Latin-America Falling behind
Excerpted from The San Diego Union-Tribune Tue, 02 May 2006
Page B6
Andres Oppenheimer
The Miami Herald
Latin America?s Technology Problem
Contrary to the conventional wisdom in Washington and European capitals,
the biggest threat to Latin America may not be the proliferation of radical populist
strongmen, but the region?s declining levels of technological education, research
and development.
Judging from a new report by the Inter-American Development bank, the region
is falling behind the rest of the world in almost every category of education and
technological skills. In other words, while the rest of the world moves toward the
knowledge economy--in which a software patent is worth millions of tons of raw
materials--and high value-added exports, most Latin American countries remain
stuck in their reliance on exports of oil, soybeans and other primary products. The
report, Education, Science and Technology in Latin America and the Caribbean,
includes some alarming data, which have received little or no attention in the region.
Among Them:
1. The 32 Latin-American and Caribbean countries together spend $11 billion a
year in research and development of new products. That is less than the $12
billion spent by one-single Asian country, South Korea.
2. Brazil, the Latin-American leader in R & D, spends about 1 percent of its GDP.
China, which has comparable or worse poverty rates than many Latin American
countries, spends 1.4 percent.
3. While the business sector share of R & D is growing dramatically in China and
other Asian countries, it is falling in Latin America, where most R & D is paid for
by the state. While in Communist China the business sector pays for 61 percent
of R & D, in Latin America the percentage is only 32 percent, one of the world?s
lowest.
4. Many Latin-American countries haven?t even entered the R & D arena. Seventy
percent of the Region?s R & D is done by just three countries: Brazil (42 %),
Argentina (20 %) and Mexico (11 %).
5. While Latin-American Countries are making progress in increasing the average
years of schooling, the region is falling behind in raising educational standards,
which is the primary focus of education in industrialized countries. Recent results
of the International PISA mathematics test show that while students in Mexico got
an average score of 385, Japanese students scored 534 and U.S. students 483.
6. While Japan registered nearly 36,000 patents in the U.S. a year, South Korea
about 3,000 and China 300, Brazil registers about 130 patents, Mexico 84 and
Argentina 62.
Why should these figures sound alarm bells ? Because, despite oil and other
commodity prices, the countries that excel in the knowledge economy produce
more higher-paying jobs than those that don?t.
If you look at the top issues on the political agenda of most Latin-American
countries, science and technology is rarely talked about. When Mexico?s
Presidential candidates held their first televised debate for the July 2 election
last week, they discussed five issues, including energy and the environment,
but failed to address education, science and technology.
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