Current Situation and Challenges of International Higher Education Cooperation in the Engineering Field

—Introduction of Laboratory-Based Education (LBE)—

Abstract

Nurturing human resources who have ability to assimilate advanced technology and to create new value is one of the priority agenda for developing countries; human capital is essential as social capacity for technological progress. Since developing countries are also required to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs) through harmonizing economic growth, social inclusion and environmental protection, industrialization is indispensable and must be followed by technological progress. In this regard, higher education institutions in developing countries often lack research capability and hence fail to produce human resources necessary for industrial development.

Laboratory-Based Education (LBE) is Japanese-style engineering education and involves graduate students in research activities as his/her supervisor's laboratory (lab) members. A lab has hierarchical structure, consisting of a principal investigator as the leader, researchers, graduate students and undergraduate students doing graduation thesis work; in the context of LBE, a lab is not a space but a research team. LBE thus makes faculty members conduct research and produce new ideas, while nurturing graduate students'research capability in the lab.

This paper examines two examples of LBE that had been introduced through Japanese technical cooperation projects in Indonesia and Vietnam and evaluates the output of LBE implementation. The result suggests that introducing LBE enables faculty members of universities in developing countries to conduct research and equip graduate students with ability to solve problems. Considering that economic growth is one of the essential factors for SDGs, LBE therefore may contribute to the achievement of SDGs through providing industries with new ideas that are necessary for technological progress and human resources who are capable of assimilating advanced technologies.

Challenges for international higher education cooperation in the engineering field are to sustain research cooperation in order to continuously upgrade research capability of universities in developing countries and to raise consciousness of the importance of industry-university linkage in terms of contribution to sustainable economic growth.