Overview of the current situation relating to chemical engineering degree courses

Abstract

In 2020, the Conference of Chemical Engineering Directors and Deans (CODDIQ) proposed the creation of an observatory to monitor chemical engineering degrees in Spain. This representative radiography of Chemical Engineering studies offers an initial point to observe the future changes when Royal Decree 822/2021 and proposed challenges in the last Ministerial Conference on the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) will be implanted. The survey data from CODDIQ partners allow us to know important data such as (i) the 24 international quality accreditations at Spanish universities, (ii) the high demand and the required marks, an average of 7.25, for the Chemical Engineering Bachelor’s degree, (iii) 9560 undergraduate students in this degree in Spain and their gender profile which is around 43% of women, similar than women lectures, (iv) the difficulty of this Bachelor’s degree through some indicators like duration of studies (5.25 years), graduation rate (41%) and drop-out rate (26%), (v) the employability after obtaining the Bachelor's degree is very high (>70%). In addition, Chemical engineering undergraduate and graduate students indicate their expectations are covered. In this paper, some consequences of the pandemic on students' performance (lower than before COVID-19) are analyzed, despite lectures tried to innovate in their classes and the university provided adequate tools for online teaching.