Perception of French students in engineering about the ethics of their profession and implications for engineering education

The aims of this paper are to analyse the perception of French students in engineering about the Charter of ethics for engineers and to propose a point of view on the problem of introducing ethics into engineers' training. For this purpose the Conference of Deans of French Engineering Schools and Universities of Technology (CDEFI) did an inquiry among students in engineering in the fall of 2009. 3,589 students in engineering from 106 different schools answered. The characteristics of respondents are consistent with those of the total population of students in engineering with regard to geographical distribution, age, sex and nationality. The results show that 38% of respondents knew the Charter beforehand. Therefore, the inquiry gave 62% of students the opportunity to get to know the Charter. It is considered useful by 62% of respondents and easy to apply by 54%.