INSTITUTION THE OF ENGINEERS, SRL LANKA PROFESSIONAL REVIEW ~ MARCH 2007 - SECTION “B” — THE ENGINEEER IN SOCIETY Date: APRIL 8, 2007 Time Allowed: 3 Hours Before you start answering the question paper, read the instructions given below _—_—eoOoOoOoOO Answer FOUR questions only including the question in SECTION I, ‘The question in SECTION I carries 35 marks and each question in SECTION Il, 20 marks. Five marks are assigned for neatness and adhering to instructions, ‘The answers to SECTION I and Section II should be written in separate answer books. Ensure that you write your index number. clearly on both answer books. Answer books to SECTION I and SECTION Il will be collected separately. Write the question number/s to which you answer in the relevant box of the cover page of the answer book and at the left margin/s of answer book/sheets appropriately. Pay attention to legibility, grammar, spellings and organization and Presentations of facts when presenting your answersSECTION I Question 1 Read the passage given below and answer the questions that follow: ~ ‘The reputation that the public accords to a particular university combines various factors. First, in most countries, there is a strong correlation between the reputation of an institution and its age. Second, people tend to equate quality with exclusivity of access. Third, universities with lavish resources are assumed to be better. Fourth, educational systems with small classes and plenty of human interaction are well regarded. These traditional elements of reputation challenge any attempt to renew universities. Institutions can do nothing about their age, except wait for time to pass. However, even young institutions will already have developed strengths, which contribute to their public image. Change can be tisky. Newish universities that have been unusually successful may find change particularly difficult Gaining a reputation as a good university is, rightly, a slow process. Fortunately, losing a reputation takes time too, so institutions should not be overly cautious about the risks of innovation on this count. Exclusivity, the second popular yardstick of quality, must be challenged head on. Increasing’ the volume of access to universities is driving the renewal of higher education in the developing world, Increasing the variety of access is still important in the industrialised countries. It is an imperative of academic renewal that more should not mean worse. This is where technology can help, for in most aspects of life people now assume that more and better technology means higher quality. Better technology usually means greater cost-effectiveness as well. This must be a central purpose of academic renewal. It is the most difficult challenge of renewal for universities to accept, for two main reasons. First, there has fee indeed been a good correlation between available resources and the rankings ~ of universities in quality assessment exercises. For example, a report by the UK’s Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE, 1995:34) on its first round of quality assessments of teaching showed that, with one notable exception, the number of excellent ratings that a university received broadly matched the funds available to it. The exception was the Opea University. Public expenditure per full-time-equivalent student at this institution is about the lowest in the UK system, yet it was one of only 13 of the 70 universities offering a comprehensive curriculum to zeceive excellent ratings ia more than half the subjects assessed. The significance of thisexception is chat the Open University has developed a technology-based teaching system. ‘The second factor that makes academics reluctant to give priority to cost effectiveness is the monumental function of universities. The noble ideals of the academy have always attracted the support of the wealthy: kings, queens, bishops, merchants and industrialists, who wanted their memories to live on in the names of campus buildings and professorial titles. In medieval times Europe built cathedrals, to the greater glory of God, whose dimensions and splendour went far beyond the simple requirements of worship. In the last century, most especially in America, the wealthy have built and equipped university campuses far beyond the basic needs of teaching and research. Who can blame university staff for enjoying the civilised environments of these well-endowed seats of learning and for being reluctant to exchange them for organizations that are less extravagantly over-engincered? Although some of the mega-universities also offer pleasant working conditions ¢o their staff, they pose a stark challenge to the popular quality criteria of age, exclusivity and wealth. These young institutions were set up with the express purpose of breaking the perceived link between quality of education and exclusivity of access. Their enrolments are huge. The fourth common yardstick of quality is the intensity of contact between teachers and students. Although some of the mega-universities give closer persorial tutorial attention to students than is available ont campus the sheer size of the mega-universities, as well as the term ‘distance leaning’, make it hard to communicate the reality. Students on campus may fear that their interaction with staff would be the fisst casualty of the development of technology-based teaching, The agenda for university renewal challenges popular concepts of academic quality. This is one reason for exploring carefully the contribution that technology can make to the implementation of that agenda. We define technology as the application of scientific and other organised knowledge to practical tasks by organisations consisting of people and machines. The significant elements of this definition are: its recognition that there is more to technology than applied science, Non-scientific knowledge (design, managerial, craft, tacit) is involved; the explicit assertion that technology is about practical tasks (as compared to science, which is mainly about understanding); technology always involves people (social systems) as well as hardware.1088 i) ii) iii) This definition attaches as much importance to the softer aspects of technology (cules, systems and approaches to «problems) as to the burgeoning array of hardware and software that the term more commonly evokes. Both facets of technology have transformed many aspects of life in the 20" century. Universities are often at the leading edge in the use of technology for research. Indeed, many of the technologies now ubiquitous in everyday life grew out of work in university laboratories. Academics have been much slower, however, to develop technology within the teaching function of their own universities. The overhead projector is still somewhat threatening. Some argue that it is now imperative for academics to embrace change because the latest manifestations of technology actually alter the relationship between people and knowledge. Eisenstadt (1995) coined the tem ‘knowledge media’ to describe the convergence of computing, telecommunications and the cognitive sciences. Others speak of a ‘third generation’ of distance learning technology that is distinguished by 2 much greater capacity for rich and rapid interaction between members of a earning community. The central goal of universities is to train people in the academic mode of thinking. The academic mode of thinking, which we contrast to the ideological mode of thinking, is a glory of buman development and perhaps Europe’s most precious gift to the world. The relationships. that universities create between knowledge, communities and credentials are grounded in it. Yet criticising universities is today a popular pastime in many countries. The precise strictures vary in content and force from one country to another but five accusations have wide currency: national university systems are aot accommodating the volume and variety of student demand; higher education is too costly and does not deliver graduates with the skills employers value; teaching methods are too inflexible to answer the needs of a diversifying student body; the quality of higher education is not assured; the sense of the university as an academic community is being eroded. words] Propose a suitable topic for the passage. [5] List five of the salient points that the author might have intended to attract the attention of the reader 5] Write a summary of the passage in your own words in approximately 350 words. (2: 5) nySECTION I Question 2 “History shows evidence that Sci Lanka bad been an agricultural country with self sufficiency in rice for over 2500 years. Today it imports rice from foreign countries.” Discuss the reasons for the above situational change with the measures that can be taken to improve the paddy cultivation in Sri Lanka as an agricultural crop. Question 3 “Sri Lanka Engineering News”, the newspaper of the Institution of Engineers Sti Lanka in its Volume 42, dated January 2007 carried an article by the title “Put shat Light Out!” The author at the introductory paragraph has written ‘If knowkdge is power, then the UK ts about to become a stronger nation by being able to understand its gar and electricity usage. It is a startling fact that we Rnow how much petrol in pounds and pence we pour into our vebicles, bit when it comes to how much it costs to switch on a ight bulb we are le in the dark, Smart meters ould change all that? ‘What exactly is the message from the article that the author attempted to convey to the reader? Discuss the salient points you have gathered by reading this article. Question 4 Buildings that rise against sustainability are a threat to the society and environment. Provide substantial evidence to show that the above situation prevails in Colombo city, Discuss in general the solutions to mitigate the issues and explore the effective ways to construct buildings for sustainability. Question 5 According to key human fights organizations, like Amnesty International (AD), human rights’ observance in Sri Lanka is “not at a satisfactory level”. Analyse and discuss the reasons for these organisations to make such an observation.What measures can Sri Lanka adopt to protect human rights through good governance and participatory policy formulations? Question 6 One of the most prominent politicians was dead right when he said “The management of the economy is also a sort of war. Economic strategies are also as important as war strategies.” He was equally correct in saying that the economy should be put on a war footing, Discuss the corrective decisions to be taken by the government of Sti Lanka to avert long-term economic decline. oy Question 7 The sketch below projects an idea about the Sustainable Development (SD). Ce What is sustainable development of a country? ‘What issues should Sri Lanka be concerned in the context of SD? Explain your answer. Question 8 Around the time Sri Lanka gained independence from British rule, the country’s GDP was distributed in the proportion of 46% for agriculture, 20% for industries and the balance 34% for services.In 1960, agriculture fell to 38% and services rose to 45%. The petiod since then recorded a virwal stagnation of services tll early 1980 when the country moved to an open economy. During the period from 1980 to 2005, the agricultural sector further declined in relative terms from around 28% to 17%, while the industry remained unchanged at around 25 — 26 percent. The service sector increased its share from 43% in 1980 to 56% in 2005. Itis this phenomenal growth in the share and contribution of service sector, which has caused concems for, and attracted criticism by some quarters Discuss the conclusions that can be drawn from the above statistics. If this tread is unchanged, could it continue to create wealth and improve the standards of living of the people in the country? Explain your answer. Has the country missed the opportunities in the past to establish a vibrant service sector in comparison with its Asian counterparts? If so, what should the country do to attain the goal for having a vibrant and cflicient service sector? Otherwise, discuss the contribution of the service sector the country’s GDP. Question 9 Why do you think that Codes of Ethics should guide the professionals in the performance of their professional duties? Explain in your own words what is stated in Clause 1 of the Code of Ethics published by the Institution of Engineers of Sri Lanka. Quote and explain at least one incident, where an engineer has violated this clause in the practice of his profession.