One of my favourite business researchers, Dean Roger Martin of the Rotman School of Business, explodes another myth in today's Globe and Mail. In a direct attack on the venerable Bill Gates, Martin says Canada doesn't need to graduate more technology students. No, what we need more of is business students.

I've attended a number of presentations by Roger Martin over the past few years and one of his dominant themes is the debunking of media "superstitions" concerning the economy. The technology education myth is another one.

Bill Gates propagated that myth when he argued in the Globe that the secret to American economic dominance rests in the number of technologists that country produces. Not so argues Martin. Then he gets out the stats. The financial services sector alone in the U.S. is 67% larger than the high-tech sector. Wages are 18% higher.

According to Martin, Canada produces 11% more science and engineering students per capita than the United States. But we are not proportionately more competitive. Where Canada doesn't eclipse the U.S. is in the production of business students. In the U.S. a full 21% of students in universities are in business courses. Canada, on the other hand, restricts its business school enrollment. We produce just 57% per capita of the U.S. business graduates.

Here is how Martin ends his story:

From the narrow perspective of the software industry, Mr. Gates may see the obvious prescription for Canada. However, if we discipline ourselves to look at the facts rather than superstitions, we will head in a dramatically different direction than that advocated by the science and technology lobby's most prominent member.

My experience backs Martin's position. Think about it. Canada has great researchers and engineers. We produce remarkable products that, more and more, have to go outside the country to (...read more...)