The State of Electronics Technicians (Part 1)
Education, Electronics April 25th, 2007Colleagues:
Today’s focus is on electronics technology. As a discipline, electronics technology is undergoing rapid and significant changes. While the demand for electronic jobs is going unfulfilled, enrollment is declining. Technicians just don’t do electronics in the electronics field; they are in many different industries. The job itself has changed for electronic technicians. What does this all mean?
This means a conflicting set of trends has converged.
- Enrollment in traditional associate degree electronics technology programs has steadily declined since the late 1990’s. Maricopa Advance Technology Education Center’s (MATEC) recent survey of 52 two-year college programs found that enrollment has declined by an average of thirty percent in two-thirds of the programs between 2002 and 2005.
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The definition of an electronics technician has changed. Positions that use electronics technicians’ skills are now in a wide range of industries including biotechnology, manufacturing, entertainment, automotive, and consumer products. Electronics technology is a key enabler of all of these contemporary industries. The jobs are there, but they are not necessarily labeled for electronics technicians or the technicians do not realize they could fulfill these job requirements. Employers in many industries have been hurting for qualified applicants for many years; yet, as mentioned above, electronics technology education program enrollment has further declined.
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Most electronics technicians do not view the world at a component level any longer. Most electronics technicians do not simply troubleshoot and replace dicrete components. Instead, they must have a total system view and, importantly, a view of how that system communicates both inside itself and with the outside world. (The generic definition of a “system” is a combination of multiple related elements organized into a more complex whole to perform some useful service. For electronics we can say that a system is an assembly of electronic and sometimes mechanical components as well as the software that operate together as a unit to perform some function.)
Each one of these brings up many questions.
- Why are the enrollment numbers declining?
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Is there a stigma being attached to these two year electronic programs or to being an electronics technician?
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What can we do to increase enrollment?
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Does the electronics industry and the educational institutions need to define what is an electronics technician, as well as better advertise what an electronics technician can do?
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Have the education institutes evolved in their way of teaching from the component level to the total systems view? If they have not, then why not?
What are the answers or ideas to these questions?
May 1st, 2007 at 12:35 pm
“Where have all the electronic technicians gone, long time passing..”. Put to music.
Last year was the last year of the EET program at CGCC due to low enrollment and retention rate.
We have started a new program training wind energy technicians (an electronics technician is uniquely suited to this field). We have had overwhelming response to the program with over 100 so far that have indicated they want to sign up for 32 positions.
The major difference between the Wind energy technician and the EET is advertizing. There are hundreds of wind turbine parts running down the highway for all to see. People are saying they would like to get a job with them. Somehow they found out or are just guessing that the wind farms pay well.??? This is really interesting because the jobs on the wind farms don’t pay any more then an electronics technician gets paid and the weather conditions are worse. An EET job is far better yet the EET program suffered low enrollment while the wind energy program is ‘bustin’ at the seams.
As far as I can see, the difference is advertizing. The wind energy program is heavily based on PCC’s EET program with related skills (classes) added.
Tom
May 4th, 2007 at 3:04 pm
Tom, I guess we are not alone with the problem of hot fields. I know when CSI first came out enrollments in forensics programs really skyrocketed. When I talked to a colleague in the Washington State crime lab he said most of those students weren’t really prepared for the level of science courses they needed in that field. They were of course responding to the “advertising.” I know in New Mexico there is a big interest in aviation, space with eclipse aviation and the spaceport. Here in AZ the “advertising” is biotechnology although we have many manufacturing jobs unfilled and enrollments down in that area. So at least you are not alone up there.