Engineering education in Southeast Asia: practice and research

Abstract

Engineering education is gaining interest among various stakeholders in many countries around the world especially in Southeast Asia. Many countries in this region have engineering education societies and accreditation bodies that promote quality engineering education, particularly in higher learning institutes. The demands of employable engineering graduates and the twenty-first-century grand challenges have forced more initiatives and attention towards research on the engineering education practices. Therefore, engineering education centers are established to carry out research, training, and services that can improve and enhance the practice. However, without the virtuous cycle of research, the initiatives to research the engineering education practice are not grounded to the related educational theories and cannot bridge the research findings to practice. This chapter provides an overview of the development of engineering education in Southeast Asia and proposes the virtuous cycle of research in bridging theories, research, and practice in engineering education.