engineers in industry, and academia and to describe how continuing education could or should operate in the engineering world of tomorrow.” Since then many continuing education programs have been developed and are offered by professional societies and universities. However, due to the emergence of new and rapidly changing technologies a re-examination of the current framework for lifelong learning and its underlying assumptions is necessary.
More recently, the National Academy’s report, The Engineer of 2020, reiterates the importance of lifelong learning for the engineering professional. It calls for engineers to expand their learning over a lifetime because their career trajectories will take on more directions, many new, due to the rapidly changing technologies. The broader implications of lifelong learning for national competitiveness were also considered in the 2006 Spellings Commission report on the future of higher education, which calls for the “development of a national framework for lifelong
learning designed to keep our citizens and our nation at the forefront of the knowledge revolution.”
The examination of lifelong learning has been initiated by the National Academy of Engineering in order to assess current practices in lifelong learning for engineering professionals, to re-examine the underlying assumptions, consider options, and outline strategies for the future. Some issues that need to be considered include; who decides what knowledge is needed, who provides the learning opportunities; in what format and where; who certifies it; who pays for it; what are the appropriate roles, respectively, for employers, professional societies, government, and academia; and should there be consideration for broadening one’s field as well as for updating current practices. By bringing together stakeholders including policy makers, the LLI workshop has opened a national dialogue on lifelong learning for engineering professionals in the knowledge age. The workshop identified critical issues worthy of being pursued in depth.
