Technology and education

Today, technology is the main driver for economic growth. Technology creates more jobs, more profits, and more economic prosperities than any other fields. That is why many countries want to create a strong technology industry similar to the “Silicon Valley” model. Some have spent millions or billions of dollars to build technology parks; give tax incentives to companies to move in the park; attract foreign direct investment by offering special import and export incentives etc. However, most attempts did not work. When I visited these government sponsored tech parks, I saw many empty buildings, empty offices, no foreign investments; no foreign companies relocate there but only few local companies. No one wants to admit that they have failed. They copy the “Silicon Valley” model but could not copy the key factors: Skilled workers and Entrepreneur.

TechnologyPark is NOT about acquiring lands and building offices. TechnologyPark is NOT about establishing research centers or universities. TechnologyPark is NOT about issuing special tax incentives for import/export. The main ingredient of TechnologyPark is having skilled workers and entrepreneurs. To create a “Silicon Valley”, you need entrepreneurs; people who start their own company and these people only come when there are enough skilled workers. Today it is not difficult to start a company. Today it not difficult to find investors who are willing to provide the financing for technology startups. It is the skilled workers that determine the success or failure of technology park. Skilled workers come from quality education systems. Instead of invest in lands, buildings, and offices; it is better to invest in education first.

Today, students can get a quality education much easier than few years ago. If the country does not have good education, students can study elsewhere. According to a global education study, the numbers of students study outside their own country has been increased significant in the past few years. Currently, more than three million students are studying abroad. This number is expected to triple to 8.5 million by 2025. Most students go to the U.S and western European countries where education systems are considered better than their countries. Today the U.S. has about two-thirds of the world's foreign graduate students at U.S universities.

Recently, there are changes among some countries such as China, Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia. They all establish their own universities that can compete with the top-rated schools in the U.S and Europe. These governments know that university education is vital to innovation and economic growth. They are no longer content to send students overseas and lose their talents to host countries. They want to create world-class universities of their own to ensure that they can build a strong technology industry.

Chinese government is focusing on improve education at their top universities. They announced the formation of an “elite consortium” to recruit best faculties in the world to teach there. They do not mind spending for these talented professors with significant salary and research funding. They also invest a lot of money to develop the most up-to-date technology training programs. Last year, Tsinghua and PekingUniversities have surpassed UC-Berkeley as the number one source of students earning PhDs. Chinese government is working hard to lure back overseas Chinese who have Western degrees and experiences to return to develop a strong technology industry.

In Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah invested $10 billion of his own money to the brand-new King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) and hires the best research scientists and professors to educate its citizens.

South Korea is recruiting top professors to its elite Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and selects the best students for this prestigious school. The government is creating an academic zone near the IncheonInternationalAirport, where a number of western branch universities can open campuses there.

Singapore schools collaborate with several top universities in the world and bring their programs to its students. It has programs from DukeUniversity's medical schools, the University of Chicago's business school, and MIT engineering school, to speed up the development of their talents.

When some countries recognize the value of education, others are still resisting the change. Slow to improve education is a major problem for some countries. For many years, India education did not improve much, despite a huge need for education. That is why numbers of Indian students study oversea has increased significantly each year. Indian's education has been so bad; it has weakened its entire state school system with obsolete training programs and high absentee of professors. India is the most successful in IT technology outsourcing with $97 billion dollar in revenue and creates additional 15 million jobs for its economy. Today it has a severe shortage of IT skilled workers but at the same time, it has several millions of “IT degreed” unemployed workers. The India IT industry has estimated that 75% of IT graduates does not even have the basic skills to work in industry. By too slow to change at the public university level, India has allowed the “private university industry” to fill the need. Most of these “For-profit” private schools are doing very well in providing students with “degrees” but no actual skills. It is estimated that if several million unemployed IT workers can works, the country can create additional thirty five million jobs and bring in over $100 billion more in revenue.

To promote technology, you must start with quality education. Quality education is a major investment of the entire country and must be taken seriously. Education can enrich the lives of people; promotes businesses; brings prosperities, and educates the future generation for the good of the society, and the benefit of a country.

Sources

  • Blogs of Prof. John Vu, Carnegie Mellon University

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