STATEMENTS OF DR. FRANK PRESS, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES AND DR. COURTLAND PERKINS, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING

Mr. FUQUA. Frank, we are happy to welcome you back once again. Is this the first time you have testified as the President of the Academy?

Dr. PRESS. That's right.

Mr. FUQUA. Well, let me welcome you in that capacity. You have been here many times in the past as science adviser to the President. We are happy to have you in your new position of responsibility, and look forward to continuing our relationship that we have had. It has been a very warm one over the years.

We will be happy to hear from you.

Dr. PRESS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

With your permission, I would like to reduce the extent of my remarks and submit the full text for the record.

Mr. FUQUA. Without objection.

You may summarize. The same with Dr. Perkins.

Dr. PRESS. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I appreciate the opportunity to be with you here today to join in this discussion of engineering manpower concerns.

Dr. Perkins and I have coordinated our testimony, and I will address the issue in the broader context of some of the challenges the Nation faces in the years ahead. He will address the more specific concerns of engineering education that have emerged from a series of discussions that the National Academy of Engineering has had over the years.

Mr. Chairman, I believe your hearing should seek to provide a clear and factual exposition upon which decisions can be formulated in meeting engineering manpower needs for the next decade and define the appropriate roles to be played by all concerned in sharing that responsibility.

We must provide modern teaching and research facilities and other programs to insure that talented individuals in adequate numbers are available for service in our vast scientific and technological enterprise.

While our Nation is still the technological leader of the world, certain worrisome signs should lead us to examine carefully whether these goals are being well served. There is a widespread belief that our technology today is growing less competitive with other industrial nations, and that the scientific and engineering facilities in which we educate and train future generations show an alarming slippage in comparative quality.

The sufficiency and quality of engineering manpower resources for the future are directly related to the overall quality and level or research programs in our academic community. Only if our universities remain at the cutting edge in frontier research endeavors can we advance the state-of-the-art and improve the training of our youth.

Other countries may turn out more engineers than we do. We should not be deceived by that statistic. It is the quality of education that counts and it is the involvement of our engineering faculties in the forefront of research and development, and in the

dissemination of the most current understanding of the state-ofthe-art to students through the educational process.

Today, our university departments of science and engineering in many instances utilize outmoded equipment, equipment that often lags behind the technological facilities provided in the laboratories of our industrial plants. In many cases, our students are not wellprepared for their first jobs because of this.

Industry has increasingly recognized the value for its own future needs of plant modernization at univerisities. But, however encouraging it is to see the growing contribution of industry to solving these problems, it cannot be expected to shoulder the entire burden alone.

The issue of obsolescence must be faced jointly by the Government, by industry, by the universities. One useful Government initiative has been the incentive created for industrial support by the recently enacted Reagan administration tax program which extends tax benefits to companies donating certain kinds of equipment to universities for research.

If this provision is liberally used, there can be a significant contribution toward improving the situation.

While Dr. Perkins will talk to you in detail about emerging engineering manpower demands, I would like to call attention briefly to a particular aspect of engineering manpower demand that, in my view, we cannot ignore. The decade ahead will witness a second industrial revolution growing out of developments in high technology. To survive, many middle level and smaller industries will increasingly require the services of competent and highly skilled engineers. These prospective manpower demands have never been adequately factored into projections of future needs for engineers.

I believe that the Government has a responsibility to monitor the supply and demand of scientific and technical personnel both in terms of quantity and quality and to supplement the free market role when it is in the national interest.

This is an area in which the Government as representative of the public interest must be watchful. For example, we observed that the supply of engineers is beginning to catch up with demand. Some studies show that by the end of the decade, supply and demand should be in balance except perhaps in a few specialties. I would like to add that not everybody agrees with this projection. There is a great deal of uncertainty about future demand for engineers. If this high-technology industrial revolution does accelerate, I think the demand might have been underestimated.

But, there are near-term and intermediate-term needs about which everyone agrees and there are gaps and questions of quality. As I said earlier, the latest state-of-the-art equipment to train these engineers is lacking. Further, the burgeoning numbers of engineering students have overcrowded the classroom at a time when there is a shortage of qualified teachers.

It is questionable that graduating engineers are receiving quality education in the faster growing disciplines such as computer engineering, robotics, electronics, genetic engineering, and the several fields of energy engineering. And, whether our universities can

keep apace of the accelerating advances of modern technology in these new fields is another vexing question.

Without both, private and Government support, and without institutional changes within universities, the gap may widen further in the years ahead.

I'm concerned that support will lag and that industry and private sources cannot make up the difference, especially in the areas of instrumentation, and in the provision of incentives for junior faculty to remain at our universities. These are short-term and I hope manageable problems if we can define a national policy of cooperative support by both Government and industry.

But, there are longer term conditions that could limit our ability to stay in the forefront of the world's technological leaders. I hope, Mr. Chairman, that your committee will address this in your future deliberations. It has to do with the quality of science and mathematics education in our primary and secondary schools.

Last year, my predecessor, Dr. Handler, called your attention to a report of the National Research Council entitled "The State of School Science." It is a review that was supported by the National Science Foundation concerning the quality of teaching of mathematics, science, and social studies in American schools.

The survey data, firsthand observations, and other information from this and additional studies described a troubled American school system. Student performances show striking decline. Teacher qualifications and effectiveness in the classroom has dropped. Use of laboratory instruction and the inquiry approach seems to be diminishing. A heavy emphasis, systemwide, on multiple-choice testing has elevated simpler and less meaningful instructional objectives and reduced the importance of learning concepts and relationships.

The educational environment in our schools is not good. All of this cannot help but affect our future ability to maintain a leadership position in technology in the world.

An impending crisis awaits us as these ill-prepared secondary students begin to move into society, into vocational jobs, or into education. I should also like to underscore a problem by reference to the findings of a comparative study prepared by the National Science Foundation and the Department of Education just last year.

The major thrust of that survey is that in each country studied— Japan, Germany, and the Soviet Union-in each of these countries, there is a strong national commitment to quality science and mathematics instruction as an essential part of the precollege work. The result is a work force which, at all levels, has a relatively high degree of science and mathematics skills, and this has been a factor in the very rapid expansion of their technical industries.

In a nutshell, the university needs are significant. The traditional sources of support-endowment income, gifts, support by State legislatures-will be insufficient to solve some of these problems. Industry is increasing its support. But industrial leaders themselves say that they cannot fill the gap.

Who will pick up the difference? I think this is where we need a significant statement about Government policy. I do hope, Mr. Chairman, that as a result of your hearings, we might begin the

process of establishing a national consensus on these very important questions.

I will be pleased to respond to the committee's questions, Mr. Chairman, but perhaps first you may wish to have Dr. Perkins present his statement. We then can jointly participate in the discussion.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Press follows:]

appreciate the opportunity you have provided to us at the National Academies of Sciences and Engineering, to join in your discussion of "Engineering Manpower

Concerns." It is gratifying that at this, my first appearance before vour Committee as President of the National Academy of Sciences, I will be privileged to discuss a subject that has been a serious concern of mine both as a scientist, as an educator, and as an individual involved in the formation of science policy at the national level. Dr. Courtland D. Perkins, the distinguished President of the National Academy of Fngineering, joins me as a member of this panel and he and I both are pleased to provide whatever assistance we can in addressing the questions you have posed.

With your indulgence, I would like to address

these concerns in the broader context of challenges the nation faces in science and technology during the coming decades, drawing in part upon my experience of the past five years during which the demands of scientific and engineering manpower for serving modern technology were