EDUCATION FOR AUTOMATION: TECHNICAL EDUCATION AND TRAINING IN AN AGE OF RAPID TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCE.

This article focuses on the level of technical education and training in the first half of the twentieth century which is considered as an age of rapid technological advances. The introduction of automation and other technological advances in industry on a large scale, suggestively, requires some major changes in the training of managers, engineers and technologists, technicians and skilled craftsmen. The author, at first, compares the requirements of technical executives in various industries of Great Britain, with that of the U.S., and other European countries. The chief problem in training engineers and technicians for industry is that most of the problems to be solved do not lie in any one of the long-established fields of engineering. As one of the most widespread of technological changes, the author considers the effect of automation and the training of control engineers destined to develop automatic controls in industry. In view of this consideration, the executives of the future, suggestively, must have at least an appreciation of engineering and technical considerations. Consideration is being given to University courses which include both arts and science subjects, and these followed by a Graduate apprenticeship may well prove a valuable beginning. Post-Graduate Courses, both technical and of the Staff College type, are also argued to be considered essential.