Author: Prof Abel Nyamapfene

The 2017 TEF Results: Turmoil in UK higher education

Prof Abel Nyamapfene Practice and Development

We all knew that the TEF results would send shock waves throughout the UK HE landscape, but most of us were unprepared for the ferocity and level of intensity of their impact.  In the days leading up to Thursday June 22nd, the day when the results were released, rank and file academics had mostly written off the TEF as just one of those “mickey-mouse league tables” that currently litter the higher education columns in our tabloids. If our academic leaders thought otherwise, then I must say they were very good at concealing a burning secret, for that’s what the TEF turned out to be, a scorching inferno that has turned UK HE upside down.

The UK higher education hierarchy under the spotlight

In their wake, the TEF results have shattered our perceptions of the traditional hierarchy of UK higher education. First, received wisdom was that the less research intensive and more teaching-focussed universities would excel, and the research giants would justify their respectability by positioning themselves in the middle, or towards the end of the TEF rankings. After all, the majority of current teaching league tables, whether by design or default, invariably rank UK HE institutions inversely to their position on the hugely respected university world rankings. If that had been the case, then we would have easily consigned the TEF to the dustbin by simply asking: “Just tell me of any one world-class university in the top TEF rankings!”  The first bombshell was that this was far from the case. Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial got Golds in the TEF, and we all looked up. Ask anyone in the world to name three top universities, and chances are that they will name these three universities, even if they cannot point to the position of the UK on Google Maps. So the first myth of UK HE was debunked –  if Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial have TEF Gold, then TEF matters, and if TEF matters, then teaching matters, and if teaching matters, then the TEF is here to stay.

There are over 150 universities and higher education institutions in the UK, but until Thursday 22nd June, it was simple for anyone to distinguish between them using this principle: there are universities, and then there are real universities. If you go down to the pub, the simple question “Which university did you go to?” is not as innocent as it looks.  In the public eye, if you went to a prestigious research intensive university, in particular a Russell Group university, then you went to a real university, otherwise you didn’t.  Again, by 10 am on Thursday 22nd June, this myth was in the dustbin. It is no longer enough for an institution to be in the Russell Group. Whilst Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial got Gold, a huge number of Russell Group universities got Silver, and some household names, notably Liverpool and Southampton, found themselves with Bronze.

What it really means to be Gold, Silver or Bronze

In the public eye Gold means excellent, Silver means not so excellent, and Bronze is equivalent to the skull-and-crossbones symbol signifying danger, caution, risk or something to that effect. So immediately, the TEF has given us a simple and powerful, albeit crude, system for evaluating universities – is it Gold, Silver or Bronze? Of course this has been derived on the basis of teaching and the student experience, but that’s not the message that is conveyed. In the public eye, if an institution is Gold, then it’s excellent in teaching, and it’s excellent in research, and it’s excellent in everything that you may be looking for in a university. Conversely, if an institution is Bronze, then it is bronze in everything, it’s that simple.

For university management, being Gold means classes will be full, university teaching revenues will overflow, gold-class academics, whether teaching or research focussed, will be easier to attract, graduate recruiters will besiege the university, grateful alumni will engage more with the university, and more revenue streams wil lbe opened up.  For graduates, a TEF Gold also has immense benefits. First, they will have a significant advantage over their non-Gold competitors, and this is despite any individual shortcomings that they might have. And in the long run, they are likely to go higher up the career ladder, for, after all, which well-meaning organisation would consciously pass up the opportunity of enhancing their individual reputation through association with a Gold-class university?  Having Gold-class employees in your organisation is a powerful marketing tool, whatever their actual productivity.

Conversely being labelled Bronze is likely to be the equivalent of an institution catching a contagious disease. Employers, potential students, and potential research  and teaching partners will take flight. This is likelty to lead to a fall in revenues, loss of staff morale, and a high staff-turnover as excellent academics flee.  If the instituion lacks a strong, responsive leadership, the Bronze label is likely to be self-fulfilling, and the institution will fall into a cess pool from which it may not come back.

TEF winners and losers

The past two days suggest that post-TEF, universities are likely to re-organise themselves into at least two camps – one camp for those extolling their teaching excellence on the back of their TEF awards, and the other camp for those crying foul. Included in the first camp is Portsmouth University, which placed a full page ad in the Guardian describing themselves as a university with a “Gold rating in Teaching Excellence”. Another one is the University of Exeter, who immediately set up an institutional web page proclaiming their newfound TEF Gold, with the inscription: “University of Exeter, Internationally Excellent Education.”

The other camp will consist mostly of those institutions that were awarded a Bronze. To date institutions belonging to this camp have been characterised either by their muted “no-comment” expressions, or  their very high visibility attacks on the TEF as a flawed and misdirected evaluation system.  See, for example, the sceptical comments by Sir Christopher Snowden, vice-chancellor of the University of Southampton, in the Times Higher Education.   However, what is noteworthy is that none of the Bronze institutions has declared that they will NEVER EVER participate in the TEF exercise again.  This is a tacit acceptance that the TEF is here to stay, and, I would add, a plea by institutions on the wrong end of the TEF exercise for leniency and protection from the resulting public glare.

Some institutions chose not to participate, some for noble reasons, and some for not so noble reasons. Either way, TEF refuseniks appear to have lost out. With so many institutions participating, a question that will refuse to go away is: “What are the refuseniks hiding?”  And so, by default, in the public eye, refuseniks are somewhere in the darker shades of the Bronze category, and that perception is likely to prove too difficult to dispel in the short to medium term.

When the TEF overshadows individual excellence

The TEF results has also had an impact on both individual academics and departments.  For instance, the Sociology department at the University of Westminster, which was awarded a Bronze, felt compelled to issue a corrective statement on their blog page. In their statement, they remind the students of the department’s excellent track record as measured by NSS scores, institutional and national awards for teaching excellence, and supportive comments from external examiners. The department concludes by expressing the view that “the outcome for Sociology at Westminster has been the direct opposite: the TEF result says, quite plainly, that we’re crap at our jobs.”  In fact, a number of tweets on the TEF results seem to suggest that most academics in Bronze institutions agree with their counterparts in the University of Westminster Sociology Department. Simone Buitendijk, Vice-Provost (Education) at Imperial College London, has had to step in to remind colleagues that the TEF is an institutional measure, and not a measure for individual performance: “Don’t forget: TEF measures system performance, not individual teachers’. I have no doubt that >95% of UK university teachers are Gold.”

The TEF and the quest for excellence in academic education leadership

In the May 2016 government white paper Success as a Knowledge Economy: Teaching Excellence, Social Mobility and Student Choice, the two main goals of the TEF are to “provide clear information to students about where the best provision can be found and to drive up the standard of teaching in all universities.” Given the nature and complexity of teaching, both objectives are likely to remain contested for the foreseeable future. However, what is indisputable is that the TEF has focussed attention on teaching at the institutional level. As Simone Buitendijk points out, the main focus of the TEF is on system performance, and not on individual teaching within he classroom, which is only a small part of the teaching delivery process. This has direct implications on the quality of leadership in teaching and learning, or as Dilly Fung and Claire Gordon like to refer to it, on academic education leadership.

TEF and the future of UK HE: A rollercoaster journey

In conclusion, whilst the TEF is likely to go through several iterations before it becomes acceptable across the entire UK HE landscape, one thing is certain:  The quality of education leadership is likely to become an important issue across the entire sector, in particular within the research intensive sector where education leadership roles are often undertaken on a non-substantive basis. Of significant interest, however, is the likely interplay between the TEF and the REF going forward. More specifically, will TEF counterbalance the impact of the REF on UK HE, and if so, what are the consequences on current and future academic careers? And most importantly, will TEF have a lasting impact on UK HE, or when the dust clears, will we settle back into our old way of doing university education?  Only time will tell.

Progression for Teaching Only Academics in Research Intensive Universities: A Personal Perspective

Prof Abel Nyamapfene Practice and Development, Reflections

Introduction

Although the teaching-only academic role has been around for the better part of this century, it is still far from general acceptance within universities. In particular, although most research intensive universities now have in place career routes for teaching-only academics there is still a definite hesitancy from key sectors of academia when it comes to promoting teaching-only academics. From my ongoing research on teaching-only academics within research intensive universities, some typical questions that heads of departments and other senior managers are grappling with include:

  • Is a professor promoted via the teaching route REALLY equivalent to a professor promoted on the basis of research?
  • Isn’t promotion via the teaching route an easier route than promotion via research?
  • What image do we present to other academics, to current and potential students, and to the wider outside world if we start promoting people on the basis of teaching?

These questions suggest a continued pre-occupation with research as a vehicle to achieving personal and institutional recognition and reward. Such views were reinforced and entrenched  by the  introduction of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) in 1986, and its subsequent replacement by the Research Excellence Framework (REF) after 2008 (HEFCE 2012). However, with the recent passage of the Higher Education and Research Act 2017, the higher education landscape is poised for change.

The Act paves the way for the set up of the Office for Students (OfS) next year. This body will have responsibility for regulating standards and quality of education as well as oversee the introduction of private sector competition in the higher education sector.  The Act also specifies the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) which is now already being used to assess the quality of teaching across universities (Department for Education 2016). It is expected that after 2020, the tuition fees that institutions can charge will be linked directly to the outcome of the TEF. This is likely to have far reaching consequences given that tuition fees have largely replaced teaching grants as the primary source of teaching income in universities. The Act therefore brings teaching and learning in higher education to the fore in a very forceful manner. In this article I argue that it is no longer business as usual in universities, and university recognition and reward systems need to change to take into account the changes taking place.

The changing academic role

Traditionally, the academic role has been viewed as comprising two main activities, namely teaching and research. But this is no longer the case. In recent times academic work has rapidly diversified (Locke et al. 2016). Coates and Goedegebuure (2012) sum up the diverse roles of academics as follows:

Academics train a country’s professional cadre, conduct scholarly and applied research, build international linkages, collaborate with business and industry, run large knowledge enterprises (universities), mentor individuals, train the research and the academic workforce, boost social equity, contribute to the creative life of the nation, develop communities, and contribute to broader economic development. And this list could easily be expanded.(Coates and Goedegebuure 2012)

This proliferation in academic functions is a direct result of the many pressures that have been brought to bear on universities. These pressures include(Locke 2014):

  • the rapid expansion of higher education as more and more students opt to proceed from high school to university as opposed to going into work
  • the reduction of public funding, coupled with the transfer of most of the costs associated with higher education from government to individual students
  • increasing demands on universities from students, government and employers.

Despite the increasing diversity in academic activities and subsequent specialisation growing specialisation of academic role, policies and practices for promotion and recognition have failed to keep pace (Locke et al. 2016). For instance, across the higher education sector,  there is still a widely-held perception that the criteria for reward and recognition in universities is heavily skewed towards those academics in traditional research and teaching roles(Locke et al. 2016). In particular, research remains the main activity of choice for those seeking job security and career progression (Locke 2014). Even those academics primarily employed on teaching-only contracts still strive to keep up with their discipline-specific research even though this is not part of their job remit. Such an approach has the effect of increasing academic workloads and affecting academic performance in the roles that they are employed in (Locke et al. 2016).  It is therefore imperative that the recognition and reward structures in higher education need to change in line with changing academic work.

The Need for flexible promotion criteria for ALL academics

As the recent passage of the Higher Education Act 2017 clearly demonstrates, the modern day university now faces new challenges and expectations. To survive in this new environment, the modern university now needs to demonstrate excellence in a number of areas, and these areas are not necessarily compatible. First, to successfully attract research funding, and postgraduate students, the modern day university needs to present itself as a centre for research excellence. At the same time, the same institution has to position itself to students and to the outside world as a centre for excellence in education.

In addition, in compliance with the new Act, the institution has to be seen to be responsive to the needs of the community, for example, through having an effective widening participation programme, and supporting the local industry and economy. To achieve all this, the institution has to submit its institutional activities to external assessment and evaluation. In the UK this includes the Research Excellence Framework (REF) for evaluating research, the recently introduced Teaching Excellence Framework for evaluating teaching, the National Student Survey (NSS) for assessing the student experience, and the Destinations of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) for assessing the employability of its graduates. It is also very telling that both the NSS and DLHE outcomes are being used as inputs to the TEF.

For an institution to excel in each of the above roles, it has to identify, retain and reward qualified individuals to carry out each of these the tasks. However, the potential for conflict and confusion arising out of attempting to satisfy all of the above performance evaluations cannot be underestimated. Brew et al. (2017) suggest that in the current university environment, academics are faced with  ambiguous and contradictory messages regarding the nature of their jobs and what is expected of them. This includes contradictory official accounts of academic work as well as contradictory messages from external stakeholders such as government.

It is therefore necessary for universities to develop clear, unambiguous recognition and reward systems that cover all forms of academic specialisation, including teaching-only academic roles. Not doing so will lead to a situation whereby the university system is, in the first instance, unable to attract and retain the “best and brightest” to join the profession, and in the second instance, unable to identify and reward the most productive for their work, and weed out those who are unsuited for academic work.(Altbach and Musselin 2008)

Obstacles to recognising and rewarding teaching and learning

Cashmore et al. (2013) identify two major obstacles standing in the way of effective reward and recognition of teaching in higher education. The first one is institutional culture. This is best illustrated by the fact that although most universities now have in place clear routes for promotion on the basis of learning and teaching, their effective implementation still seems to be lacking (ibid.).

Another obstacle to rewarding excellence in teaching is that, unlike research, teaching does not have a clearly defined, coherent and widely-used set of criteria for evaluating excellence (Cashmore et al. 2013).  Whilst the evaluation of research excellence is based primarily on publications and grant income, with teaching it is not as clearly cut. Compared to research, teaching encompasses a wide range of activities and roles, which means that a more diverse range of evidence is required to demonstrate excellence. In addition to this, such evidence is often qualitative in nature, thereby making it more difficult to assess excellence in teaching compared to research (Cashmore et al. 2013).

Emerging drivers for recognising and rewarding teaching and learning

Government concerns regarding the quality of university-level teaching is now an important contributory factor towards the recognition and reward of teaching-focussed academics. This started first as a “nudge” by government to higher education institutions. For instance, in 2003, government made the following observation in its white paper entitled “the future of higher education”  (Department for Education and Skills (DfES) 2003:51):

In the past, rewards in higher education – particularly promotion – have been linked much more closely to research than to teaching. Indeed, teaching has been seen by some as an extra source of income to support the main business of research, rather than recognised as a valuable and high-status career in its own right. This is a situation that cannot continue. Institutions must properly reward their best teaching staff; and all those who teach must take their task seriously.

According to the government, the TEF has been introduced a way of “better informing students’ choices about what and where to study, raising esteem for teaching, recognising and rewarding excellent teaching and better meeting the needs of employers, business, industry and the professions” (Department for Education 2016). Following the classic carrot and stick scenario, institutions are now being encouraged, if they so wish, to use their teaching recognition and reward schemes for staff, together with their impact and effectiveness, as evidence for institutional teaching quality. This also includes progression and promotion opportunities for staff based on teaching commitment and performance (ibid.).

In the 2003 white paper, the government also mandated the introduction of a new national professional standard for teaching and a new national body to develop and promote good teaching (Department for Education and Skills (DfES) 2003:7). The standard in question is the UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF), and the body in question is the Higher Education Academy which also oversees the UKPSF framework on behalf of the higher education sector.

Cashmore et al. (2013) suggest that the UK Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF), particularly the Senior and Principal Fellow recognition criteria, can serve as a basis for developing a framework for assessing teaching excellence. They suggest that any promotion criteria arising out of this must go beyond the UKPSF criteria. This is because the UKPSF’s primary purpose is to set the minimum standards for the various (ibid.). Table 1 below illustrates how the UKPSF can be mapped to individual levels on a potential teaching-only academic career route.

Table 1: An illustration of the three UKPSF  recognition level(adapted from The Higher Education Academy (2011):

Recognition level Typical individual role/career stage Examples
Fellow Individuals able to provide evidence of broadly based effectiveness in more substantive teaching and supporting learning role(s). Have substantive teaching and supporting learning role(s).

 

Successful engagement in appropriate teaching practices

 

Successful incorporation of subject and pedagogic research and/ or scholarship as part of an integrated approach to academic practice

 
Senior Fellow Individuals able to provide evidence of a sustained record of effectiveness in relation

to teaching and learning, incorporating for example, the organisation, leadership and/or

and learning provision.

  Having responsibility

for leading, managing or organising programmes, subjects and/or disciplinary areas

 

Successful incorporation of subject and pedagogic research and/ or scholarship as part of an integrated approach to academic practice

 

Successful co-ordination, support, supervision, management and/ or mentoring of others (whether individuals and/or teams) in relation to teaching and learning
Principal Fellow Individuals, as highly experienced academics, able to provide evidence of a sustained and effective record of impact at a strategic level in relation to teaching and learning, as part of a wider commitment to academic practice. Successful, strategic leadership to enhance student learning, with a particular, but not necessarily exclusive, focus on enhancing teaching quality in institutional, and/ or (inter)national settings

 

Establishing effective organisational policies and/or strategies for supporting and promoting others (e.g. through mentoring, coaching) in delivering high quality teaching and support for learning

 

Championing, within institutional and/or wider settings, an integrated approach to academic practice (incorporating, for example, teaching, learning, research, scholarship, administration etc.)

 

Adopting a more radical method: Rethinking the academic culture

Research and teaching were not always treated as separate academic activities. Prior to the advent of the Research Excellence Framework and its predecessor the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE), academics were expected to do both. Fung and Gordon (2016) argue that rather than just focussing on advocating recognition and reward for teaching-only academics, a more effective approach would be to develop a more equitable culture in terms of rewarding staff whereby education leaders are recognised as being at the same level as research leaders. They advocate the development of new models for research-based education which maximise the synergies between research and education for the benefit of the student. In such an environment, parity of esteem between education and research will develop naturally, and academic staff will play to their own individual strengths when seeking promotion.

Concluding remarks

The modern university is now expected to deliver on multiple fronts, including traditional research, learning and teaching, community engagement and enterprise (knowledge transfer and impact). In such an environment, individuals increasingly play to their strengths, and this is to the benefit of the institution, the economy and society. It is therefore pertinent that reward and recognition   criteria should be developed to take account of the multiplicity of pathways that the individual academic chooses to take within the university.

References

“Higher Education and Research Act 2017”Chapter 29. City: HMSO: London.

Altbach, P. G., and Musselin, C. (2008). “The Worst Academic Careers — Worldwide” Inside Higher Education. City.

Brew, A., Boud, D., Crawford, K., and Lucas, L. (2017). “Navigating the demands of academic work to shape an academic job.” Studies in Higher Education, 1-11.

Cashmore, A., Cane, C., and Cane, R. (2013). “Rebalancing promotion in the HE sector: Is teaching excellence being rewarded.” Genetics Education Networking for Innovation and Excellence: the UK’s Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in Genetics (GENIE CETL), University of Leicester, The Higher Education Academy.

Coates, H., and Goedegebuure, L. (2012). “Recasting the academic workforce: why the attractiveness of the academic profession needs to be increased and eight possible strategies for how to go about this from an Australian perspective.” Higher Education, 64(6), 875-889.

Department for Education. (2016). Teaching Excellence Framework: year two specification. London.

Department for Education and Skills (DfES). (2003). “The future of higher education”. City: HMSO: London.

Fung, D., and Gordon, C. (2016). Rewarding educators and education leaders in research-intensive universities. The Higher Education Academy.

HEFCE. (2012). “Research Assessment Exercise (RAE)”. City: HEFCE.

Locke, W. (2014). Shifting academic careers: implications for enhancing professionalism in teaching and supporting learning. The Higher Education Academy, York, England.

Locke, W., Whitchurch, C., Smith, H., and Mazenod, A. (2016). Shifting landscapes: Meeting the staff development needs of the changing academic workforce. The Higher Education Academy, York, England.

The Higher Education Academy. (2011). The UK Professional Standards Framework for teaching and supporting learning in higher education. York, England.

When the exam results come out

Prof Abel Nyamapfene For the Student

The end of the academic year is drawing near, and most students are in the midst of exams. Soon the results will be out, and for continuing students it will now be time to go off to their summer-time work placements, or to some well-earned holiday somewhere. For the final year students, it will now be time to prepare for the graduation ceremonies to come, and to nail that first graduate level job if they have not done so already. My focus is on the continuing student: What do you do with your results when they come out?

As I have said time and again, engineering school is no longer just about attending classes, doing assignments and reading for and writing exams. In addition to academic performance, employers now demand that prospective employees be able to demonstrate that they are work-ready. This means that more than ever before, students now need to take charge of their own learning and professional development. One good thing is that the engineering curriculum has undergone huge changes to include employability and work-readiness skills for students. However, in today’s competitive graduate-level job market, this is hardly enough. Students now need to go that extra mile to ensure they stand out amongst their peers. This means that the student of today should now take full control of planning, monitoring and reviewing their own learning and professional development, starting from the first year in university, right up to the day they graduate and leave university.

Before embarking on their studies, the diligent student now needs to identify their own learning and professional development goals, as well as figuring out how these will be achieved and how they will be evaluated and evidenced.  Continual professional development (CDP) and personal portfolios immediately come to mind.  Engineering institutions are expert at this, and hence, more than ever before, it is now imperative to take up student membership of an engineering institution in your discipline.

The release of the end of year academic results is an ideal period for the individual student to reflect on their whole learning journey over the recent academic year. This review and reflection should also focus on all the self-directed professional development activities that you participated in. If, however, you have not been following a personal learning and professional development plan, the release of academic results is the best time to develop one for the coming year. Here are five suggestions on how you can undertake your own personal review as well as making plans for the coming year.

  1. Evaluate your attainments against your goals for the year

The first step is to assess the extent to which you met your learning and professional development goals in the passing academic year. Which goals did you meet? Which goals did you surpass, and which goals did you miss? For the goals that you met, identify the activities and strategies that contributed to this. And for the goals that you surpassed, ask yourself why you were so successful. Is it that you outperformed your expectations, or you set a low bar when you wrote them down at the beginning of the year?  For the goals that you missed, identify the reasons why you missed them. Were you too ambitious, or did you underperform?  Most of us are susceptible to blind spots in our own performance. To avoid this, it is best to carry out this exercise with a supportive colleague. They can give you their honest assessment of your performance, and you can do the same for them.

  1. Revisit your interest and commitment to your planned career

As we progress with our studies, we gain a deeper understanding of the career that we are preparing for, as well as better insights into our own interests, aspirations and capabilities.  In some cases, our studies will affirm our choice of career – namely that the career makes a perfect fit with our personality. In some instances, as we progress through our studies, it may dawn on us that our intended career is not the right one for us, or we become aware of other more interesting career possibilities that we were previously unaware of. Either way, we need to assess the match between our personal interests and possible career choices available to us.

This situation is fairly common.  For example, according to the 2014/15 Destination of Leavers from Higher Education (DLHE) survey, less than half of all UK engineering and built environment first degree graduates entered into careers in these fields. In the case of mechanical engineering, less than a third (27.6%) took up a career in their field of study. This was even lower for electrical and electronic engineers, of whom only about a fifth (22%) took up a career in their field of study. A possible reason for this is that in the UK students often have to choose a particular engineering discipline when they apply to university. It can be argued that at this stage few students are fully aware of what their chosen discipline fully entails, or they may have an incomplete perception of their own interests, inclinations and capabilities. The end of the year is therefore an ideal opportunity to review career goals and to lay down plans for the forthcoming year.

  1. Study the successes and failures of others

There is a lot that one can learn from other students. This includes learning from those in other year-groups, and those in other disciplines and subject areas. There is evidence to suggest that engineering careers are now more interdisciplinary, more diverse, and cut across more subject areas than what the current disciplinary divisions of engineering in universities suggest. Studying the trajectories taken by students in year groups ahead of you helps to improve your understanding of current career opportunities. You also learn what works and doesn’t work in your situation. Establishing personal connections with students ahead of you will ensure that you are kept informed of current trends and opportunities in industry. The economy is never static, and employment fluctuates from year to year, and from one field to the next. Keeping track of students ahead of you will enable you to make more informed decisions as you progress through your course. You also get to know what works and what doesn’t work from their successes and failures.

  1. Have a coach to make sure you stick to your plans

It is difficult to stick to a plan over the course of a year. Other things might come up and distract you.  These may be personal or academic, or both. Or your course may demand more from you than what you expected when you developed your plan. Or it may simply be that you just get lazy over time and let things go.  We are human, after all. In particular, in the first and second year of your studies you may feel that you are still far away from when you have to look for a job. This will be completely wrong, as jobs tend to go to those who are most prepared.

To ensure that you stay on track you need to find someone to whom you are accountable for your own personal learning and professional development. Such a person should be prepared to follow up on you, and to take you to task if you start falling off your planned trajectory. That person could be a fellow student, in which case you can be their coach as well. Or it could be someone from outside the university. In either case, that individual should be committed to keeping track of your progress, and should be an individual whom you can take into your confidence.

  1. Enjoy your learning and professional development journey

This may look out of place, but the fact is that those individuals who go on to succeed in their careers really enjoy what they do. As a student you should enjoy your studies, and should enjoy taking part in extra-curricular activities related to your future career. In addition to gaining skills and expertise in your prospective career, this also helps you to develop confidence in yourself as an individual and in your abilities as a budding engineer. Self-confidence and being comfortable with your prospective career are important in securing and holding onto work placements and your first job after graduating.

WannaCry and MalwareTech: Critical lessons for university students

Prof Abel Nyamapfene For the Student

On Friday 12th May, 2017 a massive ransomware cyber-attack struck across the whole world, hitting nearly 100 countries around the world, including Russia, China, India, Ukraine, Spain, France and  the UK. The attack was totally indiscriminate in nature. It struck at individuals, small businesses and even large well-established organisation like the UK National Health Service (NHS), Spain’s largest telecommunications provider, Telefonica and the French carmaker Renault. Worldwide, governments scrambled to find solutions to this attack. Here in the UK, an emergency COBRA meeting was hastily convened. Basically, COBRA refers to the British Government’s emergency response committee set up to respond to a national or regional crisis.

By evening, however, a 22-year-old going by the online name MalwareTech had found a solution  that brought the rampaging ransomware to an abrupt halt. In so doing, MalwareTech moved from obscure anonymity to global fame. It was now the turn for journalists to discover who this previously unknown expert could be.  Sure enough, the hero’s name was soon all over the British media, and in no time packs of journalists from all over the world were besieging his doorstep in Ilfracombe, a remote seaside village in North Devon, England. For the entire weekend, and most of the following week, MalwareTech became a household name, the toast of social media, and a topic of conversation in local pubs – everywhere, that is, except in the hallowed corridors of higher education.

The media loves simple, high impact, easy to digest headlines, and they did just that in this case. The Telegraph ran with the headline “British 22-year-old jumped around in excitement after finding way to stop global cyber attack”; the MailOnline opted for “British cyber whiz hailed `accidental hero´ after stopping global virus”; and the Sun went for “NHS HACK HERO The NHS cyber attack hero Marcus Hutchins is a 22-year-old Brit computer genius who was once expelled from school for hacking.” What stuck in the public imagination were the term “accidental hero”, MalwareTech’s relative youth, and his affinity for pizza, and the fact that he is self-taught. I beg to differ. MalwareTech is no accidental hero, but an accomplished professional, and it is well-worth learning from him.

In this article I discuss some of the key aspects that I think have played a significant role in establishing MalwareTech as an expert in the field of cybersecurity.All these aspects are part of the bouquet of skills hardline computing and engineering aficionados in universities up and down the country derisively call “soft skills”. Clearly in MalwareTech’s world, these are not “soft skills”, but critical professional skills that underpin their expertise in cybersecurity.

  1. Take charge and invest in your own learning

Most students are dependent on teachers and lecturers to develop their own understanding of a subject area, and only pay lip-service to the advice that they should take responsibility for their own learning. Not so with MalwareTech. From the various newspaper coverages, it is apparent that MalwareTech has invested significantly in his own learning. He has built a state of the art computer security lab in in his own room.

MalwareTech’s professional blog site  suggests that he has been actively involved in  cybersecurity since when he was at least 18, or possibly earlier. His solution to the ransomware problem is not nearly as accidental as the newspapers put it. His blog, including the particular blog post in which he announced the solution to stop the ransomware, shows clearly that MalwareTech has built up a repertoire of expertise and contacts over the past few years.  It is this expertise and contacts database that made it possible for him to find the solution which the whole world was looking for.

  1. Be part of a community of practice

Even though MalwareTech lives in a remote location, he is not a hermit. He is well-connected with the cyber-security community across the world. A look at his blogposts shows that he engages in ongoing debates with colleagues around the world. Apart from maintaining an active presence on social media, MalwareTech also attends cybersecurity conferences, including DEFCON, the world’s largest annual convention for internet hackers.

  1. Engage in Peer Learning

In his blogs MalwareTech discusses what he is doing, and takes on board comments from respondents. In educational terms, we can say that MalwareTech and his colleagues are using social media to engage in peer learning with the clear objective of furthering their understanding of a rapidly evolving technical field.

A look at his blogsite indicates that some of MalwareTech’s articles are clearly intended to share views with colleagues who have comparable expertise as himself. Invariably, his postings lead to technical debates in the blog comments section, as well as on twitter.

  1. Share your expertise with novices and non-experts

Many students shy away from sharing their knowledge, or teaching, colleagues who also want to build up their expertise in their professional area. A look at MalwareTech’s blog shows up a number of blog posts clearly intended for novices and non-experts. This includes blogposts like Automatic Transfer Systems (ATS) for Beginners, How Cerber’s Hash Factory Works, and a three-part series on Bootkit Disk Forensics.

Just to underscore his immense contribution to his professional community, a  grateful novice had this to say:

Thanks for posting. I am following this bootkit series with interest to educate myself in methods to enumerate the device stack and find all function offsets.

  1. Be part of a team, and collaborate

Throughout the whole process of working out a viable solution, he worked closely with other colleagues, as the following quotes from his blog post indicate:

I was quickly able to get a sample of the malware with the help of Kafeine, a good friend and fellow researcher.

A few seconds after the domain had gone live I received a DM from a Talos analyst asking for the sample I had which was scanning SMB host, which i provided.

I contacted Kafeine about this and he  linked me to the following freshly posted tweet made by ProofPoint researcher Darien Huss, who stated the opposite.

So why did our sinkhole cause an international ransomware epidemic to stop? Talos wrote a great writeup explaining the code side here, which I’ll elaborate on using Darien’s screenshot.

MalwareTech never went to university, and in our modern-day world, with its obsession with academic credentials, it is tempting to cast him aside as a one-time wonder kid.   But we will be missing the point if we do so. As I highlight in this article, MalwareTech has ably demonstrated the importance of what we in the universities refer to as “soft skills” or “employability skills”.  As MalwareTech demonstrates, in the cold light of professional practice, these skills are, in reality, critical skills that every aspiring professional needs to master, regardless of whether they choose to go to university or not.

STEM education – Why the MailOnline is now a threat to current higher education practices

Prof Abel Nyamapfene Practice and Development

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8976-6202

This past month of April has witnessed three events that are likely to have a very significant impact on Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). First, Serena Williams, who is arguably the best tennis player ever, announced that she and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian were going to have a baby.  Reddit is a highly successful news aggregation and discussion website that currently averages half a billion visitors per month.

The second event was the release of the news that Amber Heard and Elon Musk had started a relationship.  Amber Heard is a leading American actress who has recently divorced from her equally famous husband, the actor Johnny Depp. Elon Musk is a self-made multi-billionaire who made his fortune as a serial tech entrepreneur whose ventures include, amongst others, PayPal, Tesla and SpaceX.

The third event, and possibly the one with the greatest impact, and which in all likelihood was prompted by the first two, was the publication of an article by the MailOnline on the growing number of relationships between celebrity women and tech entrepreneurs. Like everything else with the MailOnline, the title of the article is catchy and meant to convey the essence of the whole story: “Beauty and the Geek: They’re brash, brainy and (handily) have fortunes to make Midas weep. No wonder the new tech nerds are attracting the world’s most desirable women.” In this article, the MailOnline argues that “models, sports stars and actresses are all after billionaire tech genius boyfriends” and “in these internet-obsessed days, you are nobody unless you have a tech genius — preferably a billionaire tech genius — on your arm.”

The MailOnline is currently the most visited English-language newspaper website in the world, with a daily average of over 15 million visitors by March 2017.  Entertainment news, in particular celebrity news and gossip stories, make up a significant component of the website’s content, and,  according to a Guardian news article,  it is responsible for  up to 25% of the web site’s traffic. Emphasising the MailOnline’s dominance as a purveyor of entertainment news, the  Financial Times suggests: “If you are tired of MailOnline, you are tired of Kim Kardashian’s life – and most readers are not.”  And this April, tech entrepreneurs such as Elon Musk, Alexis Ohanian, and others have just been added to the MailOnline’s list of newsworthy celebrities.

Why should the coverage of tech celebrities have an impact on our approach to STEM? Basically this – through the MailOnline and other celebrity-focussed online publications, news and gossip stories on the lives of tech entrepreneurs have now become staple news. And along with this, technology has now assumed a new significance. Through the lives of these entrepreneurs, young, and not so young, ambitious men and women are suddenly realising how technology mastery can lead them to a life of fame and wealth.  They see the lipstick smudges of one of the world’s most desirable women in the world on Elon Musk’s cheeks, and they realise that technology mastery can turn this fantasy into reality.  They see on the MailOnline the cool expensive gadgets that successful tech entrepreneurs own, and they realise that if only they can successfully implement one, just one, tech idea, all these things will be there for them. And unlike soccer, athletics or boxing, where only the very best can excel, no one talent is necessary to be successful at tech entrepreneurship. In fact, it appears that tech entrepreneurship is game for all.

It is therefore apparent that coverage of tech entrepreneurs on celebrity news websites is likely to increase public awareness of STEM to a far much wider degree than is possible with current publicly funded STEM outreach programmes. This is good news for STEM, and for national economies, but there is a catch. Traditional STEM outreach programmes focus on creating interest in STEM for its own sake. For instance, typical programmes aimed at school children are designed to showcase the marvels and splendour of science and technology. In such programmes children learn how to do fancy stuff with science and technology, with the expectation that such engagement will motivate them to pursue STEM study programmes when they go off to college or university. Such children become intrinsically motivated to study STEM – i.e. they now have an internal desire to study STEM for its own sake. Sadly, an unintended consequence of this is that these children become miniature clones of typical STEM academics and practitioners who are driven more by their love for theory than any other external consideration.

In contrast, people likely to be recruited to STEM by the MailOnline and by other celebrity news websites, are less likely to be interested in theory for its own sake. They are after the material benefits and social status that success in technology can bring. For them, technology is a means to an end, and not an end to itself. Such people are said to be extrinsically motivated, and this is likely to impact our approach to the education and training of STEM practitioners. Extrinsically motivated people are less likely to dwell too much on theory compared to intrinsically motivated people. Their goal is to gain just the necessary amount of STEM knowledge to enable them to pursue their goals.  They are unlikely to patiently spend three or four years in degree programmes where they can’t see where most of the theory-laden lectures are leading to. They are more likely to adopt a hands-on problem-solving approach, and any theory that does not contribute to the task at end is immediately discarded. Worst of all, they are likely to drop out of standard degree programmes. This is nothing new – Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are all university drop-outs.

We are now faced with a big challenge in STEM education. Our education systems now need to adapt to this new breed of STEM students. Conventional programmes aimed at mass education simply do not work. Rather, we should now be looking at greater personalisation in our programmes. This can be achieved by enabling students to design and direct part of their own learning. Additionally, the teaching of theory and practice should go hand-in-hand throughout the programme. Students should also have the flexibility to take some time away from university to work on a real-life application of the theory that they have learned, and education programmes should have the flexibility to accredit this work as part of the student’s learning process. This requires a whole new approach to teaching and assessment in higher education. However, the good thing is that similar approaches are now being experimented with, for instance in  work-based learning (WBL) programmes aimed at improving student employability (See, for instance, the paper by Joseph Raelin). Hence, the tools needed to implement a STEM education system that is ideal for tech entrepreneurship are already available.  What is now required is the higher education sector’s will to do so.

The Nature of the Exam in Engineering School

Prof Abel Nyamapfene For the Student, Practice and Development

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8976-6202

The end of year closed-book written examination, or exam for short, is still the main method of assessment in engineering schools. This is in spite of so many arguments against it by experts in higher education assessment methods.

Reasons for its continued dominance are many and varied, but key amongst them is that it is cultural. The exam has been with us for such a long time that almost everyone expects some sort of exam or exams at the end of the academic year. Academics who have been in the engineering education system for a long time have come to expect it – it is part and parcel of their traditional teaching role. Practising engineers who will be sitting on the various engineering job recruitment panels expect graduates to have sat some exams simply because they themselves sat and wrote exams in their student days. Finally, the student expects some sort of exam at the end of the year. This is because by the time students get to university they have sat and written scores of exams. So the main reason for the exam’s continued dominance is simply that it is part and parcel of the culture of doing education.

What then are the strengths of the exam? Those who swear by the exam believe that it is the fairest method of assessment. All the students enter the examination hall with only a pen and calculator. They are given the exam paper at the same time, under the same conditions, and they have to attempt the exam questions individually in a set period of time. What could be fairer than this?

A closer look, however, suggests that the exam is heavily biased towards our picture of the ideal student. But things are never ideal. As our understanding of individuals and assessment processes has improved, it is now clear that the exam does discriminate against certain categories of individuals. A case in point is the student with dyslexia. Such students handle text material differently from what we consider to be the norm, and for them the standard written exam presents a barrier which has nothing to do with mastery of the taught material. Of course, we have tried to accommodate such students by extending the exam time for them, having someone read out the questions for them, and in some cases having someone write out the answers under instruction from the student. Again, these attempts are not ideal; they simply serve to emphasise the “otherness” of the student in question, and might actually serve as a discrete way of telling them that they are not wanted in engineering. Indeed, engineering is notorious for its lack of diversity, and the exam only serves to reinforce this.

As an assessment tool, the exam can be fairly blunt. It is essentially a two- or three-hour test on students for material that has been taught in 20 or 30 hours of lectures combined with an equivalent number of hours for tutorials and workshops. Assuming that all the course material is covered in 20 hours of lectures, which is hardly the case, then for a two-hour exam, each hour of the exam is equivalent to half the entire course. This means that the exam can never assess the entire breadth of the course, and this is its major failing. A diligent student can prepare for the exam by covering all the lecture material, but this is highly inefficient, and every student knows that. This therefore suggests that in an exam-based course module, a student only needs to identify the examinable parts of the course material and focus only on them. This then is what learning is all about – mastering the art of the exam.

For well-established course modules, it is hugely beneficial for students to study the past exam papers. By study I don’t just mean working through all the exam questions.  Rather, the student should study the structure of the questions – how are the questions framed, what sort of answers is the examiner looking for, and most importantly which sections of the course material feature prominently in the past exam papers? More often than not, the diligent student will quickly realise that the exams follow a standard pattern.  There are some questions that recur consistently in the exam, and there are some topics that are never examined on, even though they are still accorded space in the teaching timetable.

Why do past exam papers, and the exam that you are preparing for if you are a student, cover the same sub-set of topics even though the course covers so much more than these? One reason is that experts on the material covered in a course module have very clear ideas of what is important and what is not important. Simply put, an exam in a particular area is simply inadequate if it does not cover certain areas, and this is a cardinal rule for setting exams. This means that in practice a student only needs to focus on just a handful of topics in order to excel in an exam. In course modules assessed entirely by the exam, or where the exam has a disproportionately high weighting compared to other forms of assessment, all that the student needs to do is to master only those elements of the course that appear regularly in the past exam papers.

If we then take the logic of the exam to its conclusion, we can infer that it is not necessary for students to attend all the lectures and workshops in a course module. All that a student needs to do is to concentrate on just the few lectures and workshops that contribute to the exam, and given that the exam is only two hours long, this subset of lectures and workshops can be very small. Taking this to another logical conclusion, it follows that in an exam-oriented engineering programme, a student can actually get a good degree without knowing so much as half the taught material. This may be one reason why some employers are convinced that most engineering degree qualifications are not worth the paper on which they are printed.

Be that as it may be, the exam determines what is important, and what is not important, in a course module. This has profound implications for curriculum design. As long as the exam remains dominant, it doesn’t matter how much innovation an engineering school makes to its course content and delivery. What matters is what appears in the exam. This alone effectively places a limit on the effectiveness of any curriculum innovations.

Practitioner Academics and the Lessons they have for Us

Prof Abel Nyamapfene Engineering Education Research, Practice and Development

I used to love mathematics in high school. In fact, I lived and breathed mathematics. Everyone knew I was the go-to person whenever a mathematics question got too difficult. Then I went to engineering school, and everything changed. By the end of two years of rigorous engineering mathematics, all that remained was a loathing for mathematics and everything engineering. I was on my way out of engineering. Then I got taught by a highly experienced practitioner academic who loved his subject and who cared a lot about students and how they learn.

 In this article I go down memory lane to identify some of the key lessons that we need to learn from practitioner academics. I also draw from the experiences of a Stanford University alumnus to highlight the impact that good teaching can have on individuals and on society.

Engineer van Olst’s Electromagnetics Class at the University of Zimbabwe

I signed up for an option in electromagnetics in my third year at university. The course was taught by Engineer van Olst, then a 70-something retired engineer. He had seen service during World War II as a radar and communications expert, and his approach to teaching was like no other. I can only describe it as an immersive experience into the world of electromagnetics and microwave engineering.

Armed only with his walking cane, a slide rule, and pieces of chalk, van Olst drew us into the subject of electromagnetics, clearly explaining all the underlying mathematics behind the theory, and challenging us to use our prior knowledge of mathematics and earlier engineering courses to propose solutions to the problems that he posed along the way. Unlike the textbooks, he believed in the concept of “less is more”, and only introduced new concepts as and when they were needed. His teaching approach was a form of “lean” education which took us from a place of novice ignorance to a place of confident mastery in the basics of microwave engineering.  By the time the course ended, he had successfully turned us into budding engineers eager to go out and take on the world.

Engineer van Olst was a by-product of his generation. He hated calculators and computers, and was addicted to the slide rule. In place of mindless number-crunching, he taught us to think in an engineering sense. This included teaching us to use systematic estimation procedures and mental visualisations to arrive at tentative solutions. By the end, when I looked at a vector calculus equation, I could actually visualise its behaviour in 3 dimensional space, and in no time I was devouring the mathematics lecture notes that I had once loathed.  Through a passion for his practice, and a keen awareness of student needs, he restored my confidence in both mathematics and engineering, and gave me the necessary boost to take me through the engineering programme.

His approach to teaching opened up my eyes to the creativity and innovation opportunities inherent in engineering. His was not just teaching, it was an immersive apprenticeship into engineering, and to this day I’m glad I took his course. And this is  one reason why practitioner academics are famed for all over the world. They are adept at taking their practical and theoretical knowledge of engineering, infusing it with their keen awareness of student learning, and inspiring students to levels of competence that they never dreamed of. They are adept at turning demotivated and discouraged students into innovative and creative engineers who are ready and well-equipped to take on the world. They love their subject, and they love their students, period. They don’t deliver lectures; they provide immersive learning experiences.

Ed Clarke and the Smart Design Class at Stanford

Ed Clarke is another example of a practitioner academic. He runs the Smart Design class at Stanford University. According to one of his former students interviewed by Tony Wagner in his book entitled Creating Innovators: The making of young people who will change the world, Ed Clarke was simply the “best teacher at Stanford,” and his classes were “seminal points of his college education.” In the same interview the student makes this critical observation:

His class was about how to build stuff, nothing truly academic about it, but he creates more value than the research guys. Name any significant company in Silicon Valley, and in two degrees of separation you’d find your way back to his program at Stanford – Tesla Motors, many people from the Apple team, the list goes on and on – all people who are driving product creation in the valley.

Of course, this doesn’t exactly mean that research is overvalued in universities. It simply means that the impact of a good engineering teacher has a more far-reaching impact on the economy than what is generally assumed. Going by the student’s assessment, it is not inconceivable to assume that Ed Clarke’s impact on Silicon Valley, the United States, and all the other countries directly and indirectly linked to Silicon Valley technological companies runs into billions of dollars.

The University of Bath Electrical Power Systems by Distance Learning Programme

Closer to home, the teaching team on the Electrical Power Systems by Distance Learning programme run by the University of Bath is another example where practitioner academics have had an enduring world-wide impact. Established over twenty year ago, this programme relies on a core group of practitioner academics with solid experience in the Electrical Power Systems sector, and who have a passion for teaching. Over the entire twenty-year period, the programme was advertised primarily through word of mouth, and enrolment grew from year to year. In my own reckoning, at its height in 2010- 2012, this programme was arguably the biggest M.Sc. programme in Electrical Power Systems in the whole world.

The teaching team personally developed all the teaching material, and during my tenure with the team, I often challenged students to show me any textbook that did a better job at explaining key power systems concepts than the material. These study materials, and the general approach to teaching are based on a “less is more” lean education approach that is very similar to the one used by Engineer van Olst in my student days.

The programme has a residential component, where students engage face to face with the teaching team. These residentials are not just teaching components. They are more like Electrical Power Systems festivals where students and staff enthusiastically engage face to face to explore the field.  Students only need to attend one residential over the entire course of study, but most end up attending every year. Indeed, the teaching staff have successfully turned these essentially remedial teaching residentials into opportunities for immersive learning experiences.

Student projects constitute another high point for the programme. Student projects range from the practice-based to the highly innovative research-based.  They draw from the practical expertise of both the students and staff, and also from the ongoing research at Bath. These projects are not just the mundane projects typically found on other programmes. Rather, they are a by-word for staff-student cooperation, passion, creativity, innovation and inspiration. It is no wonder that graduates from this programme are highly valued by employers and on graduate research programmes.

Concluding Remarks

These vignettes that I have described in this article lead me to the following conclusions:

  1. Teaching in engineering should be context driven. Theory and practice should be woven together with the aim of teaching being to take the students to a higher level of understanding and practical engagement with the subject.
  2. Effective teaching in engineering is inherently activity based, even in a classroom where the only technology is a chalkboard. Students should actively engage in problem solving as part of the learning process.
  3. Although completing the syllabus is important, the prime goal for teaching in engineering should be on developing student competence and expertise in a particular area.
  4. Successful teaching in engineering is inherently a multi-dimensional interpersonal process. Students should engage with the teacher; the teacher should engage with the students; and students should engage with each other.
  5. Effective teaching in engineering is a highly emotive activity where both the teacher and the students should be emotionally involved.

Fish is Fish: An Insight into how we can prepare for Engineering Education Transitions

Prof Abel Nyamapfene Practice and Development

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8976-6202

Fish is Fish is a children’s illustrated book written by Leo Lionni and first published in 1970. It is about a small fish and a tadpole who lived together in a small pond, and were inseparable friends. Over several weeks both the small fish and the tadpole grew up into adulthood. The small fish became a big fish, whilst the tadpole slowly grew legs, and lost its tail and became a fully grown-up frog.  Soon the now grown-up frog left the pond and started a new life on dry land. The fish also wanted to follow the frog and see and experience the big wide world, but it couldn’t since it did not have the lungs to breathe in air or the legs to walk on dry land.

After a long time, the frog came back to the pond to see his childhood friend, and he eagerly began to tell the fish all about the outside world. He talked about the birds that he had seen, that they had wings, two legs, and many colours. As the fish listened, in his mind he saw the birds that his friend described as large feathered fish that could fly. When the frog talked about cows, the fish could only picture them as large, four-legged fish with horns, and which ate grass and produced milk. It was the same case when the frog described men, women and children – the fish could only see them in his mind as two-legged fish that wore clothes. Everything that the frog talked about, the fish could only see it as some kind of fish.  It was as if the fish could not go beyond his “fishness” to see the things described by the frogs for what they were.

This children’s picture book has important lessons for the engineering profession. In simple terms, engineering is divided into at least three stages, namely pre-engineering education – which includes primary and secondary schools, tertiary-level engineering education – which includes further education and university level engineering education, and lastly engineering practice.  Currently, these three levels of the engineering profession are largely disconnected. Whilst considerable effort and resources have been made to bring awareness of engineering education to pre-university students, this is still limited.  What this means is that pre-university students have little or no opportunity to engage with engineering education, let alone engineering practice. Hence, most pre-university students can only imagine what engineering education or engineering practice is really like. With so little information, it is no wonder that some groups of students, for example women and minority students, feel  that engineering is not for them. On the other hand, some of those who opt to study engineering at university have conceptions of engineering education and practice that are quite different from the reality. This situation only leads to widespread disengagement from engineering education programmes, and to high drop-out rates, both during studies and upon graduation.

For the past forty years, industry has been complaining persistently about the perceived lack of work-readiness of engineering graduates. Commonly cited shortcomings include poor communication skills, poor team-working and leadership skills, and a general lack of commercial awareness. Engineering schools have responded by introducing problem and project-based learning which offer more authentic learning, but the complaints from industry have persisted. In fact, studies indicate that despite efforts by universities to provide authentic learning in their programmes, student internships and work experience still remain the most, if not only, reliable predictor for student work-readiness.

So what can we learn from the Fish is Fish picture storybook?  First, that pre-university students need to start actively engaging with engineering education and practice well before they go to university. Second, that no amount of explaining can provide foolproof work-readiness for university-level students – the only alternative is early and persistent student engagement with industry thoughout their studies. Perhaps if we do so then the leaky pipeline in engineering education can become less leaky, and the engineering profession can become more inclusive and more diverse.

The state of Africa’s economic development: Is this not a continent’s cry for more women in engineering?

Prof Abel Nyamapfene Engineering Education Research, Policy and Advocacy

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8976-6202

Sub Saharan Africa’s economies have remained largely stagnant for the past 40 years, and during this whole period, women have largely been marginalised within engineering, be it in education or in practice. Were engineering to become more inclusive, would this not help to lift Sub Saharan Africa out of its current economic stagnation? Almost 25 years ago, in 1994, Winnie Byanyima, who is now the Executive Director of Oxfam International, asked the very same question in her Daphne Jackson Memorial Lecture at the University of Cambridge.

The title of her lecture was “The role of women in developing countries,” and her primary focus was Sub Saharan Africa.  Then, as is the case now, Sub Saharan African countries were pegged at the lowest end of the economic development scale. Then, as is the case now, Sub Saharan African countries had immense natural resources that remain largely untapped. Then, as is the case now, the economies of these countries were characterised by a low technological and scientific base, and a correspondingly small industrial sector. Then, as is the case now, the main economic activity was agriculture, which has been forever characterised by under-investment and low productivity.

Yet, even back then, African governments were very aware of the economic benefits of investing in people as a vehicle for development. And they were doing something about it, just as they are still doing something about it. Following in the footsteps of Europe and North America, post-colonial Sub Saharan Africa was, and is, making significant investments in engineering education. Yet this investment has not brought the expected economic benefits that are so visible in Europe and North America. Instead, a recent report by the African Technology Policy Studies Network paints a bleak picture:

Despite the existence of engineering institutions in Sub-Saharan African countries that have been graduating hundreds of engineers annually for about four decades, there has been little progress in the acquisition and effective utilization of technology for industrial development(Afonja et al. 2005).

What went wrong? As Afonja et al. (2005)suggest,  there are multiple reasons for this failure, including some that are beyond the control of individual African governments. This is to be expected, as economic underdevelopment is a very complex phenomenon that requires a multi-pronged approach to address. But most certainly, one of the missing elements to the African economic development jigsaw puzzle has been the continued marginalisation of women at all levels of engineering. Today, just as was the case in 1994, both engineering education and engineering practice  are characterised by low percentages of women (Afonja et al. 2005; Manyuchi et al. 2015). A case in point is Zimbabwe, where:

The number of women pursuing engineering education is still as low as 11% for undergraduate degrees and as low as 14% for postgraduate degrees.  Moreover, the number of women offering engineering education at these major universities is still as low as 13%.”(Manyuchi et al. 2015)

With regard to Sub Saharan Africa, Winnie Byanyima argues that for millennia, women have been “the primary users and managers of the environment, the health-givers, and food-providers.”  Even now, women in Africa shoulder the burden of economic survival. They make up the bulk of the small scale farmers, and the bulk of informal traders, even to the extent of bringing in a bigger slice of the family income compared to men.  Through these roles, women in Sub Saharan Africa have “accumulated vast knowledge and technologies in the fields of health, biodiversity, agriculture and food processing”(Byanyima 1994). And yet, modern engineering education and practice has consigned women to the margins. Such marginalisation, argues Winnie, has led to the non-utilisation, and subsequent loss of all the knowledge and experiential capital that women have accumulated over the centuries. In turn, this has led to the implementation of inappropriate engineering solutions as men lack the indepth, nuanced environmental and socio-cultural expertise that women possess by virtue of their historical roles in the African community.

In any case, given that women make more than half the entire Sub Saharan African population, excluding them from engineering means that we deprive engineering of at least half the available potential for creativity and innovation. This has huge consequences for the women themselves, their children, their families and the economy at large. In acknowledgement of this fact, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) comments:

The case for gender equality is founded in both human rights and economic arguments. As such, closing gender gaps must be a central part of any strategy to create more sustainable and inclusive economies and societies (Adema et al. 2014)

 So, is it not time that Sub Saharan Africa open up the doors of engineering education and practice to women? And is it not time that the culture within Sub Saharan African engineering education and practice become more welcoming to women and other historically marginalised communities? And is it not time that Sub Saharan African fathers, mothers and teachers stop channelling girls to “feminine” jobs, such as nursing and clerical work, and instead, work together to remove the deep-seated cultural obstacles that make it so difficult for women to pursue successful careers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)? Surely, is it not time for a new dawn in the unfolding history of women in engineering?

References

Adema, W., Ali, N., Frey, V., Kim, H., Lunati, M., Piacentini, M., and Queisser, M. (2014). Enhancing Women’s Economic Empowerment Through Entrepreneurship and Business Leadership in OECD Countries. OECD.

Afonja, A., Sraku-Lartey, K., and Oni, S. (2005). “Engineering education for industrial development: case studies of Nigeria, Ghana and Zimbabwe.” Nairobi: ATPS Working Paper, 42.

Byanyima, W. (1994). “The role of women engineers in developing countries.” RSA Journal, 142(5454), 57-66.

Manyuchi, M. M., Nleya, M., Chihambakwe, Z. J., and Gudukeya, L. K. “Zimbabwean Women in Engineering Education-Is It About Technophobia?” Presented at Proceedings of The Engineers Without Borders Conference, Livingstone, Zambia.

The London Job Market: Time now for community-based Informal Learning

Prof Abel Nyamapfene Policy and Advocacy

1: The Changing London Job Landscape

There are growing fears that in the not-too-distant future, the majority of us will be replaced from our current jobs by technology. These fears appear to be quite well justified. In 2014, Deloitte LLP invited two Oxford academics, Frey and Osborne, to investigate the risks of jobs in London being taken over by technology over the next 10 to 20 years. They found that almost one in three of all London jobs were at risk of being taken over.

Hourglass Work Model
The hour – glass effect of technology on jobs (Hackett, Shutt & Maclachlan, 2012)

 

However, the impact of technology is not the same on all jobs. As Frey and Osborne found out, low paying jobs were more likely to be taken over by technology than high paying jobs.  In fact, according to their calculations, people earning £30 000 or less were more likely to go than those earning £100 000 and above.  This suggests that the gap between the “haves” and the “have-nots” is likely to increase further as technology penetrates deeper into the workplace. This has serious implications for London, and other major cities – technology is likely to concentrate wealth into the hands of a few very rich people, and consign the majority of city populations to low-level menial jobs.

Frey and Osborne also discovered a hollowing out of mid-level salary jobs, a phenomenon that Paul Sissons has termed “the hourglass effect.”  In their study, the jobs that were most likely to go were middle-skill, middle-income, routine cognitive and manual tasks such as office and administrative support, book-keeping, sales and services, transportation, construction and manufacturing. These jobs make up the bulk of typical London occupations, and all of them consist of procedures that can easily be programmed into a computer system.

London jobs that are least likely to go include high salary jobs in senior management, IT, engineering and science, legal services, arts and education. Paul Sissons classifies these jobs as managerial, professional, and associate professional and technical occupations. According to him, these jobs accounted for more than 75% in employment growth in the UK over the period 2001 to 2007.

Frey and Osborne also identified a number of low level salary jobs that are least likely to be replaced by technology.  These include healthcare, personal services jobs like food services, cleaning, child care, hairdressing and recreation occupations. According to Paul Sisson, each of these low-skill, low-wage jobs is quite difficult to automate because “they consist of either a series of non-routine physical tasks, or because it relies on inter-personal (soft) skills”.

2: Emerging Job Skills for the Future

Frey and Osborne suggest that jobs that are least likely to be replaced by technology require a combination of technical, social and creative skills. In their study they found out that in London, at the moment, and in the near future, the five top skills in demand are digital know how, management, creativity, entrepreneurship and problem solving.

It is likely that new jobs are likely to emerge in place of those jobs that have been taken over by technology. As Ian Stewart, Debapratim De and Alex Cole, who all work as economists at Deloitte LLP, found out, when technology is adopted, it leads to job increases. Using census data for England and Wales going back 150 years, they found that the general effect of technological change, from the invention of the steam engine right up to today’s Internet age, has been to increase jobs, usually in completely new areas. It goes without saying that for the case of London, any new jobs created are likely to demand skills in the top five skills now in demand: digital know how, management, creativity, entrepreneurship and problem solving.

3: Preparing for the Technological Onslaught

Given the changing London job landscape as a result of technology, we can do one of two things. We can choose to do nothing and let events take their own course. This would be suicidal. The London Poverty Profile report for the year 2015 indicates that almost one third (27%) of all Londoners live in poverty. The majority of these people are in a working family, and the main reason for poverty is the toxic combination of low salaries and high housing costs. Doing nothing will certainly lead to further increases in the proportion of people living in poverty. In fact, it’s not unthinkable that doing nothing will lead to poverty levels reaching the high percentiles common in the least developed countries. And not doing anything has serious political and existential consequences for London and the UK. As we saw in the Brexit vote, people who feel left out by economic changes are no longer willing to just look on and do nothing. After all, as history testifies, a hungry population is a very angry population indeed.

The other option, which is the only viable option, is to prepare London for the emerging technological onslaught. There is need for re-training and education for all those people in low level jobs, and those in mid-salary level jobs that are threatened by technology. The formal education system alone cannot cope. Whole communities, including children and adults, need to be equipped with the key skills that are now in demand: digital know how, management, creativity, entrepreneurship and problem solving. One approach to this is promoting informal community-based learning.

In 2009 the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills published a white paper aimed at promoting informal learning within communities. Entitled “the Learning Revolution”, this white paper sought to “empower more people to organise themselves to learn, with opportunities designed by communities for communities.” The paper drew up some guiding principles, which they adopted from the UNESCO 1996 paper entitled “Learning: The treasure within.” These principles are:

  • Learning to know – becoming inspired, discovering and exploring, developing a passion for learning, acquiring knowledge and understanding of ourselves, our immediate world and beyond
  • Learning to do – gaining skills, confidence, competence and practical abilities
  • Learning to live together – learning tolerance, mutual understanding and interdependence, sharing the experience of learning with family and friends
  • Learning to be – developing ourselves, our mental and physical capacity, wellbeing and autonomy, and our ability to take control of our lives and influence the world around us.

Although these government efforts have been shelved since the change in government, it is imperative that we resuscitate the community-based informal learning programme. London has the highest concentration of world-class universities, all of which are leading in STEM research and education. London therefore has sufficient human capacity to initiate and lead community efforts to equip its people with the skills that are needed for today. In this regard, I see London academics and university students going into non-traditional learning spaces like churches, mosques, pubs, and food restaurants to help people acquire the five critical skills now needed for survival in the technological era. This will be authentic learning in practice, and though it may not lead to academic credentials, it will certainly empower people to have mastery over the incoming technology, including the setting up of tech entrepreneurial ventures up and down London. Is this not costly and improbable, we may ask. Certainly not, if we consider the ghastly consequences of doing nothing.

Bibliography

  1. Carl Benedikt Frey & Michael A. Osborne. 2014. Agiletown: The relentless march of technology and London’s response. Deloitte LLP, London.
  2. Ian Stewart, Debapratim De, & Alex Cole. Technology and people: the great job-creating machine. Deloitte LLP, London.
  3. Paul Sissons. 2011. “The Hourglass and the Escalator: Labour market change and mobility.”paper of the Bottom Ten Million research programme, The Work Foundation, London, UK (2011).
  4. Hannah Aldridge, Theo Barry Born, Adam Tinson and Tom MacInnes (2015). London’s Poverty Profile 2015. London. http://www.londonspovertyprofile.org.uk/
  5. Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills. 2009. The Learning Revolution. Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, London
  6. 1996. Learning: The treasure within. UNESCO Publishing, Paris.
  7. Hackett, L. Shutt, and N. Maclachlan. 2012. The Way We’ll Work: Labour market trends and preparing for the hourglass.AGCAS