In the September of 1996 the Technical University of Budapest (TUB) introduced a new, alternating form of engineer training, otherwise called "sandwich-type" education.

The main characteristics of this training:

This five year undergraduate training consists of two differenc phases. during the first three years the students get a basic engineering training, which is followed by two years of specialisation, during which they alternate between the university and the industry (the 7. and 9. semester at the university and the 8. and 10. semester at the industry). Every student's training is helped and controlled by a university-tutor and an industrial-tutor. This new training form is generally based on the experiences of the renowned French education institute CNAM (Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers), adapting their methods to the Hungarian circumstances.

The description of the training:

The sandwich-type education as a whole (curriculum, teaching, exams, thesis work) is carried out in close cooperation between the university and the industrial partner. During the industrial period, the students have to solve concrete company tasks. A significant part of the training teaches management and marketing basics, communication skills, information technology and also a foreign language. The studets get supplementary grant from the company (presently 15.000 HUF/person/month)

The education is carried out in the frame of TUB's departmental system and gives the same diploma, as the "normal" undergraduate engineering program.

The students:

This type of training is specially design for good, practice-oriented students as an alternative training choice. The selection of the students from the students who have completed the first three years of basic training, is done in cooperation with the university and the industrial partner taking into consideration the needs of the given company.

Electable areas of training:

In September 1996 the training has stred in three areas,

Environmental Technics and Management (Faculty of Mechanical Engineering)

Steel Structure (Faculty of Civil Engineering) and

Process Engineering (Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Informatics).

Arcitecture (Faculty of Architecture), a new area for sandwich-type education is also under preparation. Our intention is to increase the number of electable areas in the future.

The teaching materials consist of two modules. One of the modules includes the technical courses related the area and the other module consists of management, marketing, native and foreign language communication.

Implementation:

The program was proposed and implemented with significant help from the Hungarian Ministry of Culture and Education, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the PHARE aid-program of the European Union and one of the leading Hungarian enterprises, the DUNAFERR Ltd.

The implementation is carried out in the framework of the PHARE Program HU-94.05 "Strengthening the links between education and the economy". The main objective of the project is to establish the required legal, financial and educational methodological conditions and to consult about the experiences with other educational institutions.

Benefits and costs:

For the company

• Benefits: since they participate in the educational process, they will be able to ensure that their future employees will have the most suitable training; the cooperation with the university will open up great professional and intellectual capacity for the company which they can use to solve their technical problems.

• Costs: they have to receive the students and provide concrete engineering tasks for them; and industiral-tutor has to be appointed; grant, working-cloth, meal contribution and travel contribution or lodging for the students and direct financial contibution to TUB (methods and sources are under consideration).

For the company

• Benefits: the individual training gives them more motivation in financial and in professional sense as well; they will face ral life engineering problems. They will have better chances in finding a job and they will have better carrier opportunities.

• Costs: they loose the will-known university environment, they have to adjust to the industrial surrounding and they have to endure a heavier load.

For the university

• Benefits: the professional training can be improved taking into account the real industrial needs, which makes the education more effective; they can build good connections between the university and the industry *joint research and development, outside resources for the university, technology transfer etc.).

• Costs: additional teaching load and administrative duties; creating a more complicated educational structure.

A short description of the three already running modules:

Environmental Technics and Management: the students get basic knowledge, among other, about:

• how to meet the environmental requirement in the planning, implementation and operation.

• how to execute the environemental duties in the indutry and the local authorities, especially measurements, auditing, effect analysis, material- energy- and waste-management.

• increased awareness and commitment to environmental questions.

Steel Structures: the students get basic knowledge, among others, about:

• contemporary steel structure designs, manufacturing processes, contruction and maintanance.

• building public utilitites and bridges etc.

• habitation development.

• construction implementation and design.

Process engineering: the students get basic knowledge, among others, about:

• multilevel, computer-aided process controlling system design.

• choosing and implementing control algorithms.

• robot controlling systems.

• parallel architectures and real time systems.

For further information please contact our

Open and Distance Learning Secretariat (CFA Hungary 2000)

Dr. Moson Péter project cordinator or Ildikó Varga assistant cordinator Budapest, Bertalan Lajos u. 2. Hungary 111, tel/fax: 36-463-2561

email: odls@khmk.bme.hu

internet: http://tutor.nok.bme.hu