Introduction
There was a time when USA was far ahead of its competitors in innovation but in recent times the trend has seen a steep decline. Not only in innovation, America is also falling behind other countries in the area of high skilled workers literate in math, science and technology. There was a time, not long ago, when "the United States set the pace as the world’s leading innovator: from the personal computer to the internet, from Wall Street to Hollywood, from the decoding of the genome to the emergence of Web 2.0" but slowly it is "losing its innovation edge" (Kao 2007). The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development made a survey in October this year on people aged between 16 and 65 in 24 countries and came up with a shocking finding. The survey conducted on three areas, namely, literacy skills, numeracy and problem solving showed that the average Americans performed from weak to poor in all these three areas (The New York Times 2013). A news report published in Forbes touched upon the statistics of USA revealing that US consumers spend considerably more on buying potato chips than US government spends on developing R&D, more than half of the patents in 2009 were awarded to non US companies, US has been replaced by China as the number one high-technology exporter in the world and US has been ranked 48th in the quality of math and science education (Savitz 2011). All these statistics point towards the noticeable slump of USA in innovation, science and technology. There are a lot of factors contributing to this problem; economical, sociological and lack of initiatives by the government to make substantial investments in improving the situation are to name a few. This paper will discuss in great detail upon the causal factors, probable consequences if the problem persists and the probable solutions and their effectiveness in eliminating the problem.
Contributive Factors to the Loss of Innovation, Science and Technology in USA
The Boston Consulting Group made a study on innovation and came up with the conclusion that America is a country "disadvantaged in several key areas, including work force quality and economic, immigration, and infrastructure policies" (Huffington 2010). When USA became a dominating power in the world, there was not much competition in its way. The havoc of destruction caused by WWII sent a huge migration of brainpower towards USA, escalating the number of talented individuals who contributed to the growth and development of many scientific innovations. Albert Einstein who was brilliant scientist and won a Nobel Prize, Alexander Graham Bell who invented telephone, Edward Teller who was the inventor of the hydrogen bomb and the co-founders of Yahoo, Tesla and Google all were immigrants who graced the country with their outstanding innovations. Statistics show that half of the CEOs in Silicon Valley are outsiders of USA and 40% founders of the Fortune 500 companies are either immigrants or the children of immigrants (Swartz 2011). But in recent times, USA has tightened its immigration policy creating insecurity of future for the foreign workers who are planning to settle in the country. At present, the US immigration law allows only 65,000 skilled workers a year with an additional 20,000 reserved for those with higher degrees from US universities (Huffington 2010). The entire visa process is filled with backlog cases due to this quota. Resultantly, many high skilled workers and talented individuals who pursued their higher education from USA are returning back to their countries or going elsewhere with their innovative ideas. Since high skilled workers are an essential input for the economic growth of any country, the brain drain from USA is leading to a loss of talents in science and technology, those talents which could have been beneficial for bringing innovation in the country and therefore, USA is slowly losing its edge of innovation.
But tightened immigration policy is not the only reason contributing to this problem. USA is suffering from STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) crisis at present. As per the data of the National Science Foundation, over 56% bachelor’s degree in Engineering in the world are earned in Asia with 17% of the same earned in Europe and only 4% earned in the USA (Ruiz and Chowdhury 2012). The most commercialized innovation originates from the fields of science, math, technology and engineering and due to lesser percentage of US students opting for STEM fields in colleges and universities, there has been a void of STEM graduates. USA is perhaps the only country in the world where genius in math and science are looked upon as 'geeks' or 'nerds' whereas in rest of the world science graduates are viewed as intellectuals. Especially girls in particular face complete social ostracization if they are good in math and science. As a result of this sociological outlook, most of the students show complete disinterest in pursuing STEM in higher studies. Math aptitude as determined by SAT scores and high school grades is a necessity for a student to show interest in STEM. Most of the students in USA show very weak aptitude for math in high schools and as a result they are unable to qualify for STEM subjects. Many students who are good in science and math in high schools also decide not to pursue STEM in higher studies due to the constraint of tough class schedules and the fear of obtaining low marks. A joint study made by the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia and Harris Interactive on 533 high schools students in USA in 2011 came up with the result that more than 49% students expressed complete disinterest in pursuing a career in STEM (Burnsed 2011).
A good teacher in science stream can inspire and produce great science graduates of tomorrow. There is severe problem of science teachers in the schools of USA. There are schools with very few science teachers who are overburdened with work due to the lack of required science staff and the scarcity affects the quality of teaching and assessment. This scenario is even prominent in the schools of poor neighborhoods (Ledyard 2006). Furthermore, the remuneration offered to the teachers is low. A person with higher degree and qualification in science streams can potentially earn more money working in a private or Government Company than teaching science in schools. This shows that USA gives the full focus on higher level education in the universities and schools receive no attention whatsoever from the government. On the other hand, the salary provided to teachers in other countries like India, China, Israel and some of the European nations are relatively higher than USA. For example, in India the salary for a junior level science teacher is almost at par with a science graduate opting to join a private company as an engineer. Apart from low salary, teaching as a profession is also not seen as a very prestigious job. In fact it is considered as one of the second options for most of the job seekers (Evans, McKenna and Schulte 2013). However, in other countries teaching is considered as a noble profession as teachers are the main architects for the future generation. Teachers are respected in the society just like doctors. This is definitely not the case in USA where nobody wants to be a teacher by choice.
Finally, the STEM infrastructure was lacking for a long time in high schools. In last few decades the main stream of students opted for non-STEM related subjects which have reduced the need for STEM related infrastructure substantially (Evans, McKenna and Schulte 2013). Infrastructure is something which cannot be built overnight. This void in the infrastructure should be addressed by the government immediately. In fact even if there is a new awareness of STEM among the new generation then also because of the lack of infrastructure at high school level, schools will not be able to produce as many students as is required to fill up the big technical resource gap for science graduates in the job market. If this cannot be done there is every possibility that China or India will be taking away many of those jobs in the coming decades.
Possible Solution to this problem
- Short Term Strategy
The main problem at hand is mainly in two areas. There are not enough people interested in studying STEM and there is not enough qualified workforce to take up STEM jobs in USA. The effect is that either those jobs are getting transferred to the offshore market or companies are hiring from outside to bridge the gap (Evans, McKenna and Schulte 2013). To immediately address the issue the government along with private companies and universities should start jobs oriented programs. This way even if the unemployed workforce is educated in a different stream then also they can be quickly trained in the required skill for a nominal fee. This will make them ready for the industry and will bridge the demand gap. This is, however, not a long term solution as this ploy can only be employed for low end technological gift. For very high end science and technical jobs this short term industry based training will not work.
Secondly, visa fee based STEM education policy should be put in place. This is a common strategy often cited by many politicians that increasing of visa fee will force the companies to recruit employees from within the country. However, as there is a huge skill shortage this is becoming a problem for the private multinational companies. An increased visa fee means that they are losing the competitiveness. To be in competition the companies are then offshoring the job to some developing country where the skill is available. In this process US is actually losing a job. Visa fee based STEM policy will ensure that the extra money gathered from the excess visa fee will be used for the development of skilled STEM professionals.
Apart from STEM skill shortage in the industry there is also a skill gap in the high skilled sector. In fact in the research and development and higher education the demand supply gap is even more severe. As indicated in the previous section that more than 60% of the post graduates in US universities are outsiders which means in the short term most of demands in the US universities will be fulfilled by foreigners (Evans, McKenna and Schulte 2013). This cannot be stopped as building high skill is a long time-taking process which will take decades before the US citizens can again become a dominating force in the high skill industry. This problem can be solved on a short term basis by providing easy path to naturalization for foreigners who have gained their post-doctoral degrees in US universities so that they can stay back and contribute to US only. This way the knowledge they have gained from the US based universities will stay within the country and in the long run their innovative ideas, research and development will help the US economy grow at a faster pace and remain in the dominant position.
- Long Term Strategy
Firstly, there is a need to fill the STEM workforce pipeline in the long run by the native people of USA. This can only happen when more students take up science at school level. One of the reasons why students do not take up science subjects is because they fear that it is a subject requiring tight schedules and more studying than arts or commerce subjects (BLS 2011). They also think that they will be labelled as ‘geeks’ by their peers at school. This can be changed with proper message conveyed to the students by the teaching staff and also government should run several campaigns to highlight about the bright career opportunity for science graduates. This way the basic myth and stigma attached with STEM subjects will slowly ebb away with more number of students feeling encouraged to study STEM subjects.
Secondly, even if there are students willing to pursue a career in science, they cannot do so because they cannot fulfill the basic criterion to get an admission into STEM subjects. Based on enrollments, only 42% in math and 26% in science got admission into STEM subjects by fulfilling the entrance criterion in 2007 (BLS 2011). This is mainly because of the poor quality of teaching staff and infrastructure at the K-12 level. This is a problem which needs intervention and collaboration of many parties. First of all, the government in order to fill up the demand supply gap of science teacher needs to overhaul the salary structure of the teaching staff so that more qualified people get attracted towards the job. If the salary is made at par with some of the private level jobs then many will consider it as their first option. Furthermore, government and schools may run campaigns across the nation portraying the teaching profession as a noble profession as teachers are the main force who builds the future generation for the country. If the salary is increased and the overall image of the teaching profession gets an upliftment then more and more qualified people will be attracted towards the profession. That way student will receive better guidance and quality education with more number of students qualifying for the STEM courses.
Finally, there should also be a coordinated effort between federal government, private companies, universities and state governments to come up with a more comprehensive plan for designing a structure to address the skill gap (BLS 2011). For example, if there is a huge skill gap in the area of software development then the government should talk to software companies like Microsoft, Apple, Oracle and Google to help create programs that will address their skill demand. Once they address the skill in demand in software development, US government can then collaborate with the computer science departments of different universities. Those universities can then design courses which will address the skill requirements. Then students can learn those skills offered at different universities and those students can then be hired by the software companies. In this way as the benefit is ripped by the software companies, government can talk to them to bear part of the cost of those courses in the universities as well. This way all the stakeholders, students, government, universities and private companies will get benefitted.
Conclusion
The recent problem of USA falling behind its competitors in innovation, technology and science has mainly emerged due to the lack of high skilled workers, scientists and engineers. General disinterest in science and mathematics by the current young generation of USA also accounts for the problem. There is also a huge shortage of good science teachers at school level and the infrastructure to handle good number of STEM students is lacking in many educational institutions. The problem is mainly caused by decades of wrong educational policy, immigration policy, salary structure and social image of teachers and students of STEM. The problem needs to be addressed in the short term by taking better visa related decision for industry related skill gap and high skill demand supply gaps and providing quick industry based vocational training to bridge the skill gap. In the long term, the problem needs to be addressed from the root cause. Government should overhaul the salary structure of teachers to make it more lucrative for potential job seekers, create campaigns to improve the image of teaching profession and work in collaboration with private companies and universities to create courses more inclined towards the industry requirements. The problem which has been created by the wrong policy making over the decades will not get solved overnight. The government should make proper policies and stick to that for decades till it begins to show results.
Work Cited
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