New Concept of Engineering Education for Sustainable Development of Society

The need to modernize the engineering education in the context of the transition to a digital economy has been substantiated. The drawbacks in the existing system of training modern engineers have been updated. The contradiction between the quality of training of engineers and the requirements of employers is revealed. Requirements for a modern engineer have been formulated. It is shown that a new model of engineering training is required to train an engineer of a new type that meets the modern conditions of sustainable development. Innovative engineering activity means the creation of technical facilities for a world free of hunger and epidemics, with open access to fresh water and information, to education for all, and to equality and sustainable development. It should be based on two guiding principles: competence to implement a solution and responsibility, to be aware of the consequences of this solution for the problem itself, as well as for the social, ecological and economic environment. On the basis of the revealed differences between the natural cognitive process and the structure of the existing engineering training, the concept of the natural structure of engineering training is formulated. Its main idea is that the educational process is an activity to develop the initial level of knowledge, skills and abilities of the student to the level necessary and sufficient for the implementation of a certain type of activity in technology. The structure of the educational process as an activity should coincide with the generalized structure of activity. Successful approbation of this concept on the example of continuous geometric-graphic training of students of a technical university allows us to hope that its implementation will help to form a new type of engineer.