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What Can We Learn from the Engineering Education in China

The “Win or Nothing” Mantra in Chinese Classrooms

Leave no one behind—that’s just something unheard of when it comes to education in China. Learning is defined as a competitive experience. From an early age, students are encouraged to excel each other, and sciences and math classes are often used as the core programs to identify the extraordinaire from the mediocre. After all, in a country of 1.3 billion, you just gotta compete—and compete well—to succeed.

Now let’s fast-forward to see what it’s like when these students reach college age. Often the crème de la crème from their high school graduating class, engineering freshmen in China are expected to have come with a solid grasp of various design principles right from the first day of class. College is, well, just another testing ground to determine who’s the best among equal. When these students graduate from college, they are certain to form a formidably reliable and low-cost workforce that has been key in helping China become an outsourcing powerhouse in merely a decade.

I’m not advocating that educators in the U.S. should follow this kind of boot camp approach, which often comes at the price of innovation—that still signifies the niche offered by U.S. engineering. But as more employers, especially those in aerospace and auto OEM companies, complain that they can’t find enough qualified workers, while U.S. engineering graduates are finding it harder to get a job, maybe it’s time to look at whether the missing links lie right in our classrooms.

Write to us if you have any thoughts on where the missing links are. Let us know if you have any questions as well. Design News has editors based in China and Japan. Perhaps we could help you demystify some of the OEM scenes on the other side of the globe. I myself also have the experience of studying in Hong Kong, which is known to be the hometown of many Math Olympians. Write to me now at waili@reedbusiness.com.