Distance education in engineering: An outline and perspectives

Post-graduate Engineering programmes in Brazil have produced quite a number of new masters during the past few years. Only a small number of them, however, are employees specifically sent by their employers to obtain an advanced degree at the University. On the other hand, due to the economic recession, a good part of the master’s candidates are young people that were not able to get a position in the job market. Most of them will then try to continue their academic studies, either by securing a place on a doctorate programme here, or by seeking a scholarship to study abroad. This means that the impact of the Brazilian post-graduate programmes on the country’s development process has not been too significant. In North America and in Europe distance education has been used extensively, even at the post-graduate level, with the clear objective of responding to the needs of industry and society, and improving the skills of the labor force. This paper lays out, for the Brazilian audience, some conceptual and technical aspects related to distance education in Europe and North America. An up-dated bibliography will help the reader to further investigate the subject in more detail. An analysis of the perspectives and conditions to successfully introduce distance education in Brazil is presented.