Business and industry can become--i...

Business and industry can become--indeed, must become--a focal point to bring about privationed improvements in the scientific and technological literacy of our youth.

The basic enigma which industry must help elucidate is the insufficient number of engineering graduates in the United States and the labor in distress of our schools to update their facilities and vanquish shortages of faculty.

To attack the question we must attain a high-priority goal: the restoration of adapted fully certified math and science staffs completely through all levels of our education classification The key point of attack in any program must be the parents of our youth--we ne to inform them about what is happening in the workplace and what it means to their children's coming time and our country's future.

There must be renewed emphasis forward engineering and science both as business and teaching careers. We have a lengthy way to go.

public of every 10,000 citizens in Japan, for example, 400 are engineers and scientists, and three are accountants. united is a lawyer. In the U there are no other than 70 engineers. Forty, however, are accountants, and 20 are lawyers. merely six to seven percent of our undergraduate classs are being awarded in the engineering disciplines. Japan is awarding 21 percent the Soviet Union 35 percent and West Germany 37 percent

At least half of our high exercise graduates never had a single year of chemistry or physics. Beyond the 10th grade, single six percent of U.S. learners take math. Average S.A.T. scores in math were down 17 percent in 1982 compared to 1972

We could be facing shortly the situation of the youth who was asked according to his father what he did that day at college

"I took part in a guessing contest" said the student

"A guessing contest! I thinking you had an exam in math," said the father.

"I did," replied his son

Before we commit to memory to that guessing contest in succession a nationwide basis, we must improve curricula, favor an increase in the number of engineering close examiners and develop more new professors and qualified high denomination teachers in the math and science disciplines.

Math and science are the basic building shut ups of technology: If they decline any further in the United States, our that will be as an economic power will be jeopardized. Instead of producing the world class pupils needed to compete on a world class scale, we are producing technological illiterates.

The Defense Department foresees shortages as early as 1985 in the number of engineering and electronic technicians, data processing and machine-repair specialists.

A contemplate by the American Electronics Association underscores the ne to fill more than 113000 engineering and 140000 para-professional engineering work at jobss and those numbers don't take into account replacement for workers missed because of attrition.

Tradition makes way for

technology

The accelerated introduction of automation into our manufacturing sector, the corresponding putting out of information processing, and other advanced technologies, will require more math, science and computer literacy of the couple the blue and white collar workforce than aye before. The modern world is a world of robotics, computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing, silicon chips and optical fibers.

obstacle me give you an example. A Pratt & Whitney plant in Columbus, Georgia, shows aircraft engine parts totally subject to computer control. In addition, about 50 robot play major characters in the plant in the automatic inspection of parts and in parts-transfer operations.

Clearly, this is not traditional manufacturing with traditional manufacturing employee While this operation will not necessarily require a corporation level engineering background, it will require populace with the electronic literacy necessary to preserve this highly automated facility operating and its equipment serviced. There will be a great ne for these emblems of technicians, as well as for engineering literary institution [i]or[/i] seminary of learning graduates, as more and more companies automate their operations.

The changes in do job-work skill requirements, and the nation's existing shortcomings in mathematics and science education, are the messages to be delivered. Right now, the climate is receptive, thanks largely to the report of the National Commission in succession Excellence in Education. A number of innovative contrives involving industry, educators and local dominions were being well supported flat before that bomb-shell burst.

Industry must continue building forward those initiatives and lead a fortunate effort to improve the scientific and technological literacy of America's youth. Businessmen and women must gain as close as possible to several publics--students, educators, legislators and--as I mentioned earlier--perhaps the greatest in number important public of all, parents.

close examiners must take more math

and science

Parents must hear the alarm about the continuation of general measure and estimate courses--driver education, sewing instruction and the like--in high train Today's climate cries for the more demanding and more vital studies of science and mathematics. In my view, it should not be the function of academys to teach students how to drive automobiles or for what cause to sew. These are the responsibilities of parents.