Comparison of Transversal Competence Levels of Engineering Students with Labour Market Requirements. Time for Change

Abstract

The globalization and the great change in technology of the 1990’s brought a particular importance in developing transversal competences (Shuman, 2005). ERI-Net defined transversal competences as “skills, values and attitudes that are required for learners’ holistic development and for learners to become capable of adapting to change” (Care 2016), for instance communication skills, teamwork, and innovative thinking.
Although there is high degree of agreement on the importance of the transversal competences, employers observe a significant discrepancy between the preparation of graduate students and the academic work and the labour market.
In this study, some curriculum elements are proposed to integrate the curriculum of aerospace engineering (AE) Master students at Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) and a measurement tool is developed to measure the competence level of engineering students.