Engineering Education in Knowledge Based Economy

In recent years, through the emergence of knowledge based economy and the importance of technological entrepreneurship as the motor of it, engineering and hence, engineering education has been changing. Engineering is no longer a job but a profession, like lawyers and doctors, and engineering activity is no longer an individual technical task, but a social multidimensional one, and therefore engineering education cannot remain a mere technical education but it should change to the process of learning technological development. Engineers of this educational process are not only at high level in basic engineering skills and ability in technological innovation but also are active and aware in social and business aspects. For achieving this, we should use higher standards of education and develop their creativity, team working skills, social responsibilities and business insights and in respect of specialty we should put more stress on their ability for problem formulation and total production design. This article mainly aims at the necessity of changing in the engineering education considering the emergence of knowledge based economy and different aspects of this change. So, at first, the article surveys the characteristics of knowledge based economy and then determines the specifications of the engineers who are able to be active in this era and at the end, name some suggestions about engineering education as the process that provide these engineers.