In the fast-evolving world of the Internet, a shift in the educational approaches of professionals in the field of networks and telecommunications has been essential. Changes in this regard continue to be desirable to keep pace with rapid technological advancements. Upon his 2005 move from the telecom industry to Jackson State University, Dr. Tarek El-Bawab saw the need for these changes and found himself at the forefront of a transformational movement to pave the way for them. His views and persisting effort helped reshape a new vision of how telecommunication engineering should be taught in academia, whether in the United States or in other countries. By technical campaigning and debating, leadership within key organizations, working in program and curricular development, and making remarkable contributions to the literature of this field, Tarek El-Bawab has left an indelible mark on telecom engineering education since joining Jackson State. He has played an important role in launching and sustaining an effort to align the education of this field with the evolving needs of a burgeoning industry.
Dr. El-Bawab’s experience with a Jackson State telecom program that was offered at that time helped him see the gap between the actual demands of the industry and what academia had been offering in a form that was dominated by electrical and computer engineering, computer science, or even IT perspectives. He believed that the Telecom sector had outgrown these isolated -and insufficient- frameworks and that academia had to catch up with an innovative multidisciplinary approach.
At that time, and since then, the US has been undergoing a broader transformation in our approach to STEM education. This transformation involves three trends at least: emergence of new multidisciplinary majors, promotion of more-effective pedagogies to improve learning and attract US youth to STEM education, and encouraging US minorities -in particular- to participate in STEM education. For Tarek El-Bawab, who had recently joined Jackson State, the timing and placement couldn’t be better. The university he joined as professor had a telecommunications engineering program and he had viewed this field as multidisciplinary, he was able -later on- to get federal funding to develop new pedagogies for course(s) in that program, and -last but not least- the university is designated to serving minority students. His telecom-education initiative, and the movement resulted thereof, resonated well with the transformation higher-education was going through. The opportunity of serving underserved students also led to a promise of a professionally rewarding experience. However, the program was essentially a traditional electrical engineering one with a hardly noticeable telecom flavor.
Tarek El-Bawab championed the case for specialized telecommunication engineering education. He published several articles that laid the groundwork for this initiative, highlighted the increasingly complex nature of modern telecom systems, and made a strong case for an educational change. These articles were well received by the telecom community and fueled the telecommunication engineering education (TEE) movement. Tarek delved deeper into structural issues within the U.S. higher-education system when it comes to teaching telecom, shedding light on the history of education of this field and on how it evolved around industry-based training programs that were ideal for the era before the 1984 breakup of the Bell System. This training scheme, however, ceased to exist afterwards. As a result, the task of training the following generation of telecom engineers fell to universities, which were largely unprepared to fill the void with robust curricular propositions.
Tarek asked leaders from industry and academia to be part of this movement. A TEE group was formed within the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineer’s (IEEE) Communications Society. The formation of that group was instrumental in establishing telecom-specific provision in ABET’s “electrical, computer, communications, telecommunication(s) and similarly named engineering programs” accreditation criteria. ABET, Inc., is the accreditation board of engineering and technology which accredits programs in these fields in nearly 45 countries worldwide, including the U.S.
Today, Telecom engineering evolved to embrace a blend of ingredients from several engineering, scientific, and otherwise disciplines, including: electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, software engineering, data science and analytics, artificial intelligence, standards & regulatory policies, and others. While he was still a professor with Jackson State University, Tarek El-Bawab started a project with Springer Nature, i.e., the “Textbooks in Telecommunication Engineering” to produce books covering numerous topics in modern telecom. This work continues today as the Series became a global home for tens of quality books in the new discipline, making it easier for professors and industry trainers to design courses, curricula, and programs in telecom and network engineering.
One of the results of the TEE movement was a re-birth of the field of telecommunication engineering based on progress in network science, leading to the term of “network engineering” to take over. Now, the terms "network engineering" and "telecommunication engineering" can be used interchangeably, reflecting the increasing role of networks in modern telecom in the era of the Internet. This evolution is due, in large part, to the work of Tarek El-Bawab.
While Dr. El-Bawab left Jackson State University in 2019, the work prompted by his experience in this institution continues until today. For about four years he served as Dean of Engineering at African universities. As a US Expat, he became the founding Dean of Engineering at the American University of Nigeria, Yola, where he also had an opportunity to continue serving the underserved. He put together the first program of its type in telecommunication and network engineering at this institution.
The legacy of this work of Tarek El-Bawab extends far beyond the halls of academia and serve as a testament to the impact one visionary leader can have in shaping the future of engineering and technology education. This work paved a way for future telecom and network engineers to thrive in an increasingly complex field and contribute to having a stronger, more prepared, generation of professionals to serve the public in this area of engineering and technology.
