Engineering Education, International Accords: Perspectives and Challenges

The International Accords for accrediting engineering degree programs, are some agreements in which the member countries (signatories) evaluate, compare and share with each other their experiences about procedures, policies and criteria used in accrediting engineering academic programs. Rules and procedures made under these agreements, engineering degree programs are defined as the programs through which practitioners normally satisfy the academic requirements. These policies and requirements are global, so the engineering education could be consistent in different countries. Also the independence of the academic institutions delivering accredited or recognized programs increases theirs validity. This article review the Washington Accord, Sydney Accord and Dublin Accord and states opportunities and challenges for Iran's participating/ signatory. This survey studied the dimensions of the International Agreements including: purposes, content and policies. Considering these three dimensions the engineering education standards are determined. Therefore, finding the missed components of engineering education could lead us to improve and reform our engineering educational systems. Moreover, regarding the agreements in our engineering system, leads us to meet the international standards and redefine it more relevant with the real world. On the other hand, agreements attention to outputs of engineering educational systems will guarantee the independence of signatories in designing arrangements. In addition, these arrangements cause to meet the output standards and at the same time maintain the local view of engineering education. International accrediting for engineering degrees could open new perspectives to occupational opportunities for engineering graduates. However, the distance between our engineering education status and what is required for agreements, the challenges for human capital and occupational opportunities in engineering system are the difficulties in front of being a participating/signatory. Keep in mind these things, we should design local arrangements to meet the standards of agreements and monitoring the results. So, after this period of attempts, we could make.