Well-paying high-tech jobs requiring advanced math and science will be few. Yet, Bill Gates and others believe it necessary that kids are pushed in that direction whether it is their area of strength, or love, or not!
Why do we even believe this hype, when according to BBC World News corporate America is already investing money in research and development labs in China, therewith supporting the graduates over there instead of here?China has over 1,200,000 IT professionals and is adding 400,000 technical graduates each year. China ranks #1 in the world (followed by India and the US) ~ Source: Facts About China: education
See China's Drive to Promote Invention.
"..multinational firms are now betting that the long-term future of innovation may lie in China. Hundreds of companies have opened research centres in Beijing and Shanghai.
Intel has its own compound in a skyscraper in Beijing, where dozens of young researchers doodle on notepads or write incomprehensible programmes onto their computer screens.
Intel's strategy is simple - sign up the best young brains in China and then get them to have a go at some mind-bending problems, such as face processing imaging, machinery application on video retrieval and ultra-mobile devices."
It’s not because there are no smart graduates here as we are supposed to believe. It’s because investing in Chinese graduates and labs is cheaper! Having more science and math majors here is not going to change that. Luttwak writes “Corporations are not moral entities. They exist to earn profits.”
Indeed! They are opportunists, lacking allegiance to their own country, fellow citizens and even their own employees which they easily lay off under the guise of “restructuring.” At a later time they rehire, but at lower wages and offering fewer benefits! They are powerful entities. According to David Downing in an educational book about and called "Capitalism",
"The most important changes to affect the international economy over the last 25 years has been the rise of multinational corporations. These businesses, which conduct operations all over the world, can have more money than some national governments...
supporters claim that they bring new technology..and new jobs to the poorer countries..[but] ..critics argued that the jobs are few, the major decisions all made at corporate headquarters in the rich countries, and that most of the profits are sent home."
Clearly corporations will employ any strategy that promises profit, including outsourcing which has nothing to do with the talent pool stateside, but with savings.
Writes Luttwak : “ ... even at the height of the boom in 1997, there was still an oversupply of software engineers in general, so much so that employers could pick and choose among job applicants, specifically picking the young who cost less, while rejecting mid-career applicants - not something they could afford to do if there were a shortage.”
As an example, since 1997 Microsoft has only hired 2% of all software writing applicants! The other dozen or so smaller software companies hire even fewer which leaves more than 70% of qualified people without a job of their choice! That’s what “business” hopes No Child Left Behind will “produce” — an oversupply of qualified human resources for any field in which large profits can be made to drive down wages and generate more profit. And profit for whom? For the CEOs and the stockholders!
