60 Minutes, Sunday

Date: Saturday, January 11, 2003 12:05 AM

H-1B and JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

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This a recent newsletter by Norm Matloff at matloff@cs.ucdavis.edu

Fri 1/10/2003 11:29 PM

This Sunday's edition of 60 Minutes is slated to do a piece on India's
IIT tech university system. The ad says,

IMPORTED FROM INDIA ? The best and brightest engineers from what may
be the most competitive school in the world, the India Institute of
Technology, would rather work in the U.S.A. than Delhi or Bombay.
Lesley Stahl reports.

I'm told it will be a puff piece.

For the record, I'm mentioned before my view on IIT. The curriculum is
in my opinion ordinary, and arguably not as good as those of the top
U.S. schools. IIT's claim to fame is their very high degree of
selectivity. It should be noted, though, that this is in a country with
an illiteracy rate of 50%. I've seen a few truly outstanding graduates
of IIT, but most are only good-to-excellent.

I can easily understand why India and some Indians are taking pride in
the number of IIT graduates who have succeeded in the U.S. We take our
university system here for granted, but to develop all of what India has
in less than 50 years *is* an accomplishment. So it's a good topic for
60 Minutes.

What rankles, though, is that likelihood that the H-1B lobby put 60
Minutes up to this. Though 60 Minutes did a very critical piece on H-1B
back in the early 1990s, it's high time that took another look. They
should balance this IIT segment with one showing how many American tech
workers, including many of Indian ancestry, are finding it very tough
to get work these days, largely due to the major influx of H-1Bs.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1998/07/08/60minutes/main13502.shtml

Norm

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