A reader of the FT’s interview with John Chambers questions the validity of his reference of the lower number of U.S. graduates compared to the numbers produced in India and China.
During the interview with the FT, Chambers answers a question about how Cisco is finding the right talent for its advances into new markets. He said:
If the US, for example, is graduating 60,000 engineers a year, India’s graduated 350,000 and China’s graduated 600,000 and you’re trying to get the top 10% of the talent in the industry, you can do the math as quickly as I can and I think that’s unfortunate for both Europe and the US.
Reader Clark O’Brien, writing to the FT, says those numbers are “exaggerated and have been called into question by numerous independent studies.”
He adds:
A newspaper investigation and a study by Duke University, “Framing the Engineering Outsourcing Debate”, both in 2005, trace the origin of these numbers back to the Chinese ministry of education and the National Association of Software and Service Companies in India. The Duke report also concludes that these numbers included various two- and three-year degree programmes and “may very well include the equivalent of motor mechanics and industrial technicians”.
The Duke report concluded that India graduated approximately 112,000 engineers a year that have an equivalent to a US bachelor’s degree, fewer than the 137,000 engineering bachelor’s degrees conferred by US universities. A report by the McKinsey Global Institute, also in 2005, concluded that only 10 per cent of Chinese engineers and 25 per cent of Indian engineers could compete in the global outsourcing arena.
So India and China may produce more graduates on paper, but how do their degrees stack up against those of students in the United States and Europe?
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