The Chinese government’s Thousand Talent Program – launched last year to attract top notch researchers from around the world – might be one of the reasons for Chinese diaspora to head back to their home country. The second reason: The current global economic meltdown—similar stories are heard of the Indians too. In fact, if we browse the newspapers and magazines published from around the world, especially from the US, reverse brain drain stories like the ones above are making headlines pretty often.
Now, some of you must be wondering what’s the point in reciting the stories of the Chinese or Indians who moved or are moving back home. Well, there’s a point. And that is, we can and we should, too, lure our best and the brightest back home. But before delving into how we can do this, let’s analyze the current situation of the Nepali students abroad and the ones at home.
CURRENT SITUATION
The current global economic recession led many businesses to lay-off their employees or to go bankrupt, resulting in an increased number of experienced unemployed mass in the job market willing to accept entry-level jobs. In such a situation, any employer’s first choice is to hire an experienced individual over a fresh college graduate. The situation is worse for international students as employers consider hiring a foreign national a “hassle and extra cost”. As a result, plenty of our students all around the world, even after completing their studies, are having difficulties finding a job related to their degree, forcing them to accept menial jobs for survival. If the situation of our country were good, a significant number of recent graduates would come back home rather than taking up menial jobs just to get by.
Skilled and educated youths are assets of any country. The leadership needs to understand this and recognize their potential and put it to good use.
A lot of students take extra credits so that they can prolong their course of study. Many who have already graduated choose to go for another degree even if that means more pressure, more work and more studies. Some of the Nepali students in the US have opted to join the US Army, well aware of the fact that they will be deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and other troubled parts of the world. They will do anything that will keep them abroad but return home.
Let’s take a look at the situation at home. Ask any +2 or college graduate on their future plans and the most likely answer that you are going to get is “further study abroad”. Most of these young students know about the difficulties, challenges and tough life they have to face abroad. Even the parents are aware of this but they also know that their children are better off in some far-flung land thousands of miles away than right in front of their eyes because of frequent strikes, protests and politically-affiliated activities than regular classes in colleges and universities, and not to mention the current security situation.
Hence, most of the students start preparing for language and other required tests like SAT, TOEFL, IELTS, GRE, GMAT even before graduating from their current programs. Even the medical graduates – during their final year or along with the internship – start preparation for USMLE (United States Medical Licensing Examination) and PLAB (Professional and Linguistic Assessments Board) required to practice medicine in the US and UK respectively. This shows how desperately youths want to leave the country. And the sad part is, a significant number of these youths – which includes doctors, engineers, scientists, management professionals – the building blocks of a nation, don’t intend to ever return.
At times, when most of the youths are leaving the country, will the ones who are “out of the mess” and are enjoying all the perks of being in a developed country return? Well, it’s possible.
GOOD GOVERNANCE
First thing first: Our political parties need to sit together, negotiate to come to a point of mutual agreement and write the constitution to put the country back on track. As long as we don’t sort out our political problems and maintain peace and security, the building blocks of our nation will continue to leave. The current lawlessness, political upheavals, nepotism, corruption, bribery and lately the proliferating armed groups that are terrorizing every part of the country are not only barriers to the country’s development but are chasing away our only hope – the youths – of bringing back our country on track.
We need to improve our security situation, discourage corruption and bribery so that investors – both foreign and domestic – are not scared of investing in Nepal. We need investment not only to improve our infrastructure development and other projects but also to create jobs. When it comes to creating jobs and managing people, our education, that encourages rote learning, unfortunately, doesn’t provide us with enough entrepreneurship, project management and problem-solving skills. But this doesn’t mean that foreign educated are the panacea for the development of Nepal. We have ample examples of people who never left Nepal but yet are doing well in their profession or business. Foreign educated do add some much-needed flavor in the country’s development. They not only bring with them world-class education and experience but also new technology, grants/funds, research and investment opportunities from their networks and alma mater abroad – desperately needed for a country to develop.
Skilled and educated youths are assets of any country. The leadership needs to understand this and recognize their potential and put it to good use. Fortunately, most of our youths are getting world-class education and experience – be that in the US, UK, Australia or in some Middle Eastern countries. We don’t even need the Thousand Talent Program as China launched; all we need is a stable country where everyone can freely and without any fear use their money, skills, education and experiences to put the country on track to prosperity.
kc.shandip@yahoo.com
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