It's not just me saying it!
On April 3 I listened to an interesting discussion of economic change in China on National Public Radio (China’s Labor Advances May Affect US Prices. In the story, NPR host Steve Inskeep talked with NPR's Frank Langfitt and Alexandra Harney, author of The China Price, about what the future may hold for the world economy. One topic was the need for Asian countries, China and India specifically, to shift their education programs to stress innovation.
Here's a transcript of the part of the discussion I found most interesting.
Langfitt: The real challenge, though, I think—and I’d be interested to hear what Alexandra has to say about this—is: Can they [the Chinese] really innovate? This is a culture that hasn’t really stressed innovation; [there’s] more of an emphasis on conformity and rote learning. It’s a lot easier to take a farmer out of Szichuan province and teach him how to make a shoe, but are you really going to be able to change the way people think so that they can be a lot more innovative, not always knock off all these western products, and I think that’s where the money is, and I think that’s probably where (at least from the perspective of these officails) that’s where the future of the economy is....
Inskeep: But wait a minute. You do have American executives right now saying we’re very worried about India and China, because they’ve got so many thousands and thousands of engineering graduates coming out. Are they not really that far advanced?
Harney: They do have a lot of engineers, but some of the studies
that I’ve seen show that part of the problem lies within China’s
education system. I’m not in any way trying to say that Chinese
engineers aren’t good: they’re great---but the education system tends
to focus more on theory over practice, and what China really needs is
more experienced engineers who are able to ... bring more to the table.
If you visit China or India, or any Asian country for that matter, and get a chance to visit schools and talk with education policy leaders, you'll see the shift from rote learning to more innovative forms of education unfolding in front of your eyes. If you read my Taxi Diaries, you'll learn about some of my own experiences witnessing this change. But the sad irony is that there are forces here in the U.S. that think that for our country to be competitive, we need to abandon the aspects of our education system that have made us economic leaders. Instead, I think we need to forcus harder on innovation, not less.
Comments