2008 Vol. 2 Num. 1 - GCG: Revista de Globalización, Competitividad ...

Latin America’s Dangerous Decline36in his country, citing a an alleged tax investigationaimed at teaching multinationals alesson.Ironically, while Communist-ruled Chinais going out of its way to woo foreign investors,several nominally capitalist LatinAmerican countries seem to be seeking tokeep investors away.In Latin America, history reigns. Venezuela’sChavez addresses the nation almost dailyin front of a giant painting of 18th Centuryindependence hero Simon Bolivar. He citesBolivar’s writings as the guiding light for virtuallyevery government decision. He haseven officially changed Venezuela’s nameto “the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.”Granted, Bolivar may have been a greatman at his time - or not - but he died in1830, forty years before the invention of thetelephone, and 150 years before the inventionof the internet. What can Bolivar’s nationalisticideas – or those of late Argentineleader Juan Domingo Peron, or Mexico’sLazaro Cardenas, for that matter – teachLatin America in today’s global economy,where recent college graduates in WallStreet’s financial firms can move hundredsof millions of dollars from one country toanother by simply pressing one computerkey?, I asked readers. Not much.But the most troubling trend for Latin Americais its stagnation in education, scienceand technology. While Asians and EasternEuropeans are creating increasingly skillfullabor forces, most Latin American countrieshave barely modified their outdatededucation systems.In China, to my big surprise, I learned thatchildren in all public schools are beginningto get compulsory English-language classesin third grade, four hours a week. WhenI asked Mexico’s education minister a fewweeks later in what grade do Mexican childrenin public schools start studying English,the answer was in seventh grade, twohours a week. When I asked Argentina’seducation minister the same question, I gotthe same answer.How can one explain that China, a Communist-ruledcountry in another continentthat has an entirely different alphabet andmajor cultural differences, starts teachingEnglish in public schools four years earlierthan Mexico, a U.S. neighbor that sharesthe same alphabet, and has a free tradeagreement with the United States?But that is just one measure of LatinAmerica’s educational challenge. Amongothers that I cited in the book:- While the conventional wisdomin Mexico, Argentina and other countries inthe region is that their big state-run universitiesare great, they are pretty mediocre.According to the London Times’ HigherEducational Supplement’s 2007 rankingof the world’s 200 best universities, thereare only three Latin American universitiesamong them, and they are at thevery bottom of the list – the University ofSao Paulo, Brazil (178th,) the University ofCampinas, Brazil (179th), and the NationalAutonomous University of Mexico, UNAM,(195th). By comparison, about a dozen universitiesfrom China, Singapore and SouthKorea rank much higher on the list.- While the number of Asian studentsin U.S. colleges is rising, the numberof Latin Americans is dropping. Indiahas 84,000 students in U.S. colleges, China68,000 – 76,000 is one includes HongKong – South Korea 62,000, and the percentageof Asian students rose by 5 percentin 2006, according to the New YorkbasedInstitute of International Education.By comparison, Mexico has 14,000 studentsin U.S. colleges, Brazil 7,000, Colombia6,700, Venezuela 4,500, ArgentinaGCG GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY - UNIVERSIA 2008 VOL. 2 NUM. 1 ISSN: 1988-7116