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DiscussionTable 1a: Country of birth – World. Number of ICM speakers per country or region.Table 1b: Country of birth – Europe. Number of ICM speakers per country in Europe.ity of education in universities will decline, or fail to rise;hence the training of mathematics teachers will not besatisfactory; hence…Giving some numbers may illustrate the economic aspectof the discussion. Following the OCDE publicationEducation at a Glance 2013, Tables B1.3a and B1.3b, thetotal average expenditure for primary/secondary educationin the USA is $142,000 in purchasing power parity,and for undergraduate education it is $81,000. Hiringa foreign trained mathematician represents a saving of$223,000.As we have briefly discussed, brain drain is indeedan intricate matter. All four approaches to the problemhave a strong claim to the truth. I will not argue further– everyone should weigh the different aspects and considerhow they might be reconciled. Hopefully these datacan help both policymakers and our community to weighthe various arguments for the further development (andspread) of mathematics.II. The Results1. The median age of ICM lecturers is 46; the averageis slightly higher, at 46.66 ± 1. For plenary speakers, themedian is 52 and the average 51.66 ± 1, whereas for sectionalspeakers the median and the average are both 46.Among the speakers, there are 27 women.2. The average time difference between PhD year andyear of first degree is 5 years (for the 150 people forwhom I have reliable data). Because the notion of firstdegree varies considerably from country to country (seeitem III.2 below) and because some students do not goEMS Newsletter June 2014 39

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