Active-based key-skills learning in engineering curriculum to improve student engagement

Employer groups have been extensively lobbied the government to introduce key skills development strategy for higher education to produce well-rounded graduates. This is particularly true in professional disciplines such as engineering where discipline specific knowledge rapidly becomes obsolete. Key-skills is the key to success; they help one to excel in the workplace and their importance cannot be denied in this information age. However, it is difficult to teach and assess key-skills as students are not familiar with the importance and relevance of key-skills and lecturers are not familiar how to embed key-skills into the traditional core discipline teaching. In this paper, we will discuss the changes in an electrical engineering programme in Ireland - how curriculum reform has given an opportunity to embed key-skills into the programme. We will also discuss the research investigated on how to engage students to key-skills learning and several development strategies used to demonstrate key-skills in an engineering curriculum.