Engineering Education at the Association K.U. Leuven: A Changing Higher Education Landscape

Abstract

The implementation of the Bachelor-Master structure has had a deep impact on the organisation of education in Flanders. Students obtain a Bachelors degree after three years of study and a Masters degree after at least one additional year. The former three year programmes at a hogeschool are converted into profession-oriented Bachelors programmes; the former two cycle programmes at hogescholen and universities are converted into academic Bachelors programmes followed by a Masters programme. Furthermore, all programmes must obtain accreditation. Similar quality standards become valid for programmes offered by hogescholen and universities. While these minimum standards do not imply identical educational training, the concern arose that differentiation of engineering education would tend to fade or disappear. Therefore, it is essential to have a clear description of the different profiles of engineering professionals. An overview of the Bachelors and Masters engineering programmes at the Association K.U. Leuven is presented.

Guided independent learning package for advanced topics in electrical engineering, automation and control systems

“…Because individual help is adequate but too labourintensive, a guided self-study approach has been developed by which individual students can select an optimal path to update their required knowledge, depending on their foregoing trajectory, and acquire the required competencies. This approach has been conceived jointly by the authors from seven different Flemish university colleges and the university of Leuven, Belgium [1,2] and is integrated in the educational programmes of those institutions. This approach covers for each topic a selection of the following elements.…”