Power Engineering Education: An African Scenario

Abstract:
This paper discusses possible measures and techniques to improve Power Engineering education in the African country of Kenya. The authors emphasize on what needs to be done to upgrade the level and quality of education given to the power engineering students in Kenya. It is well-recognized that the course curriculum for power engineering should prepare students for their prospective role in the professional field as well as about the technological innovations taking place in the power and energy sector nationally and across the world. However this has not been happening for power engineering courses in Kenyan universities which considerably affected the human resource development for industrial and technical sectors. As a result, the industries end up spending more money for re-educating their technical staff so that are able to perform their duties efficiently. Power engineering, unlike other courses, combines theory of Physics and Mathematics, Engineering Sciences, laboratory practical and planning, implementation and execution of projects and pilot schemes. This whole knowledge must be imparted to the students for their overall development as future power engineers. This must be done by breaking down the course logically into well-organized and properly related sub-topics so that the students not only learn the sub-topics but also understand how they are linked to one another. This paper looks at the possible measures to be employed in order to improve the power engineering education to achieve the aforesaid goals.