This paper presents the results of surveys conducted among students and teachers / mentors in Nepal, Bhutan, and India, regarding the impact of implementing Problembased learning (PBL) methodology in engineering and multidisciplinary projects. The surveys were carried out under the Erasmus+ funded project, "Strengthening Problembased learning in South Asian Universities" (PBL South Asia). The project aimed to address the issues of education quality, employability, and sustainable development in the region by enhancing students’ practical experience, communication skills, teamwork abilities, as well as academic knowledge through PBL-adapted courses. As a result, South Asian higher education institutions have implemented PBL courses in their curriculum.

The surveys were designed to evaluate how specific competences or learning outcomes were perceived by different stakeholder groups, e.g., which learning outcomes were expected to be achieved by the faculty, and whether they were achieved by students. Several methods were used for the assessment – open questions with tracking the keywords that the respondents use, as well as “EntreComp” framework which looks into how students assess their abilities to be curious and open, think sustainably, behave ethically, and cope with uncertainty and ambiguity.

Results of the survey showed that student participants have identified teamwork, communication and presentation skills as those most associated with PBL methodology. Among the self-assessed improvement in abilities, students have indicated their increased abilities to assess the needs of different stakeholders, combining different contexts, setting up strategies.@en

Problem-based learning (PBL) has profound implications on the motivations of the student to learn and is known to help develop critical thinking, complex problem-solving, self-learning, collaboration and communication skills, thereby enabling fresh graduates to be industry-ready. However, most institutes of higher education in South Asia offering undergraduate programmes have instructional and didactic pedagogical systems. The Erasmus + project, ‘Strengthening Problem-based Learning in South Asian Universities’ (PBL South Asia) aims to build capacity of the South Asian partner institutes by collaboratively developing best practices in PBL for undergraduate education, bringing expertise and experience of peers from across Europe and India. Therefore, to gain benefits of the PBL approach, the redesign of existing courses was undertaken and the novel strategy of conducting a Design Thinking workshop to do so, was engaged. During the five-day workshop, faculties from the institutes in Nepal and Bhutan, who are most well aware of the challenges, shortcomings and strengths of their curriculum, were mentored step-by-step, by their Indian and European peers, who have more experience in delivering PBL courses. Backed by the strategy of Design Thinking, the complex problem-solving activity of course design was addressed systematically, and the five institutes proposed redesigned courses which are currently in the process of implementation.

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The Bologna declaration states that, “successful learning and studying in higher education should involve students in deep learning”. However, a survey of faculty across institutes in Nepal and Bhutan highlights that the undergraduate students in engineering and management lack skills needed to be industry-ready.
They face difficulty in getting employed after graduation and if placed, then struggle during their employment due to insufficient practical experience, lack of good communication skills and unawareness of larger socio-economic contexts. The Erasmus+ funded project, “Strengthening Problem-based learning in South Asian Universities”(PBL South Asia) is an endeavour to address these pressing concerns in education quality, employability and overall sustainable development of the region and to imbibe deep learning capabilities. Therefore, as an empirical study to clarify and in turn, inculcate PBL in South Asian undergraduate education, the young faculty of the inexperienced institutes from Nepal and Bhutan, alongside the students from the experienced institutes from India and Europe, were mentored by faculty and researchers from the latter to undertake multidisciplinary case studies.
The strategy of ‘Design Thinking’ was employed to methodologically guide the cases and keep it consistently problem-based, i.e., the learning is driven by the
problem with no one correct solution. Results showed that the participants reflected improvement in problem-solving skills and increased motivation, apart from enhanced collaboration and improved communication ability. Based on these findings, further development of curricula to imbibe PBL in its existing courses and guidelines to train the trainers for implementation of the same, is currently in progress.@en

The Bologna declaration states that, “successful learning and studying in higher education should involve students in deep learning”. However, a survey of faculty across institutes in Nepal and Bhutan highlights that the undergraduate students in engineering and management lack skills needed to be industry-ready. They face difficulty in getting employed after graduation and if placed, then struggle during their employment due to insufficient practical experience, lack of good communication skills and unawareness of broader socio-economic contexts. The Erasmus + funded project, “Strengthening Problem-based learning in South Asian Universities” (PBL South Asia) is an endeavour to address these pressing concerns in education quality, employability and overall sustainable development of the region and to imbibe deep learning capabilities. Therefore, as an empirical study to clarify and in turn, inculcate PBL in South Asian undergraduate education, the young faculty of the inexperienced institutes from Nepal and Bhutan, alongside the students from the experienced institutes from India and Europe, were mentored by faculty and researchers from the latter to undertake multidisciplinary case studies. The strategy of “design thinking” was employed to methodologically guide the cases and keep it consistently problem-based, i.e. the learning is driven by the problem with no one correct solution. Results showed that the participants reflected improvement in problem-solving skills and increased motivation, apart from enhanced collaboration and improved communication ability. Based on these findings, further development of curricula to imbibe PBL in its existing courses and guidelines to train the trainers for implementation of the same, are currently in progress.

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