Some of the smartest electronics people I knew were experienced TV technicians.
Smart in a limited practical area sufficient for their job.
They didn't need broad theory to do their job.
What are the TV technicians doing now? Retired? Dead? Or gone onto other pursuits in electronics, or even completely other industries? Maybe some are in this forum. It will be interesting to know what you are now doing today, and maybe your thoughts on the demise of electronics repair and its impacts.
Repairing computers.
The thing is, they did have a solid background of theory, although not to an EE level.
Over time, "dumbing down" of technical education became the accepted path for institutes of Trade training.
The education organisation would "Ask the industry" what sort of training they needed, & the answer would come back from some management drone, that they wanted people to be able to do a few specific things.
The wider theoretical knowledge of Electronics, which allowed Techs to adapt to changing techology over the years was no longer provided, but instead was replaced with a "Monkey See, Monkey Do" philosophy.
The "Technicians" turned out by this method can do things exactly as they were taught, but are "all at sea" if confronted with something different.
In an example of this type of training, over some years I would regularly call Telstra (in Oz) out for a faulty land line phone.
The problem, that the leadin from the roadside "pit" was intermittent, was determined back in early 2012, by the first attending Tech who, for some unaccountable reason, could not pull a new cable through, needing to arrange for a "team" to do it.
The "team" was scheduled to arrive while I was away, so when I returned & things worked, I assumed they were pretty neat & left no sign of their visit.
From that time, however, the line would go noisy at intervals of several months, "Techs" would attend, fiddle about, it would "come good" till next time.
When each Tech came, I would wait till they went through their set of "monkey tricks", then suggest they check the leadin.
They would do that, play around, disturb something & temporarily "fix" it, (although the noise level was still higher than it should have been).
This went on for
seven years, till NBN FTTC became available, & I decided I had better get the leadin problem sorted out "once & for all".
The phone noise had become horrific, so I had an excuse for a callout, in any case.
The Tech came, & as he looked a bit brighter than most, I told him about the leadin,& the history of the fault.
He had a look, verified it was the fault, & promptly pulled a new cable through.
The first guy, seven years back, could have done that!
Back when Telecom Aust were running things, one of their properly trained Techs would have replaced the leadin on the first visit.
Hell, I could have done it myself, but I'm not allowed to!