Excellence and Relevance in Engineering Education in 21st Century Africa

TLDR: In this article, the authors take a look at the broad concepts of excellence and relevance in engineering education and explore how these concepts can shape EE and the role it plays in shaping EE, as well as its implications for the 21st century Africa.

Abstract: In 21st century Africa, advocating for excellence and relevance in education has brought a significant change in engineering education (EE). Though, EE have not recorded much success in its achievement in African engineering institutions, as this may be connected to shortage of learning facilities, poor assessment of curriculum programmes, and lack of institutional support. With much debate on accomplishing excellence and relevance in EE, African EE are far from attaining the position of 21st century engineers; hence the crux of this paper. This paper was guided by Lev Vygotsky’s social constructivism theory, focusing on learning mainly takes place in social and cultural settings, rather than only an individual. This paper takes a look at the broad concepts of excellence and relevance in EE. Specifically, it explores how these concepts can shape EE and the role it plays in shaping EE, as well as its implications for the 21st century Africa. Thus, to address these gaps, recommendations such as evaluation of alternative teaching strategies, revived faculty and students’ collaborations, reconstructing engineering curriculum plus courses, rejuvenated EE advisory boards as well as inventing multi-disciplinary symposiums for 21st century skills were advocated.