Letta and Draghi Push Forward Engineering Schools to Adapt to Challenges for the Future of Europe

A decade ago, Dr. Struth from Bosch said that Industry 4.0 needs an education offensive because companies are not yet able to fully tap into the potential of Industry 4.0. The skills required in the workforce for this industry are changing faster than traditional curricula can keep up due to the new technologies. The reports commissioned by the European Union to Letta and Draghi indicate that EU must invest in the industry and education. The WEF's prediction about jobs until the year 2030 indicates that there is a need for engineers trained for present and future needs, and their training must be in line with these needs. Also, the WEF in the 2023 edition echoed the PISA report for its effects on the economy, and these results have not been satisfactory to anyone. The training of the engineers is the responsibility of the engineering schools. The students who come to engineering schools are Generation Z and have generated the latest PISA, TIMMS, and ICILS reports. There are many reports on universities made by Spanish institutions, however, none of them talk about students, specifically those who enter engineering schools, and the causes of dropout. The dropout in engineering schools in Catalonia is over 40% in the first year, a problem that has not been solved and is persistent in subsequent years. This paper explains internal and external causes that favor the abandonment of engineering studies. Some of the causes are linked to each other even if, a priori, they seem independent. Thus, technological knowledge within TPACK, computational thinking, and the teaching staff's resistance to changing teaching methodologies are related to each other, as are the double penalty in exams, the persistent lack of cross-curricular knowledge transfer, and the gap between what is taught in baccalaureate and what is taught in the first year of the degree. The importance of the analysis of the results of the test carried out on 417 computer engineering students and 139 nautical students on basic knowledge of calculation tools and knowledge of programming languages, is that for the first time, these respondents had the choice to learn a programming language as an optional subject inside the baccalaureate, and the data obtained show the teaching methodology and the learning system. A brief historical review of how engineering schools were taught can help us see the effects of incorporating AI in both sides, professors, and students, and how schools must evolve.