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| Kathmandu Tuesday April 02, 2002 Chaitra 20, 2058. |
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Brain drain : Cause, effects
and solutions
By SHIKHAR SHRESTHA
The urge to go to the west has become compelling
in Nepal in these recent years of modernisation and global transformation. Both the world
wars and political upheavals like civil wars and revolutions spawned large migrations
during the first half of this century. The migrations in the latter half stem from
economic motivation. People like scientists and skilled persons have, from the very
beginning, played a key role in international migrations. The conscious policy of
encouraging immigration of high quality manpower from other regions and countries is
related to the positive contribution made by the immigrants to their country of adoption,
resulting in a net advantage to the latter. This phenomenon of gaining qualified and
skilled manpower at cost to the country of origin is generally termed brain drain.
The United States of America has been among the
biggest immigrant-receiving countries for a long time. In the nineteenth century there was
a combined movement of man and money from the old world to the new, thereby transmitting
economic development. Industrialising Europe was the major source of immigrants and the
process of immigration brought both sides of the Atlantic together as a community of
nations, as a single economy made up of independent regions. The migration resulted in
mutually reinforcing economic growth.
After the First World War, the significance of
international migration declined. By the 1920s and early 1930s, the open door policy was
replaced by immigration laws imposing restrictions on entry. The United States became the
biggest creditor nation, with the movement of capital not coupled with that of labour and
free-trade. And free immigration was at a low ebb. Meanwhile, the US made significant
gains in terms of immigrant scientists from Europe. The influx of scientists and inventors
speeded up the process of technological development and innovation, which also proved to
be a vehicle of economic development and stability.
To understand the contemporary phenomenon of
brain drain, it will be useful to have a glimpse at international economic relations since
the Second World War. The period was characterised by the resumption of economic growth in
the west and enlargement of the socialist world, which did not exert pressure on the
supplies of high quality manpower from Third World developing countries. The period also
witnessed national resurgence among colonial people, which brought development to the fore
as the foremost concern of the world while the US emerged as the leader of the market
economies. The seventies witnessed many Third World countries embarking on an independent
path of development and political reform. However, international economic disparities
persisted and even became accentuated.
A period of scientific and technological
revolution ensued. The emergence of research and development has become the leading
industry, which demands the fast growth of highly educated scientific and technical
manpower and trained personnel. Science and technology now form the crucial means of
production. However, the increasing capital intensity tends to weaken the link between
increasing investment and rising demand for labour.
The rapid growth of the industrial west resulted
in acute shortage of highly qualified manpower with attendant widening of salary
differentials among the US, Western Europe and Third World developing nations. The
educational expansion in developing countries has outstripped their absorption capacity.
This has led to increasing reliance on them by the developed world, especially the US, for
qualified technical personnel and scientists to meet the shortage. This is in keeping with
the long experience of using the Third World as a tool for development.
But instead of apportioning blame, it would
certainly be more pragmatic for one to see the root cause of this brain drain phenomenon.
Perhaps the most important reason for brain drain is the educational pattern which does
not serve the needs of the home country. The others are unrecognised or unrewarded talent
and lack of job opportunities for trained professionals. For example, the emoluments drawn
by research workers are far less than those of a factory hand. Jobs in the corporate
sector are financially more attractive and a large number of science graduates opt for
non-technical jobs in the private sector and in banking institutions. The dedicated few
take up research studentship. The more enterprising among them go for research or teaching
assignments in the west.
This is the start of brain drain of the young.
The lure of higher salaries in hard currency, good living and favourable conditions for
settling down with family also prompt highly qualified Nepalese to look to the west for
jobs.
Further, a close scrutiny will show that brain
drain and poor faculty research facilities are both outcomes of the general path of
development opted for by the developing countries, their techno-economic strategy of
development which has a minimal role in change in social status, relations and
institutions. However, the efforts and policies to reduce or stop brain drain will involve
improvement of now destitute facilities. The import and adoption of western educational
technology also work towards intellectual alienation of highly educated personnel from the
home environment and culture. These uprooted and detribalised educated groups are eager to
move out and the reverse technology comes as a blessing in disguise to the developed
nations. Ending such a reverse flow will help generate appropriate, socially integrative
and social relations-harmonising technology related to the life and experience of the
people.
The specific objectives of anti-brain drain
policies, within the framework of independent development, are to bring back to a limited
extent, the lost talents and skills from abroad and reduce the outflow in the short run
and finally end it, except where necessitated by genuine, multilateral international
dependence.
There is also a dire need, on the part of the
researchers, for social commitment. They must accept the superiority of social priorities
over subjective research fields. The disproportionately high salary structure for private
business and industrial executives acts as an incentive for scientists to ultimately
migrate. To retain highly qualified manpower within the country, the salary structure has
to be attractive. The anomaly in emoluments should be removed. Measures for vocational and
academic guidance, realistic and detailed manpower planning and appropriate placement
services are a must. The private sector, which is an important employer, should do well to
shed its traditional attitude towards formal education and training in personnel policies.
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