In the knowledge-based society of the 21st century, the critical and only sustainable competitive advantage will be to have the ability to learn faster than the competitors. To meet the challenges of the 21st century, universities must become learning organisations which are skilled at creating, acquiring and transferring knowledge, and at modifying their behaviour to reflect new knowledge and insights. To accommodate these new needs, a model for engineering education must be generated which is learning-based, practice-oriented and demands active involvement of the student.