'Academic Olympics' to inspire futuregenerations of scientists.

We have all heard the story: the United States has woefully inadequate numbers of graduates in science, math and engineering. Other countries crank out graduates in these fields and many of these countries' citizens come to U.S. schools. Some stay, while many others return home upon graduation.

But according to recent studies, the huge gap in graduates here and, say China and India, is not as big as once thought. Duke University's Pratt Engineering School report, "Framing the Engineering Outsourcing Debate," says we must compare apples to apples. What we refer to as "engineering" and science differs slightly from the definitions in India and China. In addition, the totals from those countries encompass three-year training programs as well as four-year degrees.

When we put the numbers on a level-playing field, the United States does not fare poorly. China graduated 644,106 students with engineering degrees while the U.S. graduated 222,335, and India has 215,000. But this is still a startling and dangerous gap. The number of U.S. citizen graduates declined at a rate of 20-30 percent between 1998 and 2006, says the National Science Foundation.

Fortunately, there is a keen awareness in the United States that we have to shore up our science, math, and technology programs from kindergarten through higher education.

NDIA and other organizations are taking the lead on developing and implementing programs to promote science, math and engineering at an early age. The National Defense Education Program, which started in 2006, focuses on exciting students in elementary school; attracting the students to careers in the field as soon as they enter high school; educating and assisting them; recruiting them to work in the national security industry and retaining them.

As a component of current efforts to raise awareness and address the shortage of students pursuing science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) course work, NDIA has established the National Security Science and Technology Workforce Division to provide a forum for effective interaction between government, industry, academia and the public. Focus areas include:

* Gather industry support for activities that attract young people in pursuing STEM careers in the national security industry.

* Provide industry support to government STEM initiatives, such as the Interagency Aerospace Workforce Revitalization Task Force and the Department of Energy's National Security Community Workforce "Stoplight" project.