Curriculum development of higher engineering education by mass customization a case study at Shaoxing University China

Abstract

Due to the progress in both technical and social aspects, higher engineering education faces many challenges, including diversity-efficiency dilemma, cost constrains, and a changeable human resource market for engineering major graduates. Meanwhile, in China, from the end of last century, a great expansion took place in higher education. China's higher engineering education not only has to meet the problems encountered by engineering education itself, but also has to transform from elite higher education to mass higher education. Based on the successful experience of mass customization application in manufacturing industries, mass customization is introduced into the curriculum reform of higher engineering education to meet the challenges in the transforming time. A case study at Shaoxing University, China, is presented in this paper to show how the principle of mass customization was employed in curriculum reform in order to improve the diversity, cross-disciplinary and agility of higher engineering education in an ever-changing age.