Its really surprising to see people mention 'education system' in one breadth, as if there is a problem with the entire education system.

Being a fan of using specificity where it should be used, especially when solving problems (generalization is such a killer, love the phrase 'root cause analysis'), i would say the policy makers and such industry leaders should be more specific about what part of the education system it is that has broken down.

When they are more specific, there is a higher chance of citizens understanding exactly what is the problem and throwing their weight behind measures to solve those problems.

Having been exposed to two very different education systems (US and India), and education being one of my favorite topics for analysis (err....nothing serious, just armchair analysis) this is how I would characterize this issue:

American universities are of very high standard (cannot emphasize that enough). They are of such a high standard that American schools (primary education) are not able to provide enough input (students) of the required high standard.

Students come to the universities, unable to take the pressure and stress that the high standards of the universities put, they downgrade their goals or still, start off with less tougher fields as goals. And of course the less tough fields aren't usually science and engineering, which is requried to keep the technological and manufacturing leadership of a country.

Now don't get me wrong, non-engineering fields are also critical to a society, but end of the day, enough of BOTH are required.

On the other hand, in education systems like that of India, the quality of knowledge (as in providing the latest and greatest knowledge) is horrible. But they make up for it by putting the students to such stress and forcing them to learn to perform and strive in that stress ( of course not all do, but the high base volumes puts out enough output), that they can strive anywhere, not the least in American universities.

So, one supply route, American schools (primary) has been struggling to keep up the demand for science based students in American universities which in turn is a supplier to the American industry.

Now, the immigration policies are creating another bottleneck for the American industry. With such a drying up of supply routes, no doubt American industry will face challenges in keeping up its technological leadership.

Don't get me wrong, I didn't find fault with Americans or Indians. Baring the outliers, I strongly believe the average person is a product of the system and its the system that needs to be changed, tweaked or whatever. ( of course systems themselves are an accumulation of people's desires, thoughts, opinions and decisions over time)

The American education system has supported American industry well so far, but there is a book called "Who moved my cheese".

America would do well to make its primary school system require more hardwork so that students get aclimatised to more hardwork required at the higher education level, not to mention that required in the industry.

India would do well to inject more arts into its school systems, not to mention more contemporary technology ( and not just in computers!)

With the very little exposure I got about the Chinese system (through chinese classmates), I think their's is sort of in between the Indian and American systems, but closer to the Indian system than to the American system