The Danish business sector is facing a future with even fewer engineers than first assumed, ascertains DTU President Anders Bjarklev. His comment comes in response to the so-called Graduate Committee having completed its final report.
Together with the National Union of Students in Denmark (DSF), presidents from the other universities and representatives from the Danish Ministry of Higher Education and Science, Anders Bjarklev has been a member of the committee, which has been entrusted with a number of tasks, including to make the existing Industry Master of Science in Engineering more attractive to students. But DTU does not believe that the work has borne fruit.
“Our approach has been constructive and solution-oriented, but a tight budget and a closed process have left us without a workable result,” says Anders Bjarklev.
DTU is about to convert 15 per cent of the ordinary 2-year MSc students into 4-year part-time Industry Master of Science in Engineering students, where the student will work in a company 25 hours a week and study approximately 25 hours a week. This part-time MSc programme model already exists, but only 1.4 per cent of students at DTU choose to enrol in it.
“Our proposed solutions for creating a more attractive study programme have not been adopted. Nor has any solution been presented for how we’re to succeed in getting such a large number of additional students to choose this study programme,” says Anders Bjarklev.
Fewer engineers despite increasing demand
The DTU President expects that the consequence will be that DTU will produce even fewer engineers in the future.
Firstly, the model for the Industry MSc in Engineering is too inflexible. Secondly, it is unclear what the procedure is if, for example, a company terminates its collaboration with a student under the Industry Master of Science in Engineering.
As, in case of such termination, the student is entitled to be able to complete his or her study programme, DTU may be forced to reserve study places on the 2-year Master of Science (MSc) programme and consequently further limit the intake.
“Having to limit our intake doesn’t make sense. The Master of Science in Engineering was the most popular study programme in Denmark this year, and the Danish business sector lacks thousands of engineers for the green transition, life science, and digitalization. I urge our politicians to put the Graduate Reform on hold,” says Anders Bjarklev.
DTU already expects to educate 4,200 fewer engineers by 2035 than the University has capacity for. This is a result of a previous political agreement to limit the number of study places on the large campuses and move study places to other parts of Denmark. As a result of the Graduate Reform, the University will also have to admit 121 fewer students than in 2023 already from next year.
At the same time, an analysis from the consultancy Iris Group shows that in 2030, Zealand-based companies alone will lack 17,000-21,000 employees with degrees from higher technical study programmes, including engineers.
