I have been writing and emailing Oregon state legislators for more than one year urging them to increase Mandarin programs in Oregon. This is the email I sent them 11/05/07.
Dear Oregon State Representative / Senator,
Look ahead to the year 2040. What will the economic and geopolitical world look like then? A five year old Oregonian starting kindergarten in 2008 will be only 37 years old in 2040. They will be early in their productive working years with much of their life still ahead of them. For what kind of a world do we need to educate them, today’s students?
In this email, I am referencing one article which suggests just how different that 2040 world might be. Robert Fogel’s paper predicts that economically the Chinese market in 2040 "will probably be larger than the combined markets of the U.S., the EU15, India, and Japan."
The strategic opportunity we have now in Oregon is to connect to China through our educational programs in order to put our state in position to benefit from the growth opportunities that China represents. There are also high priority national security needs, not covered by Fogel, that argue for making these same educational connections to China now. We need to develop as a high priority more Mandarin programs in our K-16 educational system and to find ways to send many more students to study abroad in China. You, as one of our elected leaders, need to have the vision to see this need, the skills to educate the public on this issue, and the political will to make it happen.
Robert W. Fogel, Director, Center for Population Economics, University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business, wrote a National Bureau of Economic Research working paper titled "Capitalism and Democracy in the 2040: Forecast and Speculations" (June, 2007) that makes a few economic forecasts about that world in 2040.
The abstract for his paper reads (see below for web link):
While the economies of the fifteen countries that were in the European Union (EU15) in 2000 will continue to grow from now until 2040, they will not be able to match the surges in growth that will occur in South and East Asia. In 2040, the Chinese economy will reach $123 trillion, or nearly three times the output of the entire globe in the year 2000, despite the influence of several potential political and economic constraints. India's economy will also continue to grow, although significant constraints (both political and economic) will keep it from reaching China's levels. The projected decline of the EU15's global share of GDP means that liberal Asian nations will be poised to take up the role of promoting liberal democracy across the globe.
In the text itself, he further forecasts:
The European market will be about 60 percent larger in 2040 than it was in 2000. But the U.S.’s market will be over 300 percent larger, India’s will be over 1,400 percent larger, and China’s will be 2,400 percent larger. Indeed, the Chinese market in 2040 by itself will probably be larger than the combined markets of the U.S., the EU15, India, and Japan. It may well be the case that English will survive as the principal commercial language until 2040, but I suspect that there will be an explosion of business managers in the West who speak Mandarin.
And that:
...in 2040, the Chinese economy will reach $123 trillion, or nearly 3 times the output of the entire globe in the year 2000. Moreover, the per capita income of China will reach $85,000 more than twice the forecast for the European Union (EU15) and also much higher than India and Japan. In other words, China is forecasted to go from a poor country in 2000 to a superrich country in 2040, although it will not have overtaken the U.S.
He gives as reasons the shifting of workers from agriculture and the investment in education:
That is because the level of output per worker was much higher in industry and services than in agriculture. Hence, by shifting workers from agriculture—where the bulk of labor has been concentrated—to industry or services, the economy obtained an additional boost. This inter-industry shift added 3 percentage points to the annual national growth rate. I expect inter-industry shifts to continue to be an important element in China’s economic growth over the next generation. In addition, a more important factor in sustaining China’s high growth rate will be the enhancement of the quality of the labor by education. China has invested heavily in rapidly expanding enrollment ratios in both secondary and tertiary education. As I have reported elsewhere (Fogel 2005), U.S. data indicate that college-educated workers are 3 times as productive, and a high school graduate is 1.8 times as productive as a worker with less than a ninth grade education. Thus, increasing the enrollment ratio in high school to 100 percent and in college to 50 percent over the next generation, would by itself add over 6 percentage points to the annual growth rate.
Both the shift out of agriculture and the investment in education are underway:
The significance of investment in human capital as an engine of economic growth has not eluded the State Council. In 1998, Jiang Zemin called for a massive increase in enrollments in higher education. The response was swift: over the next four years enrollment in higher education increased by 165 percent (from 3.4 million to 9.0 million) and the number of students studying abroad also rose by 152 percent (China Statistical Yearbook 2003). Since the tertiary enrollment ratio increased by about 50 percent between 2000 and 2004 (from 12.5 to 19.0 percent), my projection for 2040 is not overly optimistic (China Statistical Yearbook 2005)."
So, big changes are ahead. This will not be the world we grew up in.
We in Oregon know generally what we need to do to produce 5% of our high school graduates (about 1650 students) proficient in Mandarin by 2015. Good foreign language programs start as early as possible, immerse the student in the foreign language and include significant time spent living in the foreign culture. We have the national model K-16 Mandarin immersion program. It starts with half-day in Mandarin and half-day in English kindergarten at Woodstock Elementary in the Portland Public School, progresses through Portland middle and high schools, and then finishes with a high level Mandarin proficiency program at the University of Oregon. Currently, Woodstock enrolls two Mandarin immersion kindergarten classes (about 60 students) each year. We should expand that with 15 new Mandarin immersion startups across Oregon teaching an additional 450 students per year over the next few years. We also need to expand the array of other Mandarin learning opportunities in the K-12 educational system. And we need to find a way to get high school students studying abroad in China. With negotiations with China, the cost to have a high school student study for a full academic year abroad in China (including travel and room and board) could be less than the annual per pupil costs in most school districts in Oregon.
This is an issue of the highest priority and deserves your serious attention.
Thank you for your consideration.
Respectfully – Dave Porter
PS – The abstract of Fogel’s article is available free on the web. The full text costs $5. The website is here.
PPS - More info and specific proposals on my website here.