This blog is actually a response I wrote to an article in a magazine I receive- the American School Board Journal. Click on the link below, scroll down to "The Skill Set" and let me know you agree with my response or not.
American School Board Journal
I am writing in response to your Sept. 2007 issues article entitled "The Skill Set". While it may appear that the U.S. is falling behind the rest of the world, the reality is we are still world leaders and continue to turn out the best and the brightest. Global awareness is needed but an accurate picture is also needed. I'm not saying countries such as China and India to use your examples, aren't producing some skilled workers, but...
You cannot say an engineer from China or India has the same qualifications as an American engineer. Some recent recalls from China serve to support my argument. Standards and quality control are NOT a factor in countries where corruption, communist government controls, and a lack of technical aptitude based on life experience is the norm. A graduate from the most prestigious engineering university in China has not seen- let alone used- industry standard testing machines and tools commonly used in small machine shops to billion dollar companies across the U.S. Indian outsourcing allows for minimal training and the ability to copy procedures, but the lack of understanding why certain procedures are followed or particular materials used shows the true lack of education.
Two real life examples, embellished some and of course, names changed to protect the innocent. Both involve tool manufacturing. USA company has invented the GreatTool. USA’s engineers have worked tirelessly on the specifications for GreatTool and it must be made exactly to the specs to work properly. USA company sends the specs to the Chinese manufacturer with strict instructions to make GreatTool exactly to specs. The manufacturer, ChinaCrap Inc. discovers that they do not have the machines to make what USA asked for. But if they put an extra notch in the design they can make it easily and faster than they originally thought! Not only that, the owner of ChinaCrap has discovered that his cousin has cheap steel. So he tells his ChinaCrap engineers that they WILL use the cheap steel. He doesn’t care if USA needs pure steel, this steel is only 38% other metals and it’s his cousins. So China Crap makes it to their new specs. USA company receives large shipment of tools that break and USA company president scratches his head and wonders why this happened when the ChinaCrap engineers said the changes would work. And it was cheaper than the qualified, properly trained, detail oriented Americans would have cost. This example happens in all trades and businesses across the U.S.
The next example involves India. USA company needs sterile computer chips for their new cutting edge digital tire gauge. Same as above- exact specs must be followed. USA sends the specs to the manufacturer in India, IndiaINC. IndiaINC has a great web site but their offices are actually in a corrugated steel shack that cows roam in and out of freely. Most of the “staff” do not own shoes and live in a kind of poverty that Americans couldn’t begin to comprehend. On the way to work they pass signs on buildings that read “DO NOT PASS URINE ON THIS WALL” (by the way, not an embellishment!) in several different languages and Indian dialects. Their cities and country have no infrastructure, let alone plumbing, sewers, and knowledge of common safety practices and hygiene. IndiaINC’s engineers are glad to make the $7500 per year because most of the staff lives in tents and huts. Thank goodness American companies outsource! The owner of IndiaINC has facilities all over the country. He sneds out the specs but with over 800 dialects in India, much of what USA wants gets lost in translation. Not to mention sterile is something very few doctors understand in India, so needless to say IndiaINCs employees have never heard of such a thing and assemble the tire gauge one the back of Bessie with raw human waste running through open trenches from business to business downhill until it reaches the nearest body of moving water. (Again that’s not an embellishment!) When USA company receives their first shipment of tire gauges from IndiaINC, the receptionist, Fannie starts reminiscing about her uncle Lem’s farm and Richard, the obsessive compulsive, Purell toting, clean freak, immediately breaks out an ultra violet light and discovers oodles of germs and contaminants. So many that he dons rubber gloves and drags the shipment outside himself. When the CEO of USA company visits IndiaINC in person he sees the conditions and fondly remembers the company that used to do this work in truly sterile conditions back in Ohio but closed because the jobs dried up. Oh well IndiaINC does it wayyyyy cheaper. I’ll just tell USAs engineers to adjust the specs so that fecal matter is incorporated into the design.
My point is, you can’t pluck people out of third world conditions, communist and easily corrupted environments, stick a degree in a few hundred thousand of their hands with standards far below the civilized world and be expected to taken seriously. In the long run it catches up with you. People are quickly losing trust in “Made in China”. Let’s see, poison pet food, lead paint on kids toys, antifreeze in toothpaste, these are all things that happened because it was cheaper for these American companies to have poorly educated and dare I say- corrupt- Chinese workers make their products.
An engineering degree from China or India doesn’t hold a candle to an engineering degree from an American University. I would bet my last dollar if you were to administer to Chinese students the test to qualify for the Society of Professional Engineers you would see the number of actual qualified Chinese engineers fall drastically.
The innovators of the world are American. The progressives of the world are American. The people who set the standard of quality and workmanship are Americans.
As for U.S. children falling behind the rest of the world in K-12 education… don’t even get me started!
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15 comments:
The next big threat to America engineering is Russia and the former Soviet Republics. Russian kids start algebra in grade school and ace U.S. college level classes in high school. Tools and dies made in Poland and the former Soviet Republics are very high in quality.
Many Chinese and Indian professors teach at the University of Akron in the Engineering schools. They are good enough to teach our students but not good enough to engineer products?
Our children are falling behind the rest of the world when it comes to math and science. The no child left behind is going to ensure that we fall farther. JMHO.
Cole:
I didn't say no one in China or India is capable of engineering. I'm trying to point out that the numbers are skewed. BTW Ask the chinese and indian professors at UA where is the first place they saw/used the common engineering testing machines. Guarantee it was in the gool ole USA! And teaching a course on thermodynamics is not the same as being an engineer.
Interesting topic Kellie. In my opinion as a nation we have been dumbing down and dollar downing our population far to long. When I read the word communist I had to laugh at how that catch phrase is no longer important. Funny how when there is money to be made how some things are not important anymore. How many of you have lost someone you know to that long lost battle? We now have a new catch phrase to motivate us, but thats another can of worms.
I disagree that people have lost trust in goods from china. People can't afford to. Go drive past Wallmart right now, see how crowded the parking lot is. Drive over to the new Dollar tree, my wife worked there part time during the summer. That store has exceeded all sales expectations. Good luck looking for U.S. goods in those stores. As I said, people cannot afford to care about what country made it but instead if they can pay for it. This is by design in my opinion.
The Chinese are masters at counterfeiting and reverse engineering goods. I believe they are a very bright people. Corrupt workers? Take a tour at a factory where they build cars in northeast ohio. Yes they have made some mistakes in the products you have listed. They will not be repeated for long. Soon Chinese cars will be sold on the west coast. The Chinese and Wall street have us just where the want us. The qualifications of their engineers is a moot point.
When I was in engineering school, I could count on foreign students to get A's. They did not consider the task of studying to be work. They considered long days working in some back breaking repetitive task to be work.
India has some of the finest technology schools in the world. The downside is that I am sure that I could not have gotten in -- if I lived in India. I am not bright enough.
I was surprised to learn that we export 'for money' our legal and engineering expertise to other countries. I have a friend who taught law school. He frequently teaches in many different locations in South America. He has a blog for the benefit of his South American students.
South America does not know how to monetize their 'current inventories'. So, the ability of a company to borrow on their future and immediate equity is not an option -- because of their inability to create debt and pay off the debt later.
No matter what we think is going in the rest of the world, we can count on one thing. The world is now changing at the speed of thought.
If you cannot access the 'global information based society' with an ever increasing level of expertise then you will be functionally obsolete.
We need to challenge our local political leaders to manage time, costs, and the performance of their people. These political leaders currently operate with the mindset of the 20th Century. And, yet they run organizations that inform and involve the rest of us.
This is precisely the same problem statement in China, India, et. al.
If we are to remain competitive then we need to examine our weakest spots.
Have you asked your political leaders and your newspaper editors what their 'unifying purpose statement' is yet? This is the key question designed to unlock a huge universe of opportunities.
I read in today's ABJ that the Attorney General has ruled that school districts can no longer charge for full day kindergarten programs. So, if CF implements full day kindergarten it will come out of the taxpayer's pockets.
Maybe Kellie will look into nixing school fees. After all, in the article taxpayer refers to states that education should be FREE. Let's get a refund on those school fees now! There is no free education in the Falls. THey hold your report card hostage until fees are paid. Fees are illegal!!
Wow, snoopy I agree with you there, and I have griped and griped about that to NO AVAIL. Not only will they hold the report card, they will hold the diploma. Plus nobody can tell you what the fees are actually for or they are for silly workbooks (that may or may not get used more than twice)and dumb paper planners (come on, get with it-who uses a paper planner anymore when we have technology at our fingertips?), or "supplies" for gym class. I pay plenty in real estate taxes to support my local "public schools."
KELLIE, I think it is time for a new topic?? This blog is dead and so are the others. Is there a candidate night planned? If not, why not?
There is a candidate's night planned. I just got the call on it last night.
The candidate night will be held on October 15th from 7 to 9PM at Bolich.
Thank you Molly! That is good information to know!
Will all the candidates show up? When will we find out, the night of the event?
Why wouldn't they?
What killed fallswatch anyway? The site went nuts then went down. Is it done?
I HOPE so as the smut was taking over and it was getting ridiculous. Kind of looks like all the blogs are fading out. Kellie, it is time for a new post!
Sigh...as Joe Finan of WNIR fame used to say...you folks don't know and you don't know you don't know!
The "information age" is just that...a collection of information , a giant library at our disposal. It can be moved from one location to another at will.
A true course of learning worth supporting and sustainining, one that educates the complete human being, is that along the lines of the Montessori: develope a life-long desire to continue learning in our younin's, folks!
No engineer, Russian, Indian, Chinese, American or otherwise is "worth" more to our society than a Chief Joseph, Paul Revere, Thomas Jefferson, Henry David Thoureau, George Washington Carver, Martin Luther King, Jr., Helen Keller or Rita Dove!!!
It all boils down to the question..."What do you want and what are you willing to do to get it?"
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