Education & Competing for those High-Value and Fulfilling Jobs

I am reading Friedman's book, "The Flat World". It turned my attention from the loss of jobs due to outsourcing and focused it on education. Are we training the younger generation for higher value added jobs? Globalization is not evil. The speed of globalization is not the problem. Low value jobs moving to other countries is not the problem.

Outsourcing improves not only cost efficiency but also productivity. Jobs which Americans will not do because they are low prestige and low salary jobs are high prestige and high salary jobs in another country. People in the developed countries have the time to be able to focus on high value added jobs or jobs that all people want! Not the drudge routine jobs which are outsourced. People from the developed countries can focus on the creative and highly analytical parts of the job. The type of job which validates your self-worth and challenges and stretches you. The kind of job that although is difficult, excites you and gives you a sense of fulfillment.

These are the type of jobs, citizens from developing countries also want to have, but lack due to political and cultural systems that block innovation, entrepreneurship, and creativity. Just look at the World Bank's Report on "Ease of Doing Business" and many of these developing countries have low scores. Corruption, overseas bank accounts of public officials, the need to pay under-the-table to get licenses, permits, have a building constructed, and so forth block development and innovation.

So the political system, high quality of investigative reporting, judicial system or enforcement of laws gives the U.S. (and other developed countries) a significant edge over the working citizens of less developed nations.

Check out sramana mitra's discussion on the problems of entrepreneurship in India: http://www.sramanamitra.com/2009/02/03/entrepreneurship-in-india-2/ and you would see that many workers from developing countries are also aspiring for the "american style of innovative entrepreneurship" and do not only want to be low-cost workers.

But somehow, for a developed nation there is a growing report on the lack of governance for quality education in the U.S. A growing number of people are alarmed that segments of the population do not have quality high school education. Hence, problem is not globalization, but primary and high school educational institutions that badly need to be reformed or transformed. We should thank globalization for helping us see what we are doing wrong. We should pay more attention to our schools. We should pay more attention to the academics of our children. As a first world country, education should have gotten a much bigger budget. Education should have gotten the attention of government. We should stop criticizing globalization and free trade but instead we should do what we have to do. We have to get our kids properly educated.

Friedman asked in his book, "Do we really need a nation of Britney Spears or Sports Superstars?" Sports and Dancing are just extra-curricular activities. They should not take a big chunk of time in our kids' lives. Give your kids the right preparation. Most of all, do not let your kids think, that fame and money are everything. How can we teach kids the value of learning on its own? How can we teach kids about the real important things in life? Look at the sports stars and pop stars; they are involved in drugs and can't seem to be happy. Do they have fulfilling lives? Good values matter in being happy.

Problem is not globalization but our current attitude regarding education. (In that book, Friedman asserted that there are a number of parents demanding for less assignments, less school work for their kids. ) So maybe, we have to get our ourselves educated and not just our kids.