STATEMENT OF C. W. PATRICK, ASSISTANT SUPERINTENDENT OF SCHOOLS, SAN DIEGO, CALIF.

Mr. PATRICK. I spent 20 years in vocational education as teacher, teacher trainer, State supervisor and local director. I also spent a couple of years during World War II as regional director of training for the War Manpower Commission for the Pacific coast.

I am a graduate of California Tech, and I have had additional experiences and training.

I am also serving on the accrediting committee for the west coast, for the technical institute program under ECPD, the Engineering Council for Professional Development.

I have served on the national board of directors of the American Technical Education Association and the National Council of Local Administrators of Vocational Education and Practical Arts.

I have a written statement prepared.

The CHAIRMAN. We will have that appear in full in the record, and you may summarize for us.

Mr. PATRICK. Thank you very much. I will be happy to do that. Mr. Chairman, I want to establish first that in California the primary responsibility for technical education, the type Dr. Mobley spoke of earlier, is lodged in the junior colleges. I have documented in my written report the information with regard to this.

We have 61 junior colleges in California representing and covering nearly every area and community in the State. Each of these colleges is operated by a local board and each of them encompasses, usually, several high school, or high-school districts, so they are truly area schools.

On the average, about a third of the operating costs come from State funds, and about two-thirds from local funds. In addition, all the buildings and equipment must be provided by local funds.

I would like to describe briefly the San Diego Junior College because I think it can serve as an example of the kind of institutions that these junior colleges are.

We operate our school through a local board. We enroll about 3,000 full-time students and about 6,000 part-time students. We serve not only the city of San Diego but metropolitan and suburban areas as well. In fact, slightly more than one-fourth of those enrolled reside outside of the San Diego School District.

We have about a thousand of these full-time students who are in technical and skilled trades, about 400 of these full-time students are in the highly technical areas or occupations, and in the evening program, about half or 3,000 of the students are enrolled in the technical and highly skilled occupations. These are industrial employees who are attempting to upgrade themselves into these occupations.

All of these courses in the junior colleges in San Diego are operated under the State and Federal plans for vocational education, under the Smith-Hughes and the George-Barden laws.

IMPORTANCE OF FEDERAL AID

While the proportion of Federal aid which we receive is relatively small, these funds are of tremendous importance in carrying the extra courses of these vocational and technical programs and, in particular,

in providing a rather significant share of the cost of local supervision. It is essential if you are going to maintain the contacts with labor and with industry that are necessary to make the programs really work, and we do use advisory committees for all of these courses.

We have 64 individual cmomittees, made up of community leaders from management and employee associations. We operate our schools, as Los Angeles does, in the morning from 8 a. m. to 10 p. m. in the evening, with most of the shops and laboratories busy a good share of the time.

Some of the technical occupations for which we offer training are general electronics, industrial electronics, electronic communication, tool design, tool planning, aircraft inspection, aircraft drafting, and so forth.

The enrollment in all of these fields has literally exploded in the last few years, and the demands continue to increase. I have attached to the statement a list of the entire schedule of classes in both day and evening for last fall. I believe that gives you an overall picture of the entire offerings of the school. I am, of course, talking about only the technical offerings.

Since all of these classes are operated under the supervision of the advisory committee, it seems obvious that we only offer training where we can provide placement.

CONTINUING DEMAND FOR TECHNICIANS

Just to verify the need for this training, I have collected a few advertisements from last Monday's morning paper showing, even in the face of the lagging factory employment in the missile and aircraft plants in our area, the demand for technicians continues, even perhaps more heavily, as emphasized in these advertisements, than the need for engineers.

I hope you will take the time to look at it.

I also include a very laudatory article from the Rohr Aircraft Co. publication describing the part-time technical institutes, listing the fields in which training is offered, and pointing out that promotions in the plan, are resulting and they are filling their needs and releasing engineers as a result of this part-time education.

Senator MORSE. Due to the fact that these exhibits are attached to the appendix, it should be included in the files of the committee, but only the statement will be in the transcript.

The CHAIRMAN. Your statement will appear in full but, as Senator Morse has said, these exhibits which you have here will be available to the committee. I believe you have furnished copies.

Mr. PATRICK. I will be glad to furnish additional ones, if you desire them. You may have as many as you wish.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, sir.

INCREASING PROPORTION OF ENGINEERS AND TECHNICIANS

Mr. PATRICK. I think one of the most important and challenging educational aspects of the current industrial revolution is the increasing proportion of engineers and technicians in modern plants.

Last week I asked my staff at the San Diego Junior College to check with our five major missile and aircraft plants in San Diego to

determine the proportion of engineers and technicians actually employed at the present time in these plants. I have included the figures. The range is from 60 to 200 engineers for each 1,000 employees, and from 60 to 180 technicians.

Most impressive of these figures is the comparison of the Convair Astronautics plant with the others. Astronautics is the new missile plant where they have manufactured the first successful intercontinental ballistic missile, the Atlas. They employ 200 engineers and 180 technicians out of each thousand total workers, and they expect to go to 230 technicians and 200 engineers out of each 1,000 total employees. I think, to a great extent, that this is the future picture of our electronic and our missile industries, and it represents a tremendous challenge, as I say, to the educational program of the country.

These five companies in San Diego already employ some 7,000 technical workers, technicians. To this we must add the naval establishments in San Diego and the small electronic manufacturers and aircraft subcontractors, and so forth.

Incidentally, many of these technicians have been trained in the schools of the Armed Forces, where the total cost has been paid by the Federal Government. Frankly, I do not know what the industries would have done except for that at the present time.

In order to meet the current and anticipated demand for these technically trained workers, we feel that the Junior College in San Diego will have to expand its facilities tremendously. We feel that increased Federal support, particularly for equipment, and an increased proportion of operating costs, will certainly assist us in providing this necessary expansion.

COST OF ELECTRONICS LABORATORY EQUIPMENT

I have detailed in my report the cost of a typical electronics laboratory and I have a list, item by item, which you can examine, which totals in excess of $40,000 for one laboratory. The equipment testing laboratory for the training of engineering technicians will cost in excess of $80,000. The drafting will require in excess of $10,000.

These figures are just for equipment, not for buildings.

I want to point out that all these training programs for technicians in which we now have literally thousands of trainees are operated under the present Federal and State vocational education plans. These funds are being made available to institutions and programs at every level, but they are particularly appropriate to the technical education program in the junior colleges.

The really critical need is for increased funds for equipment and for the support of these programs and more specifically for technical education programs.

I hope this information on this one community is of some help in your appraisal of this legislation. If we can provide more information, I would be happy to do so.

(Full text of statement by C. W. Patrick follows:)

Vocational education is a matter of national importance and concern, but is administered through the States and local communities across the Nation. It is fitting, therefore, to examine individual communities to ascertain the urgency and desirability of national support of vocational education. I hope this information of the San Diego program will be of assistance in your appraisal of the proposed legislation.

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1. INTRODUCTION

This statement has the following purposes:

A. To present the qualifications of the witness as an authority in technical and vocational education.

B. To show that the San Diego Junior College and the California system of junior colleges are now offering throughout the State, in cooperation with the State Board for Vocational Education, effective programs of technical and vocational training-which need to be strengthened and supported by increased Federal aid.

C. To offer specific examples, illustrations and exhibits which will demonstrate for one community the expanding needs for trained technical and skilled manpower in critical industries, the costs of equipping and operating technical training programs, and the cooperation of schools and industry.

D. To show that in the State and Federal boards for vocational education there now exists the machinery for the effective distribution of additional Federal funds for promotion and extension of technical education at any level of education, but particularly through the junior or community colleges.

2. QUALIFICATIONS OF THE WITNESS

As assistant superintendent in charge of post-high-school education for the San Diego city schools, I am responsible for the San Diego Junior College and five adult high schools.

During the past 20 years, I have been in vocational education as teacher, teacher trainer, State supervisor, and local director. During World War II, I served as regional director of training for the War Manpower Commission for the five Western States.

I hold a bachelor of science degree in science from the California Institute of Technology and a master of arts degree in education.

For the past 7 years I have served on the region VIII committee, technical institute accrediting program of the Engineers' Council for Professional Development. I have served on the national board of directors of the American Technical Education Association and am currently a member of the board of directors of the National Council of Administrators of Technical Education and Practical Arts.

I am representing the San Diego city schools, the San Diego Junior College, the California Industrial Education Association, and the American Vocational Association.

3. THE CALIFORNIA JUNIOR COLLEGE SYSTEM

A. Technical education a junior college function

In California the primary responsibility for the formal training of technical and skilled manpower has been placed on the public junior colleges.

A Survey of the Needs of California in Higher Education, prepared in 1948 for the liaison committee of the University of California and the California State Department of Education, stated: "In any vocational or professional field a group of workers is needed beginning with the unskilled and semiskilled and ending with the highly professional and research type. The unskilled and the semiskilled learn what they need to know by the pickup method. Skilled workers become such through apprenticeship or by mastering courses on the high-school level. Technical programs have in California long been regarded as the province of the 2-year junior college, while professional training is the province of the university."

A more detailed statement comes from a followup study in 1955: "Vocational curriculums: One of the most valuable and distinctive functions of the junior colleges in California is the provision of technical and semiprofessional curriculums. Numerous studies have indicated in recent years that America's industrial and technological economy requires more workers at the technical than at the professional level. In the field of engineering, for example. estimates have ranged from a ratio of 6 technicians to 1 professional engineer. to as high as 16 to 1.

"Studies in New York State and elsewhere which have involved a very careful analysis and tabulation of trade and industrial occupations have shown that the same high proportion of semiprofessional workers is needed in other occupations as in engineering. In an expanding national economy, and particularly in a State such as California, where the growth potential is much higher than the

average for the United States as a whole, technical personnel will be in increasing demand.

"The technical-vocational curriculums of most California junior colleges are excellently planned and appear to be well organized and taught. Lay advisory committees drawn from the occupations in question aid in planning vocational offerings.

"Junior-college technical curriculums also often include a cooperative work plan in which the student is actually employed for part of the school day as part of his education. Junior colleges also frequently conduct surveys of the occupational needs of the communities they serve, as a basis for setting up new curriculums or revising existing ones.

"Representatives of business and industry are increasingly aware of the value of the vocational training provided by the junior colleges. The Merchants and Manufacturers Association of Los Angeles conducted a ‘Junior College Curriculums Evaluation Study' in April 1954. An officer of the association, in a letter to a member of the restudy staff, made the following comment on vocational education in the junior college:

"Over the years we have seen a constant rise in the skill levels demanded by business and industry. Tomorrow, or the day after, with the increasing uses of automation, the substituting of electronic "brains" and their manipulations for today's manual and machine operations, these skill levels will skyrocket. Many job classifications, important today, will be replaced by new job families— some of which we only faintly recognize as yet.

'Business and industry will get their scientists, engineers, and professionalmanagement people from that 15 percent who will be graduated from 4-year colleges and universities. We shall have to depend on the bottom end of the scale, the 70 percent for the "hands."

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'Query: Where are we going to get the technicians, the subengineers, the service people, the leadmen, the foremen, and the supervisors?

"In my mind the best place to get them is from the 2-year terminal courses in business and in vocations offered by the junior colleges.'

"The spot-check study conducted by the association gave the following comments of management with regard to the effectiveness of the terminal-vocational training which had been secured by junior-college graduates in their employment:

B. Administration and support of the California junior colleges

The California system of junior colleges consists of 61 public junior colleges serving nearly every area and community throughout the State and enrolling as of October 31, 1957, 81,112 full-time students and 186,249 part-time students and adults. Each junior college is operated by a local board of education. Most junior college districts encompass a number of high schools and highschool districts so that the junior college in California truly serves as an area school. On the average, one-third of the operating cost of the junior colleges comes from State funds and slightly less than two-thirds from local funds. In addition, all building and equipment must be provided by local funds.

In 1953-54, 31.1 percent of the income of the junior colleges came from Federal funds-primarily from the Veterans' Administration and from Federal vocational education funds.

C. Junior colleges offer technical training using vocational education funds

As has been described in the surveys of higher education in California, the junior colleges have been doing an effective job in attempting to meet the need of the State for trained technical and highly skilled workers. Last year, for example, there were offered in California some 736 full-time courses in occupations which are catalogued as critical to our defense production at the present time-such as aircraft, electronics, machine shop, tool and die, et cetera. There were 54,890 persons enrolled in part-time evening classes in these fields. These totals include some evening high-school classes. All of these classes are operated in accordance with State and Federal programs of vocational education.