Advanced Technological Education Centers are national resources for technician education, and their success in enhancing technicians’ skills has an important impact on the U.S. economy.
Technicians – the underappreciated heroes of the nation’s economy –
kept traditional industries humming and supplied the essential know-how for countless technological advances during the 20th century.
In the 21st century, the stakes are even higher.
The U.S. Department of Labor estimates the nation needs five technicians for every new scientist or engineer employed to keep pace with competition in the global marketplace. Associate degrees and higher are required for 19 of the 30 occupations the Department of Labor identifies as likely to grow most quickly by 2012. Community colleges, which serve as the lead institutions for most ATE programs, grant associate degrees.
Most worrisome is the trend among industries to search abroad not
just for markets, but for talent. According to Keeping America Competitive, a report that the Manufacturing Institute released in 2004:
The greater challenge to America is not low-cost goods from low- wage producers in
developing countries, but rather it concerns high- quality goods made by high-skilled workers
in advanced and emerging economies. The potential exists that manufacturers may
increasingly move production operations overseas to seek the technological talent that is
being strategically and purposefully prepared in places like the European Union, the Pacific
Rim (including China) and South Asia (particularly India) – if they cannot find the talent here.
The ATE Centers respond to these economic realities with timely implementation of research-based innovations that equip students with the skills they need to excel in high-tech workplaces. To identify key technical skills, the Centers rely on advice from their partners in industry, business, government, and other education sectors. Partners are involved in Centers’ activities from the earliest planning stages on. The curricula and other programs these truly collaborative educator-industry partnerships create are then disseminated by various strategies, which are described in this brochure, to other employers and educators. Using these resources, other educational institutions and industries can address their local needs for skilled technicians by replicating and refining the ATE Centers’ industry-vetted materials and practices rather than struggling alone to reinvent solutions.
