Stop the Brain Drain!

Nadira Haque Arpa :

Brain Drain is currently a common term in underdeveloped and developing countries around the world, including Bangladesh. Brain Drain refers to when talented, educated, and skilled people from a country — such as scientists, engineers, doctors, teachers, or other professionals — leave their home country to work or study permanently in another developed country. This usually happens when: There are no good job opportunities in their own country, salaries are low or the work environment is not conducive, there is political instability or lack of security, and people migrate to developed countries in the hope of a better life.
The most valuable asset of a country is its talented citizens. A talented person can contribute the most to the welfare of their family, society, and the state. However, when these talented people leave their home country and go to another country, their country becomes devoid of talent. Brain Drain has become a serious problem in Bangladesh. Every year, many talented students go abroad for higher education and many never return to the country.
In addition, doctors, engineers, scientists and IT experts are also migrating to developed countries in the hope of better opportunities. The trend of Bangladeshi students going abroad for higher education is gradually increasing. Most of the students go to North America, Europe, Australia, Canada, the UK and Japan. These countries offer scholarships and other attractive benefits to Bangladeshi students. As a result, most of them do not return to their country after completing their studies. As a result, the human resources of their own country are depleted.
Observations show that due to the socio-economic situation, political instability, insecurity and lack of adequate opportunities for development, a large part of the talented young generation migrates to developed countries. By utilizing the research, technology and stability of developed countries, these talented people make those countries stronger and more powerful. This is talent trafficking or brain drain. Be it government or private educational institutions in Bangladesh, there are talented people everywhere. Their eagerness to learn is immense. Many of these talented young people prepare themselves for the workplace by studying. A large part of them try to go abroad during their student days or at the beginning of their career.
Eventually, they leave. Quality education and advanced research are needed to develop talent. Without competition, there is no competition. Bangladeshi children are moving forward to keep up with the pace in the era of globalization. However, many of them are leaving the country. Growing up in the country, getting higher education there, and later leaving the workplace of various first-line professions, including teaching, are going abroad. They are making themselves more qualified by utilizing advanced research and technology in other countries. Although many are successful abroad, some may not be able to do so. Every year, about half a million students leave Bangladesh to pursue higher education. Of whom, 80 percent do not return to the country. They take citizenship of that country. This can create a talent vacuum in the country.
The lifeblood of a country is its talented people. The current world is controlled by them. To destroy a country, the talented people of that country must first be destroyed. We have seen proof of this in the great liberation war of 1971 when the Pakistani occupying forces brutally murdered teachers, journalists and writers of the country to demoralize Bangladesh.
To prevent talent trafficking, the first thing to be done is to have the personal goodwill of the talented person. Secondly, the issue that needs to be looked at seriously to prevent talent trafficking is the evaluation of the talented, ensuring adequate allocation of funds in the research sector, eliminating the politics of domination in the education sector, appointing talented people as teachers to improve the quality of education and ensuring good salaries and providing them with social security, stopping the discriminatory quota system, adopting a zero tolerance policy against recruitment and corruption.
Some more steps can be taken to prevent talent trafficking. It is important to reduce session alliances and increase the number of seats in universities. In addition to ensuring a quality education system, it is necessary to increase employment opportunities by properly evaluating their talent. Because the talent of this large number of talented students is not evaluated, they consider it safer to migrate abroad. Talented students must be provided with proper security and adequate living facilities in the country. And if these steps are not taken now, it will become much more difficult to keep pace with other countries in terms of development progress over time. If there are no talented people in other important professions of the country, including teaching, the doors of our future possibilities will not open.

(The writer is a student, Department of Philosophy
Jagannath University.)