There are many people arguing that we need to beef up science and math education in this country or we’re going to be left out of the global market place.

Many corporate bigwigs, including Microsoft’s Bill Gates, argue they have to send work to China and India because the American school system isn’t churning out enough engineers.

Well, a new study blows some big holes in this theory.

A study released by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation found that the education system in China and India is also pretty lousy when it comes to creating competent individuals who can take on engineering work, but both countries are still becoming research and development hotspots. The main reason behind this, the researches found, was that these countries provided low-cost workers.

Here’s an excerpt about the findings from the Harvard International Review written by Vivek Wadhwa, one of the researchers on the study, conducting by Duke University’s global engineering and entrepreneurship project team:

Our interviews with the executives of technology and engineering companies engaged in outsourcing research and development (R&D) to India and China revealed that their primary motivation in moving operations abroad was not a shortage of engineers but rather lower cost and the proximity of growth markets. Furthermore, we found that there were serious issues with the quality of engineering education in China and India.

One of the interesting points the researchers uncover is that despite the lack of solid science and math training, many companies in India are able to grow their own engineers by providing them with intensive on-the-job training.

Again, Wadhwa:

In trying to understand how India is achieving this feat, we learned that the Indian private sector has found a way to overcome deficiencies in its education system through innovative programs of workforce training and development. These have transformed workers with a weak educational foundation into R&D specialists.

Our conclusion is that the United States needs to respond to globalization by learning from India and upgrading its workforce.

AHA! There in lies the problem. At a time when U.S. companies are slicing and dicing pay and benefits for so many workers, how do you convince Corporate America to put more money into “upgrading” workers here at home?

It’s a major workforce Catch 22. Spend big bucks on training U.S workers or get cut-rate labor overseas?