Exploratory Data Analysis of Artificial Intelligence Integration in Philippine Engineering Programs Offered by State Universities and Colleges: A Preliminary Assessment

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a disruptive element in modern engineering and consequently led to the reshaping of industry demands and educational frameworks worldwide. Recognizing the potential impact of AI on the engineering sector, there is indeed a growing need to evaluate how well current educational programs are integrating these advancements. This study therefore focused on assessing the extent of AI integration within the curricula of engineering programs offered by Philippine State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) with the objective to identify their current capabilities and gaps on AI integration. To achieve this goal, the methodology employed three phases: Data Collection, Data Analysis, and Insight Generation. Initially, the Data Collection phase involved the creation of a tabular data from 78 publicly accessible SUC websites which contained the engineering program descriptions, objectives, courses and their respective descriptions. When specific course descriptions were unavailable, standard definitions provided by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) were utilized. The Data Analysis phase involved the normalization and preprocessing of text data to establish two distinct corpora based on constructed dataset and were subsequently analyzed for AI-related keywords using 1-gram and 2-gram models. Implementation of the last phase revealed a significant but partial integration of AI competencies in the engineering curricula. Keywords such as "learn", "teamwork", "ICT", "R", "data", "statistic", "software", and "communication" suggested foundational AI skills are being incorporated within the engineering curricula. However, the absence of advanced AI terms like "machine learning" and "neural networks" highlighted a gap in preparing students for more sophisticated AI roles. This analysis indicated that while some foundational aspects of AI are introduced, a more comprehensive approach is needed for full integration. To address this, this work proposes to: (i) extend engineering programs to include core AI courses, (ii) integrate AI-focused courses into existing tracks, or (iii) offer AI courses as summer modules. Collectively, the findings of this study underlined the need for curriculum adjustments to better align engineering programs with the evolving demands of the current technology landscape, thereby enhancing the global competitiveness of Filipino engineering graduates.