The growing reluctance of senior secondary students, and more importantly girls, to choose engineering as a
course of study in higher education combined with relatively high attrition rates in engineering schools at
Australian universities can be traced to two fundamental sources. Despite a shortage of professional engineers
in Australia, the profession has not marketed itself well in public eyes. It is yet to find its end product and
professional standing other than a subset of big science. The blurred definition of engineering as a unified
profession carries over to engineering education. This paper identifies the lack of unity and ideology in
educating for engineering professions as a key reason for its lack of attractiveness. It argues for a more diverse
approach to professional engineering discourse both in marketing the profession to the public domain and in its
application in engineering education. It suggests that developing engineering curricula from that of applied
science to a more vocational basis is likely to enhance engineering professionalism and will be provide a more
attractive basis as a course of study. conference held: July 1-4, World Trade Centre Rotterdam - Delft University of Technology