Preparing Engineers for Lifelong Learning in the Era of Industry 4.0

With the rapid advancement in technology such as robotic automation, artificial intelligence and digital twins, the engineering jobs are continuously changing and will continue to change in the future. Thus, rapid reskilling and upskilling are necessary to help engineers enhance their abilities to continuously learn and use new knowledge for their own employability and for a sustainable world. It is vital for the engineers to develop a learner mindset that can easily adapt to the changes and transformation by always acquiring and updating necessary knowledge and skills to perform well in these constantly evolving situations. How will they do it? How will our engineering students be prepared for a lifetime of learning? How will we, the educators and administrators, help our engineers to become lifelong, continuous learners? This paper will examine the Industry 4.0 skills, the current status of development of these skills in engineering curriculum, and propose a framework where the university, industry and government collectively contribute and participate to foster this new concept “learn to learn” among engineering students and professionals to sustain their employability for lifetimes.