EU Coalition for Electronics Education
Basic Electronics Competencies
| ELECTRONICS AND APPLIANCE EDUCATION TENETS Some basic beliefs regarding education of electronics and appliance service technicians have been expressed during the foundation months in which NCEE has been working towards its expressed purposes and goals: 1. Secondary schools that offer electronics courses should attempt to establish the requirement that applicants for BASIC electronics courses must have the prerequisites of ENGLISH, MATHEMATICS/ALGEBRA and PHYSICS prior to being accepted into a BASIC ELECTRONICS course. (Reason, so that the electronics instructor is not required to teach those topics to a small portion of the class while valuable electronics training for the remainder of the class is held up.) 2. If secondary school students have not successfully passed those pre-requisite courses in their 9th, 10th or 11th grades, they should receive separate remedial classes in order to catch up. 3. Secondary schools, in most cases, should attempt to provide students with BASIC electronics knowledge and skills. They should not attempt to crowd the too-few hours available with specialty training such as INDUSTRIAL or WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS or other similar post-basic course material. 4. Post secondary schools often offer a BASIC electronics course, and specialty courses, such as AVIONICS; INDUSTRIAL; BIOMEDICAL electronics training, etc.. If a BASIC course is offered, it should be separated from the specialty training and the NCEE approved competencies be consulted to assure that that BASIC training meets the all-industry approved competencies. 5. If the Career Centers or post secondary schools, including private technical institutions, provide specialty courses, including appliance service training, NCEE urges them to separate such training into modules which align with the NCEE industry approved skills standards and competencies. 6. Behavior and soft skills training, such as is specified in the CSS and CCS certifications of ETA and PSA and has been approved and adopted by NCEE, should not be included within the course materials for technical BASIC or SPECIALTY training. The soft skills are too important to be given short shrift within a technical course. Rather they should be given separate training utilizing specific competencies as are now posted on this web site. Each technical student should be exposed to the customer service training course, preferably at the conclusion of his/her technical training. 7. Certification for BASIC and SPECIALTY areas of electronics and appliance technician work should be encouraged as the culmination of the training. This gives the graduate an industry recognized credential attesting to his knowledge and skills. It becomes a valuable tool in obtaining employment. 8. NCEE Skills Standards are revisited on an annual basis. As the NCEE philosophy is experienced during the year, the internal NCEE committee in charge of each discipline collects data regarding the validity and modernity of the competencies, allowing all participants to comment, resulting in the honing of each approved skill standard to its highest level of industry consensus. 9. By December, 2004, NCEE has adopted and approved competencies for: AST, BASIC electronics; C.E.S.T., Consumer Electronics Service Technician, C.S.T., Computer Service Technician, AST. Appliance Service Technician, WCT. Wireless Communications Technician; CSI Satellite Systems Technician; CSS, Customer Service Specialist; MEST, Mobile Electronics Service; AI, Appliance Installer; Other Competencies are in the process of evolution and adoption by NCEE. NCEE's All-Industry coalition encourages individuals to volunteer to serve as Subject Matter Experts (SME) for any of the previously adopted skills standards. Each company, school and association should be represented on the project teams or committees which relate to the products they manufacture, distribute, service or train for. To Volunteer, just send an e-mail to the NCEE Secretary at [email protected] saying: "Count me in on the ___________ Committee." That's all there is to it. |
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