India's and China's educational systems — known for producing vast numbers of engineers — are commonly thought to be slowly and steadily overtaking the U.S. in technological leadership. But that may not be the case.

A controversial Duke University study contradicts that perception, pointing out that engineers are defined differently in different places. Those differences give the impression that foreign colleges are graduating more engineers, as measured by U.S. standards, than they really are. In addition to blurring the definition of the term, schools in India and China may not be graduating engineers of the same caliber as those in the United States. And their graduates may not be competitive in a global sense for a variety of reasons, including language issues and job locations.

While the study may augur well for the United States and do much to deflate the "sky is falling" hyperbole about the alarmingly low numbers of qualified engineers here (see Opinion, Dec. 12, page 4), it's not a black-and-white analysis. Some in the field predict a continued drop in the number of U.S. engineering graduates and increased salary pressure from other countries. They point out that current failings of the K-12 educational system in the United States create future risks to U.S. technological dominance.

The 2004 engineering school graduate figures often cited are 352,000 for India and 600,000 for China, according to the Dec. 12 study.

India's and China's educational systems — known for producing vast numbers of engineers — are commonly thought to be slowly and steadily overtaking the U.S. in technological leadership. But that may not be the case.

A controversial Duke University study contradicts that perception, pointing out that engineers are defined differently in different places. Those differences give the impression that foreign colleges are graduating more engineers, as measured by U.S. standards, than they really are. In addition to blurring the definition of the term, schools in India and China may not be graduating engineers of the same caliber as those in the United States. And their graduates may not be competitive in a global sense for a variety of reasons, including language issues and job locations.

While acknowledging outsourcing isn't going to come to a halt, the report states that higher-level, or what it calls "dynamic" engineering work, will stay within US borders.

"We are not competing for jobs with China and India. We are competing for capital and technology. And they're winning."

11 Indian engineers can be hired for the cost of hiring one American.

"In regard to other countries, the US is 25th per capita in undergraduate engineering degrees awarded."