Outsourcing/ Offshoring - Is it an education issue?

Wired News runs a great story today about a report published by the American Electroncs Association. While probably bias, so it disputes it - the association is an industry group - it clearly states the dire state of the US education system as one reason why companies.

It says, and I quote, that "the American school system (...) is failing to provide strong science and math education to students, is largely to blame for lost jobs." It continues to say that companies don't always outsource for the cheap labour advantage that is provided in countries such as India, China or the Philippines, but that they increasingly can't skilled labour in the US. And that once one company takes advantage of offshoring markets, others are likely to follow.

This is interesting, but confirms a lot of comments that were made elsewhere in different contexts about the failures of the US education system.

I once read a comment made by Lizi Weinreib (Associate Producer of CBS News) on "60 Minutes" where she stated that "the Indian Institute of Technology has the combined status of Harvard, MIT, and Princeton graduates in America. In science and technology, IIT undergraduates leave their American counterparts in the dust."

Does this say it all?

(By Asia Business Consulting)