Education News
Average student Bush urges Americans to study
By DPA
Apr 22, 2006, 3:36 GMT

Cupertino, California - US President George W Bush joked about his academic achievement Friday while urging Americans to study sciences to enable the US to remain the world's economic leader.

'People have got to understand that if we don't educate our children in math and science, jobs are going to go to other countries,' Bush told a Silicon Valley forum, with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger at his side.

Stressing the importance of college, he turned to the former action movie star and said: 'You did get out of college, yes? Look, I don't need to be talking; I barely got out, myself.'

Bush graduated from Yale with an equivalent grade of C in 1958 and is not remembered as an engaged or brilliant student.

He was in the high-tech region to talk with business leaders about improved training for high tech workers. The hub of the US information economy lost thousands of jobs in the dot-com bust and through outsourcing to countries with lower wages, especially India.

High-tech executives also complain that stringent US immigration laws are turning away highly qualified tech workers who would be valuable assets to the economy.

Earlier this year, Bush proposed an 'American Competitiveness Initiative' with 136 billion dollars in tax credits, improved education and federal science programmes to combat the flight of high-tech jobs overseas.