Assessment of Present Status of Nuclear Security Education at UFRJ

The Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) is the largest federal university in Brazil. It has a well-established graduate program of Nuclear Engineering (PEN/COPPE) and it has the only undergraduate program of Nuclear Engineering in Brazil. However, the contents of Nuclear Security (NS) have not been introduced into either the undergraduate or graduate programs. A survey was conducted to evaluate the knowledge of nuclear engineering students at UFRJ regarding NS. The results demonstrate that there is a lack of NS education at PEN/UFRJ. Only 4% of students who did not have an extracurricular course got two or three correct answers out of five questions. In collaboration with the Texas A&M University (TAMU) and with support of the Partnership for Nuclear Security (PNS), an elective course was proposed to bridge this gap. As a base, TAMU educational material will be used and emphasis will be given to developing teaching material in accordance with the IAEA Nuclear Security Series (NSS) publications and the Brazilian regulation CNEN NE 2.01.