EDUCATION IS LIKE LAUXARY, THAT A FEW CAN AFFORD

EDUCATION IS LIKE LAUXARY, THAT A FEW CAN AFFORD (ref-- pin2.sa)

While watching Alzageera telivision a documentary's line fascinated me but more over i was shocked by the rality it wanted to expres.It was "education is like lauxary, that only few can afford." Literally the statement sounded so good that its meaning was over taken.But when i repeated the statement few after the message was really embrasing.

The programme was based upon the rular area of india and the poor people's living conditions.Now where we advocate education as a basic ned have examples like this. People each day starve to death and we and our government make education their basic agenda. And moreover such agenda remains only as a steps for them. Those sort promise never work.

In this conditions every one form one to dill that is each individual should be concern about their country and countrymen. People should be able to think above their selfish motives. We se more crucial conditions in our country itself.People are dying of dirrohea in one side and Health minister have great time visiting abroad.And we think about better education.

At least we would take some lesson from Asian country that is Malaysia which invested 50% of its annual budget on education and se its GDP is $10,000 which is among top of world.So, people must be escaped with education inorder

EDUCATION ENDS ON THE WAY

EDUCATION ENDS ON THE WAY (ref- pin2.sa)

Having been stucked for half an hour in traffic at Baneshwor, Mandep hitting the window of the bus said,"Hell man i need escape off from this country.There is nothing that this country can provide us."And he was supported by few others youth beside him.

The same day a heading cauht my eyes in the newspaper,"whole day is wasted in reaching and getting back from school to home."It was about a remote village where it takes 4-5 hours for students to reach school and after being reached there they have get back since their home is too far and they cannot make anymore delay.We have more that thousands school in kathmandu valley itself and so is the ratio in other major cities and towns.Even villages with other available facilities have schools but the places where they do not have accessw to other good facilities even do not have acces to the Government facilities. Or it can be said that as centralization is over taking things,soon a day will come when we will se Mt.everest,Janki temple,Lakes,wildlife reserve and other good things in the valley itself.Or the Government should start thinking about the isue and make things beter there.

If the concerned people cant make things overnight than even the Government has options either make transportation good so that students can utilize optimum time in school or provide them with educational institutions so that they do not have to travel a long distance everyday.But anyway these things must be thought

before people start get wrong mentality about education and government.

EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH

Educational research

A large amount of research in education is published every year; such research drives much educational policy and practice. But educational research raises many philosophical issues. How is it best conducted, and how are its results best interpreted and translated into policy? Should it be modeled on research in the natural sciences? In what ways (if any) does competent research in the social sciences differ from that in the natural sciences? Can educational research aim at objectivity and the production of objective results, or is it inevitably subjective? Should researchers utilize quantitative methods or qualitative ones? How is this distinction best understood? Are both legitimate modes of research, or is the first problematically scientistic or positivistic, or the second problematically subjective, impressionistic, or unreliable? These and related issues are largely philosophical, involving philosophy of science (both natural and social) and epistemology, but they clearly involve the social sciences as well.

EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY
Educational psychology is the theoretical and research branch of modern psychology, concerned with the learning processes and psychological problems associated with the teaching and training of students. The educational psychologist studies the cognitive development of students and the various factors involved in learning, including aptitude and learning measurement, the creative process, and the motivational forces that influence dynamics between students and teachers. Educational psychology is a partly experimental and partly applied branch of psychology, concerned with the optimization of learning. It differs from school psychology, which is an applied field that deals largely with problems in elementary and secondary school systems.

Educational psychology traces its origins to the experimental and empirical work on association and sensory activity by the English anthropologist Sir Francis Galton, and the American psychologist G. Stanley Hall, who wrote The Contents of Children's Minds (1883). The major leader in the field of educational psychology, however, was the American educator and psychologist Edward Lee Thorndike, who designed methods to measure and test children's intelligence and their ability to learn. Thorndike proposed the transfer-of-training theory, which states that “what is learned in one sphere of activity ‘transfers' to another sphere only when the two spheres share common ‘elements.' ”

AUDIOVISUAL EDUCATION

AUDIOVISUAL EDUCATION
Audiovisual education is the use of supplementary teaching aids, such as recordings, transcripts, and tapes; motion pictures and videotapes; radio and television; and computers, to improve learning.

Audiovisual education has developed rapidly since the 1920s by drawing on new technologies of communication, most recently the computer. History has shown that pictures, specimens, demonstrations, and other audiovisual means are effective teaching tools. John Amos Comenius (1592–1670), a Bohemian educator, was one of the first to propose a systematic method of audiovisual education. His Orbis Sensualium Pictus (“Picture of the Sensual World”), published in 1658, was profusely illustrated with drawings, each playing an important role in teaching the lesson at hand. Comenius was followed by other great educators, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, and J.H. Pestalozzi, who advocated the use of sensory materials to supplement teaching.

Audiovisual aids were widely employed by the armed services during and after World War II. This and much research over the intervening years indicate that, when skillfully used, audiovisual aids can lead to significant gains in recall, thinking, interest, and imagination.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION

PHYSICAL EDUCATION
Physical education, training in physical fitness and in skills requiring or promoting such fitness. Many traditional societies included training in hunting, ritual dance, and military skills, while others—especially those emphasizing literacy—often excluded physical skills.

The spread of literacy in the West between 1500 and 1800 coincided with a new awareness that fitness helps the mind. Gymnasiums opened across Europe, the first in Copenhagen in 1799. The German Turnverein movement grew, expanding to the United States with immigration. Per Ling developed a teaching system for physical education in Stockholm in 1814, and Otto Spiess (1810–1858) popularized another system in Germany. As public schools in Germany, Denmark, and the United States tried these systems, physical education joined baccalaureate curricula, becoming a major at Columbia University in 1901 and elsewhere later.

Japan's schools have linked physical and mental training since the 17th century. Public schools with compulsory physical education were founded in 1872; the trend since 1945 has been toward individual physical and mental development. The Soviet Union, after 1917, placed great emphasis on physical education, both in schools and in special physical education institutes.

Today, physical education is a required course in most primary and secondary schools in countries with compulsory education. Most teaching takes place inside gymnasiums or other facilities built specifically for physical education activities, although outdoor sports are also emphasized.

DISTANCE EDUCATION

DISTANCE EDUCATION
Distance Education is the methods of instruction that utilize different communications technologies to carry teaching to learners in different places. Distance education programs enable learners and teachers to interact with each other by means of computers, artificial satellites, telephones, radio or television broadcasting, or other technologies. Instruction conducted through the mail is often referred to as correspondence education, although many educators simply consider this the forerunner to distance education. Distance education is also sometimes called distance learning. While distance learning can refer to either formal or informal learning experiences, distance education refers specifically to formal instruction conducted at a distance by a teacher who plans, guides, and evaluates the learning process. As new communications technologies become more efficient and more widely available, increasing numbers of elementary schools, secondary schools, universities, and businesses offer distance education programs.

Nearly every country in the world makes use of distance education programs in its education system. Britain’s nationally supported Open University, based in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England, has one of the best-known programs. A vast majority of the school’s 133,000 students receive instruction entirely at a distance. More than 20 other countries have national open universities in which all instruction is provided by distance education methods. This method of education can be especially valuable in developing countries. By reaching a large number of students with relatively few teachers, it provides a cost-effective way of using limited academic resources. Many businesses use distance education programs to train employees or to help them update skills or knowledge. Employees may take such programs in the workplace or at home in their spare time.

THE NEED FOR REMEDIAL EDUCATION

THE NEED FOR REMEDIAL EDUCATION
Many students need additional instructional support in a particular subject at some point in their school years. Some students need more remedial support than others.

Many educators consider remedial education necessary to overcome the ill effects of poverty. Schools always have had difficulty educating children who live in economically disadvantaged households. Educational researchers note that relatively few low-income households are able to afford educational resources that could help create a rich, supportive learning environment in the home. For instance, families living in poverty are less likely to be able to afford books, computers, encyclopedias, and other learning resources. Children in such households often have difficulty matching the academic achievement of more advantaged children who live in homes and communities that provide greater access to educational resources. In addition, parents with low incomes typically have lower levels of educational attainment themselves. These parents often find it difficult to offer their children the same sort of academic advice and support that wealthier and better-educated parents can provide their own children.

Schools in lower-income communities are typically funded less than schools in higher-income communities. On various measures, such as class sizes, teacher qualifications, access to curriculum materials, and library facilities, schools in lower-income communities rank below those in higher-income communities. The result is that often students in lower-income communities receive a lower-quality education. This problem produces a greater need for remedial education programs.

There are many other reasons why students may fall behind academically and need remedial instruction. Teachers differ in their expertness for teaching math, reading, and other subjects. Thus, a student might need remedial help if he had teacher A in first grade but not if he had been lucky enough to have teacher B. School systems also differ in their support for teachers. In a school district with overcrowded classrooms, the same teacher B might be overwhelmed with work and not be able to attend to individual needs as well. Finally, parent involvement plays an important role in a student’s learning. Students whose parents are highly involved in their education are less likely to need remedial help than students whose parents are not involved...

REMEDIAL EDUCATION

REMEDIAL EDUCATION
Remedial Education is the special instruction designed to help students catch up to a desired level of academic achievement. In the United States and Canada, remedial education is common at all levels of schooling, from preschools through colleges and universities. The most common remedial education programs focus on developing students’ basic skills in reading, writing, and mathematics.

Some remedial education programs attempt to remedy insufficient learning in previous academic settings. These programs typically involve reteaching subjects or redesigning lessons to make the instruction clearer or more personalized for individual students. Remedial programs may also be designed to compensate for an educational disadvantage. For instance, a preschool program may provide learning opportunities designed to help children who are considered at risk of educational failure because of limited English proficiency. In higher education, a remedial math course may help some first-year college or university students compensate for inadequate preparation in math during high school.

Remedial education is based on the presumption that a student underachieves because of extrinsic (environmental) factors, such as poverty or insufficient access to high-quality education. Remedial education thus differs from special education, where the source of the learning difficulty is generally viewed as intrinsic—that is, due to a disability or disorder that exists within the individual. To avoid a common misperception that students in remedial programs have an intrinsic learning difficulty, some educators in the United States prefer to use the term developmental education rather than remedial education. Most educators consider programs in English as a Second Language (ESL) to be neither remedial, developmental, nor special education but a separate category of educational support.

Historically, schools allowed children to fall behind academically if they had difficulty matching the achievement of their peers. Most students who found learning difficult eventually dropped out of school to find work in occupations that did not require high levels of educational achievement. However, as society has changed and work has become more complex, the accepted minimum levels of educational achievement have steadily risen, especially since the 1960s. Enrollment levels in remedial education programs have likewise risen.

MORAL EDUCATION

Moral education
Another set of problems and issues has to do with the proper educational approach to morality. Should education strive to instill particular moral beliefs and values in students? Or should it aim rather to enhance students' ability to think through moral issues for themselves? If the latter, how should educators distinguish between good and bad ways to think about moral issues? Should moral education focus on students' character—rather than on either the inculcation of particular beliefs and values or the development of the ability to think well about moral matters—and endeavour to produce particular traits, such as honesty and sensitivity? Or are all these approaches problematic in that they inevitably involve indoctrination (of an undesirable kind)? A related objection to the approaches mentioned is that moral beliefs and values are in some sense relative to culture or community; therefore, attempts to teach morality at least presuppose an indefensible moral absolutism and may even constitute a kind of moral “imperialism.” These large and complex questions are intimately connected with metaethics and moral epistemology—i.e., the part of moral philosophy concerned with the epistemic status of moral claims and judgments. Moral psychology and developmental psychology are also highly relevant to the resolution of these questions.

CLARIFICATION OF EDUCATIONAL CONCEPTS

Clarification of educational concepts

A perennial conception of the nature of philosophy is that it is chiefly concerned with the clarification of concepts, such as knowledge, truth, justice, beauty, mind, meaning, and existence. One of the tasks of the philosophy of education, accordingly, has been the elucidation of key educational concepts, including the concept of education itself, as well as related concepts such as teaching, learning, schooling, child rearing, and indoctrination. Although this clarificatory task has sometimes been pursued overzealously—especially during the period of so-called ordinary language analysis in the 1960s and '70s, when much work in the field seemed to lose sight of the basic normative issues to which these concepts were relevant—it remains the case that work in the philosophy of education, as in other areas of philosophy, must rely at least in part on conceptual clarification. Such analysis seeks not necessarily, or only, to identify the particular meanings of charged or contested concepts but also to identify alternative meanings, render ambiguities explicit, reveal hidden metaphysical, normative, or cultural assumptions, illuminate the consequences of alternative interpretations, explore the semantic connections between related concepts, and elucidate the inferential relationships obtaining among the philosophical claims and theses in which they are embedded.

AIMS OF EDUCATION

The aims of education
The most basic problem of philosophy of education is that concerning aims: what are the proper aims and guiding ideals of education? What are the proper criteria for evaluating educational efforts, institutions, practices, and products? Many aims have been proposed by philosophers and other educational theorists; they include the cultivation of curiosity and the disposition to inquire; the fostering of creativity; the production of knowledge and of knowledgeable students; the enhancement of understanding; the promotion of moral thinking, feeling, and action; the enlargement of the imagination; the fostering of growth, development, and self-realization; the fulfillment of potential; the cultivation of “liberally educated” persons; the overcoming of provincialism and close-mindedness; the development of sound judgment; the cultivation of docility and obedience to authority; the fostering of autonomy; the maximization of freedom, happiness, or self-esteem; the development of care, concern, and related attitudes and dispositions; the fostering of feelings of community, social solidarity, citizenship, and civic-mindedness; the production of good citizens; the “civilizing” of students; the protection of students from the deleterious effects of civilization; the development of piety, religious faith, and spiritual fulfillment; the fostering of ideological purity; the cultivation of political awareness and action; the integration or balancing of the needs and interests of the individual student and the larger society; and the fostering of skills and dispositions constitutive of rationality or critical thinking.

All such proposed aims require careful articulation and defense, and all have been subjected to sustained criticism. Both contemporary and historical philosophers of education have devoted themselves, at least in part, to defending a particular conception of the aims of education or to criticizing the conceptions of others. The great range of aims that have been proposed makes vivid the philosopher of education's need to appeal to other areas of philosophy, to other disciplines (e.g., psychology, anthropology, sociology, and the physical sciences), and to educational practice itself. Given that consideration of education's proper aims is of fundamental importance for the intelligent guidance of educational activities, it is unfortunate that contemporary discussions of educational policy rarely address the matter.

AIMS OF LEGAL EDUCATION

AIMS OF LEGAL EDUCATION

Legal education generally has a number of theoretical and practical aims, not all of which are pursued simultaneously. The emphasis placed on various objectives differs from period to period, place to place, and even teacher to teacher. One aim is to make the student familiar with legal concepts and institutions and with characteristic modes of legal reasoning. Students also become acquainted with the processes of making law, settling disputes, and regulating the legal profession, and they must study the structure of government and the organization of courts of law, including the system of appeals and other adjudicating bodies.

Another aim of legal education is the understanding of law in its social, economic, political, and scientific contexts. Prior to the late 20th century, Anglo-American legal education was less interdisciplinary than that of continental Europe. With the development of a more or less scientific approach to social studies since the late 20th century, however, this has been changing. Some American law schools appoint economists, historians, political scientists, or sociologists to their staffs, while most permit their students to take courses outside the law school as part of their work toward a degree. Continental legal education tends to be highly interdisciplinary, if more abstract and doctrinal than its American counterpart, with nonlegal subjects compulsory for students taking their first degree in law.

Traditionally, legal education has included the study of legal history, which was once regarded as an essential part of any educated lawyer's training. Although economics is increasingly popular as a tool for understanding law, much legal history is nonetheless taught in the context of the general law curriculum. Since the corpus of the law is a constantly evolving collection of rules and principles, many teachers consider it necessary to trace the development of the branch of law they are discussing. In civil-law countries, where most parts of the law are codified, it is not generally thought necessary to cover topics that antedate the codes themselves. On the other hand, in countries that have a common-law system, knowledge of the law has traditionally depended to a great extent on the study of the court decisions and statutes out of which common law evolved.

Even in jurisdictions that require four or five years of law study (as in Japan and India), the graduating law student is not expected to have studied the whole body of substantive law but is, however, typically expected to be familiar with the general principles of the main branches of law. To this end, certain subjects are regarded as basic: constitutional law, governing the major organs of state; the law of contract, governing obligations entered into by agreement; the law of tort (or delict in civil-law systems), governing compensation for personal injury and damage to property, income, or reputation; the law of real (or immovable) property (see property law), governing transactions with land; criminal law, governing punishment, deterrence, rehabilitation, and prevention of offenses against the public order; and corporation (or company) law, governing the leading form that economic actors take in modern society. The materials studied are largely the same everywhere: codes (where these exist), reports of court decisions, legislation, government and other public reports, institutional books (in civil-law countries), textbooks, and articles in learned periodicals. The aim is not so much that the students should remember “the law” as that they should understand basic concepts and methods and become sufficiently familiar with a law library to carry out the necessary research on any legal problems that may come their way.

INTRODUCTION OF LEGAL EDUCATION

INTRODUCTION OF LEGAL EDUCATION
Legal education, preparation for the practice of law. Instruction in law has been offered in universities since medieval times, but, since the advent of university-based law schools in the 18th and 19th centuries, legal education has faced the challenge of reconciling its aim of teaching law as one of the academic disciplines with its goal of preparing persons to become members of a profession. Most law schools have tried to find a middle path between being a mere trade school and being a citadel of pure theory. Unfortunately, the criticism is sometimes made that these efforts result in a type of education that is not practical enough to be genuinely useful in resolving day-to-day legal problems but yet not as rigorously theoretical as a truly academic discipline ought to be.

CORRESPONDENCE EDUCATION

CORRESPONDENCE EDUCATION
Correspondence education is the method of providing education for nonresident students, primarily adults, who receive lessons and exercises through the mails or some other device and, upon completion, return them for analysis, criticism, and grading. Correspondence education is extensively used by business and industry in training programs, by men and women in the armed forces, and by the governments of many nations as part of their educational program. Correspondence education supplements other forms of education and makes independent study programs readily available.

The correspondence movement evolved in the mid-19th century, fuelled by the need for an educated trade and working class brought on by industrial and urban development, and facilitated by the development of improved printing and postal services. Correspondence courses were first offered in Great Britain, Germany, and the United States but spread rapidly throughout the world.

Originally correspondence courses were largely confined to vocational subjects; now, however, private correspondence schools, industry, government agencies, and universities offer such courses in virtually any field from the elementary school to the postgraduate level. Many of the subjects are not generally given in residence schools: camera repair, horology (clock-making and repair), floristry, locksmithing, gemology, and safety, for example.

Instruction may be wholly by correspondence or by a combination of home study and resident seminars or laboratory work. Correspondence education may include sound records or tapes, slides, films, videotapes or videodisks, teaching machines, computers, and the use of telephone, radio (including a two-way radio with each student using a transceiver, as in the Australian outback), and television. In the late 20th century the advent of electronic mail (correspondence delivered by means of electronic printing or display devices) is expected to increase the speed of response to student work.

Courses often include kits of tools or instruments and materials to be processed, as well as texts and study guides. Courses in Braille and on records or cassettes are available for the visually handicapped.

Many schools offer guidance and placement services, though the U.S. Federal Communications Commission in 1981 cracked down on some schools for implying more in the way of future employability or placement help than they actually delivered. Programs sponsored by schools and other public agencies often include special provisions for periodic home visits by teachers, occasional student get-togethers at local centres, or series of short-term residential school sessions for school-age children, as in New Zealand, or for discussion groups or study circles, as in Romania.

PAROCHIAL EDUCATION

Parochial education is education offered institutionally by a religious group. In the United States, parochial education refers to the schooling obtained in elementary and secondary schools that are maintained by Roman Catholic parishes, Protestant churches, or Jewish organizations; that are separate from the public school systems; and that provide instruction based on sectarian principles.

Roman Catholic parochial schools in the United States are organized on a diocesan basis and are supported principally by voluntary offerings from the parishioners and by tuition. The administration of the schools of a diocese is the direct responsibility of the bishop. This work is usually delegated to a priest appointed by the bishop, who is given the title of superintendent of schools or secretary for education. Most dioceses have a school board made up of members appointed by the bishop. Usually this board has no administrative power but acts in an advisory capacity to the bishop and his chief school officer.

The Roman Catholic schools teach the same subjects as the public schools, but two important differences should be noted. In the Roman Catholic curriculum, a course in Christian doctrine is included that presents the matters of faith and morals that are the teachings of the Roman Catholic church. Other courses, particularly in such areas as the social studies and humanities, are often given a Roman Catholic orientation.

Diocesan systems are often organized on a statewide or regional basis in order to share certain educational advantages and to exchange ideas and programs for the betterment of their teachers and schools. All diocesan systems are members of the National Catholic Educational Association.

Among Protestant groups that maintain parochial school systems in the United States, the Lutheran bodies are by far the most active, with around 190,000 children in Lutheran schools. Smaller school systems are sponsored by the Seventh-day Adventists, the National Union of the Christian Schools, the Protestant Episcopal Church, the National Association of Christian Schools (evangelical), and the Quakers, Mennonites, Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians.

The administration of most Protestant schools is in the hands of a board of education elected by the sponsoring group—either individual congregation, association of congregations, or association of individuals. This board selects a principal and in cooperation with him develops the policies that control the school program.

The teachers in Protestant schools are drawn from denominational teachers colleges and liberal arts colleges. Special training in Bible and doctrine is required, in addition to the general requirements set for teachers at the elementary and secondary levels. While the course of study for each grade in Protestant schools is substantially the same as that offered in the public schools, Christianity is made a unifying and integrating factor in the educational program.

The Jewish day school or “complete” school (i.e., the Jewish parochial school) in the United States is an educational institution in which a combined program of Jewish and general studies is offered. There are four types of institutions that provide intensive Jewish religious education as well as a complete course of study in general subject matter. The Talmudic day school makes provision for the study of the Hebrew texts of the Pentateuch and major portions of the Prophets and Scriptures, including the Masoretic commentaries, and places great stress on teaching of the Talmud. The secular studies meet the requirements of the city and state authorities. The modern day school stresses the study of Hebrew language, the Bible, Jewish history, prayers, and selected portions from the Talmud. All instruction is in the Hebrew language, with the secular subjects generally being given equal attention and equal time. The integrated day school aims to achieve a blending of instruction in Judaism and secular subjects, while the Hebrew-English private school emphasizes the study of general subjects and provides opportunities for Jewish learning for only five hours a week.

The majority of day schools (85 percent) are sponsored by Orthodox groups. Some that fall in the category of modern day schools are conducted by Conservative and other groups. Day schools operated by Yiddish culture groups include Yiddish language and literature among the basic subjects of instruction.

The two principal national organizations for the support of Jewish education are Torah Umesorah (National Society for Hebrew Day Schools) and the National Council for Torah Education.

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION

Vocational Education is an instruction in skills necessary for persons who are preparing to enter the labor force or who need training or retraining in the technology of their occupation.

The impact of technology on occupations, the tendency of employers to set higher educational requirements, and the need for employees with specialized training have made vocational preparation imperative. Part-time programs are essential in order to provide occupational mobility among workers and to overcome the effects of job obsolescence.

In the U.S., vocational education programs are conducted in public secondary schools and community colleges and are financed in part by federal funds. Other programs are conducted by business and industry, labor organizations, the armed forces, and private vocational-technical schools. Programs in both public and private institutions are general in scope, providing training for several jobs in an occupational cluster; programs conducted by business, industry, and the armed forces usually focus on particular interests. Under the Vocational Education Amendments (1968), vocational programs are administered by the U.S. Department of Education.

TEACHER EDUCATION

TEACHER EDUCATION

Teacher education refers to the policies and procedures designed to equip prospective teachers with the knowledge, attitudes, behaviours and skills they require to perform their tasks effectively in the classroom, school and wider community.

Teacher education is often divided into:

• initial teacher training / education (a pre-service course before entering the classroom as a fully responsible teacher);

• induction (the process of providing training and support during the first few years of teaching or the first year in a particular school);

• teacher development or continuing professional development (CPD) (an in-service process for practicing teachers).

The process of mentoring is also relevant.

There is a longstanding and ongoing debate about the most appropriate term to describe these activities. The term 'teacher training' (which may give the impression that the activity involves training staff to undertake relatively routine tasks) seems to be losing ground to 'teacher education' (with its connotation of preparing staff for a professional role as a reflective practitioner.

TECHNICAL EDUCATION

TECHNICAL EDUCATION
Technical Education is an instruction in a skill or procedure, usually of a mechanical type, and at a level between that of the professional scientist or engineer and that of a skilled craftsperson. Technicians support scientists and engineers by designing, developing, producing, and maintaining machines and materials. The work of a technician is more limited in scope than that of a scientist or engineer and is commonly considered practical rather than theoretical in its orientation.

In industry, jobs for technicians range from those that are narrow in scope and require relatively limited technical understanding, such as the routine inspection of parts, to those that require a considerable level of mathematical, scientific, and applied technological ability, such as engineering aide, instrumentation technician, draftsperson and tool designer. The growing field of computer technology is providing many new employment opportunities for technicians.