Friday, December 01, 2006

Engineers can't write report

Making professionals more marketable?

According to Ong Tee Keat, the deputy higher education minister, "Engineers are highly regarded professionals but they find it difficult to write good reports."

Ong Tee Keat says that poor communication skill is the reason.

"Engineers have a hard time writing their reports because they lack the necessary skills to communicate their ideas.

"Their presentations are often weak and non-technical people are left in the dark," he said at the launch of the Engineering Invention ‘N’ Innovation Challenge (EINIC) 2007.

"This is why the Ministry of Higher Education has introduced soft skills modules to be conducted in public universities and polytechnics."

I agree that poor communication skill is a reason. But why is it so? Why do graduates have poor communication skill? Is it the syllabus problem or that the lecturers themselves are also facing poor communication problem?

The ministry should evaluate the lecturers and their competency to determine whether it could have contributed to the same old song.

3 comments:

O2Deprivation said...

Does OKT knows the fact that instead of getting the experts to provide guidance, fresh graduates (tutors) were hired for delivering soft-skill modules?

Imagine you are attending a physics class where the teacher need your help to solve the questions. Is there any difference between attending and not attending?

Some words to my secondary school's Physics teacher, don't blame me OK? Now you know the reason why I choose to skip your classes.

seefei said...

hei2 i just bought a book on "writing" yesterday. it is a reference book for secondary school here.

writing is a skill that, in my opinion, not taught properly in school. we learned communication skill in univ but mostly on presentation and not writing.

but it is good to start somewhere cos not all engineers end up as engr. some as managers, civil servants, politicians etc that require more than average std in oratorial and writing skill!

Anonymous said...

If let Ong Tee Keat run any company, the company will be out of luck. It is reason why most engineer are not good in "presentation". Translating technical terms into word understood by high level management need a person understand "language of both world". No many people have the time/interest to do both. It is the task of "middle level", e.g. chief engineer, analyst, consultants, operation manager,etc.

But we know OTK skewed the real reason behind the training : poor skill, in all aspect.