NATEF Reaches Milestone
NATEF Reaches Milestone Herndon,
VA., February 14, 2001 -- Recently the National Automotive
Technicians Education Foundation (NATEF) reached a new milestone
by surpassing 1500 certified automotive technician training
programs nationwide. As of February 2001, certified programs
included 1203 automobile programs, 239 collision repair &
refinish programs, 58 medium/heavy truck programs, and 5 alternate
fuels programs for a total of 1505 ASE certified programs.
The purpose of technician training
program certification is to improve the quality of automotive
training offered at secondary and post-secondary, public and
proprietary schools nationwide through voluntary certification.
NATEF works closely with the automotive industry to set national
standards of quality for automotive technician training programs,
and oversees the evaluation process though which training
programs become certified. When a program that goes through
the process meets standards, NATEF recommends that program
for ASE certification. To maintain certification, programs
must recertify every five years. ASE certification through
NATEF ensures that training programs meet or exceed industry-recognized,
uniform standards of excellence.
“As an industry, all of us are
acutely concerned about the shortage of entry-level technicians,”
noted ASE/NATEF President Ronald H. Weiner. “Program certification
helps address that need by providing employers with technicians
who are job ready.”
The State Departments of Education
in all fifty states support ASE certification of their automotive
technician training programs. Several studies have been conducted
on the effects of ASE program certification on student learning
outcomes. A 1995 Ohio State University study concluded that
ASE program certification has a significant, positive effect
on the learning that takes place in automotive training programs.
Visit the NATEF website at www.natef.org for a summary of
the Ohio State study.
NATEF is a 501(c)(3) charitable
foundation whose mission is to develop, encourage, and improve
automotive technician education through evaluation of automotive
training programs. For more information about NATEF please
go to their website (http://www.natef.org/).
e-mail: svizzini@natef.org
