Engaging Engineering Students in a Development Program for a Global South Nation through Service-Learning

Abstract

Commerce and industry have been two of the main drivers of progress in global north nations (developed nations), placing them in leading positions in the world economy. Global south nations (developing nations) seek to be equal partners with global north nations in the global economy. They view education as the means to achieve this objective. They appreciate that education underpins both commerce and industry, and is the main driver in development. Education can be combined with service to society through research projects at the tertiary level to advance development via service-learning. The research projects yield credits that count toward graduation. Tertiary level in this context includes vocational education and training, undergraduate and postgraduate education. Service-learning (SL) is any educational activity that integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience while teaching civic responsibility. Service- learning is one of the approaches being used in the Master of Science (M.Sc.) program in Telecommunication Engineering at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Ghana. In this chapter, the project being used in the service-learning format is on power-line communication (PLC). PLC is a technology in which data transmission is overlaid on electric power transmission; hence, all areas that are connected to the national grid can have access to the Internet. Analysis and simulations of the problem are done using the Numerical Electromagnetic Code (NEC-4), and the results are compared to experimental measurements. � 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.