Juanson World

Andres Oppenheimer has a crucially important op-ed in yesterday's Miami Herald, which notes the starking contrast in the number of engineers and scientists being produced by the Americas versus Asia:

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) says that, in sheer volume, China is the world's leading producer of engineers: It graduates around 220,000 a year. By comparison, the United States graduates about 60,000 a year, South Korea 57,000, Mexico 24,000, Brazil 18,000, Colombia 11,000, Chile 4,000 and Argentina 3,000.

A separate report by the Engineering Trends consulting firm shows that, measured on a per-capita basis, South Korea produces the most engineers annually, followed by Taiwan and Japan. By comparison, Colombia ranks 19th, Chile 23rd, Mexico 24th, the United States 25th, China 30th, Brazil 35th and Argentina 37th.

As Tom Friedman has driven home in his op-eds and catch-phrase creating books, this has critical implications for development:

'Falling behind is dangerous, because it affects countries' manufacturing capabilities,'' says Engineering Trends founder Richard Heckel. ``Manufacturing is an ever-changing scene. If you don't innovate, you don't compete.''

Development experts say that, if a country wants to be a manufacturing powerhouse, it needs people who can produce existing goods in more efficient ways, and people who can constantly come up with new products. This means they need engineers on both sides of the production cycle.

I mentioned brain drain in my previous post, but this goes beyond brain drain: call it brain abortion. I'm guilty as charged: I majored in political "science" after having enjoyed and excelled in science and math in high school. At the college level, I, like many of my classmates, was turned off to pursuing these subjects mainly due to the poor structure of the introductory courses. These large and cumbersome classes tend to weed out the truly committed in part through poor teaching by TAs whose command of English was shaky at best. Moreover, like journalism and academica, science and engineering careers do not seem to be perceived as lucrative professions in US, in contrast to MBAs, MDs, and JDs, which all of my friends seem to be pursuing these days.

What are some of the other factors that account for the science and engineering gap? Ostensibly, culture has a hand: the fact that Argentina's University of Buenos Aires produces 10 lawyers for every engineer fits neatly into the paradigm of the porteño psyche. Conversely, Asia reflects "a culture that venerates scientists and engineers nearly as much as rock stars."

What can be done to buck the trend? Oppenheimer notes that Daniel Filmus, Argentina's Minister of Education (a reliable source tells me that he's doing good things over there), shocked that the country was producing three (!) textile engineers a year, established 30 new scholarships for engineering through a public/private sector partnership. This is a good start, as the region's governments must invest in human capital. As Asia's rise as a global power demonstrates, science and engineering represent one of the most valuable types of these sort of investments.

I'll defer to Oppenheimer for the final word, as he uses the hemisphere's lineup of presidential occupations to speak for themselves:

The United States has a president who got a B.A. degree in history, and a master's in business administration. In Latin America, most presidents are lawyers (Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala), economists (Honduras, Peru, Panama), business administrators (Mexico), clinical physicians (Costa Rica, Ecuador), psychiatrists (Costa Rica), sports commentators (El Salvador) or army officers (Venezuela).

Perhaps it's time to elect engineers as presidents.