Investigating the relationship between Architecture Education Curricula in Egypt and Graduates' Readiness for Professional Practice

Abstract

While higher education is often seen as a stepping stone to a good job, the education methodology leads to a different path. The profession of architecture is always changing, while the architecture education has been slow to respond to this change, especially in the Middle East. This research aims to investigate the level of readiness of graduates of architecture schools in Egypt to the market competencies of the 21st century, with special reference to ASU and AASTM, then proposing suggestions to improve graduates’ readiness for professional practice. It's undeniable that universities all over the world always strive to demonstrate that their graduates are best fit into the job market, however, architecture schools need to reconsider the ways in which the curriculum helps to develop the skills and the 21st century competencies needed in the world of work. Worth mentioning students are highly concerned about what to submit rather than how to present it, since most of the weight goes to the technical part of the submission, while in real life the how is as important as the what. Students should also have an awareness of the opportunities they will find in the labor market from an early stage of their undergraduate years so they can determine their career interest and focus on its’ demanded employability skills through university study. A literature review was done to investigate the philosophies followed by different Architecture schools in Egypt for their curricula, and to present the ILOS and methods used in two specific universities in Egypt. Then a questionnaire survey targeting architecture employees graduated from Egyptian universities was done to identify the points of weaknesses graduates encountered during their work practice and how did they managed to proceed. Then interviews targeting founders and CEOs of multi-national firms in Egypt were done to identify the market demanded employability skills and the missing knowledge and skills of Egyptian universities' graduates. Finally, a set of actions is proposed to narrowing the gap found between architecture education in Egypt and market demanded employability skills.

Keywords

• architecture curriculum
• employability skills
• intended learning outcomes (ilos)
• graduates competencies
• research and development (r&d)