Brain Drain and

Tertiary Education.

By

FALOMUWA AKINTUNDE ISAAC

Department of Electrical/ElectronicEngineering Technology,

Federal Polytechnic Oko.

Anambra State

Nigeria.

E-mail: akintundefalomuwa@yahoo.com

akintunde.falomuwa@gmail.com

+2347089832170 & +2348038503231.

Keywords: Brain drain, migration, despondent, trainings, psychological, greener-pasture.

Abstract.The root cause of brain drain in Nigeria lies with our

successive leaderships and governments that have demonstrated,

very convincingly, that the interest of Nigeria and its citizens

were never their priority. They relentlessly pursued their own

agenda thereby causing much havoc in the country’s growth and

stability, deteriorating academic standard and leaving many able

hand despondent.

Standard dictionary  defines brain drain “as the loss of skilled

intellectual and technical labour through the movement of such

labour to more favourable geographic, economic, or professional

environ , depletion or loss of intellectual and technical

personnel, a gradual depletion of energy or resources; a drain of

young talent by emigration"

It is obvious that lack of expertise in our tertiary institution

has tremendously affected the tertiary education in the country

due to failure of the government to remunerate the lecturers and

the instructors with better incentive packages and gives adequate

training to them, creating room for their emigration to greener

pastures where they will be ideally valued. It has its hands in

the deteriorating situation of our institutions of higher

learning; it   is visible in our major industries. The private

sector is denied the experience such people would have brought to

bear on the economy. Because of the untoward effects of brain

drain on Nigeria it would seem to me that the issue has to be

confronted. The reason being that it is a problem to which there

are solutions. In modern times this exploitation of developing

nations by advanced economies and democracies continues unabated

though in different forms with varying degree of severity. For

the purpose of this discourse, I would concentrate on the often

ignored topic of brain drain in favour of tertiary education.

Introduction.

Brain drain was coined by the British Royal Society to refer to

the exodus of scientists and technologists from the United

Kingdom to the United States and Canada in the 1950s and

1960s(Cervantes and Guellec, 2002). Now, it is more typically

used to refer to the emigration of a nation’s most highly skilled

individuals. Docquier and Rapoport (2006) note in their entry in

the ‘’migration of engineers, physicians, scientists, and other

very highly skilled professionals with university training.’’

Typically these movements are from developing to developed

countries.

Docquierand Marfouk (2005) define brain drain rate for a

particular educational level as the share of all individuals with

that education level aged 25 and over born in that country who

live abroad. In the developing country, (Nigeria as a case

study), we calculate that brain drain rate for tertiary-educated

individuals is 7.3 times that of individuals with only primary

education, with only 3.5 times that of individuals with only

secondary schooling.

The term ‘’brain drain’’ dominates popular discourse on high-

skilled migration, and for this reason, we use it in this

article. However, it is obviously a loaded phrase, involving

implicit definitions of economic and social welfare, and implicit

assertions about facts. (Harry Johnson, 1965, p.299) noted that

brain drain conveys a strong implication of serious loss. While

such concerns have been present for decades, they have gained

increasing prominence as many developed countries have moved more

skill-selective immigrants comprising mostly academics,

physicians and engineers at the detriment of their originated

countries.

However, this has also been enjoying a renaissance as a subject

of study according to Econlit; there were 247 articles on brain

drain written between 2005 and 2009 in order to identify the

alarming rate in the increase of immigrants to the developed

nations which is about twice as many as over the previous 15

years combined.

More so, this topic has no significance in some developing

countries like sub-Sahara Africa because of their challenging

economic growth whereby the governments could not provide all

necessary amenities for the populace, with or without standard

education and excellent healthcare services.

In the world today, the three most migrated countries are; USA,

Canada and Europe. Also believed to be the most commercialized

communities in the world where many dream to abode and settle.

These above stated countries contribute mainly to the exponential

increase in brain drain and drastically deteriorate the economic

growth of the developing world.

Top chart of educational migrants show that ten occupations for

tertiary-educated in the developing countries with their level of

tertiary education (bachelor’s, master’s, or PhD) in which they

fall on 25 years or older are; computer specialists, accountants,

managers, and among higher education levels, scientists and

academics being the most common.

Health professionals (nurses and doctors) were believed to

constitutes highest numbers of workforce in the developed

countries, but in 2001 Canadian Census, health professionals

constitutes 5.7 percent of educated immigrants with bachelors

degree,3 percent with master’s degree, 3.9 percent with Ph.D.s,

also termed as the minority of the tertiary-educated immigrants

to other countries where scientists, teachers, and professors are

the most common occupations, accounting for 45 percent of those

with masters degree and 65 percent of those with Ph.D.s.

Same applied to United Kingdom where health professionals are 6.9

percent of the tertiary-educated migrants from developing

countries who came to the United Kingdom after age 24, with this

number increasing to 10 percent if one also includes

nonprofessionals to be 8.2 percent of tertiary-educated

immigrants and 14.1 percent of those with master’s degrees or

higher.

However, population of the immigrants in the USA,U.K and Canada

has been a serious bone of contention in terms of brain drain to

the economists while brainstorming on the alarming rate increase

in the three communities despite the harsh treatment some receive

due to the policy of those countries, a case study is Canada

where experts from other countries are mandated to write

professional examinations before they could secure better

employments. Those that make it will be opportune to work while

the ones that fail three times will no longer practice their

professions but rather find other means to eke-out their

livelihood. Also, in America, emigrant medical practitioners

cannot work as professionals without taking one or two of their

professional studies, yet, people still rush and migrate to those

countries because the economy cannot be likened with their home

country.

Census Bureau in the USA (2010) revealed that the race which

invaded America predominantly are; Asia, Europe, and Africa, with

the total population of United States of America being

308,745,538 persons, Asia constitutes highest immigrants with

4,459,379 while Europe follows with 1,887,221 and Africa with

1,492,785 excluding the refugees. In United Kingdom (2011) census

stated that people of White origin are 45%, Asian (6.8%), African

(3.4%), Chinese (0.7%), Arab (0.4%) . While Canadian Census 2011

quoted that international immigrants are 66%, that is, an

increase from 677,458 in July 1, 2006 to 1,229,247 in July 1,

2011 showing tremendous increase in their population growth, but,

adversely affecting the country those left behind.

We need to wake up to the fact that we live in a global village

where every serious nation attracts the best of brains from every

corner of the world and keep them; until they realize that they

must begin to explore a “Nigeria without oil” and strenuously

begin to focus on educating the young generation and equipping

them with the necessary scientific backgrounds to enable them

compete globally

The average developing country has 7.3% of its tertiary-educated

population stock in higher-income countries, with this proportion

varying from 5.4% or below in developing countries with

population of 40 million or more, to 13% in sub-Saharan Africa

and 45% in small developing island nations (Docquuier, Lohest and

Marfouk 2007). Brain drain is associated with country population

size, that is, countries with less population have a higher

proportion of brain drain, in addition, brain drain rates are

higher in countries with religious fractionalization and

political instability, and with low levels of human capital.

Forms of Brain Drain:

Physical: A situation whereby there is not conducive environment

for studying, teaching would be strenuous or unbearable, thereby

creating fatigue for the lecturers and most of the students will

not assimilate or gain from the lectures.

Logical: A situation whereby a senator earns #15 million monthly

and a Professor could not earn up to #5 million, this situation

leads to brain drain in the academics circle.

Technical: A situation whereby PhD holders in Polytechnics could

not upgrade to Professorship, while the ones out there in the

Universities that are not more better are switching smoothly.

Psychological: A situation whereby there is disparity between

academics staff by giving some preferential treatment and rapid

promotion and some lag behind.

Effects of Brain Drain:

The major effect of brain drain is the adverse deterioration of

economic growth, producing half-baked graduates, migration with

decongestion, and high crime rate due to despondent unemployed

graduates that resolved to criminal activities like cyber-crime,

kidnapping, burglary, prostitution, vandals and all sorts of

terrible manners.

However, migration or drift by the expatriates in search of

greener pasture reduces the strength of a country and minimizes

their G.D.P. (Gross Domestic Product) and technological

development; this drastically weakens the country growth and

jeopardizes the future of the upcoming youths.

In our tertiary institutions, brain drain has minimizes the hope

of many students, in a situation where their colleagues that are

into business are making it and the so called graduates remains

jobless, the ones in school are finding it difficult to

comprehend because of the uncertainty future.

More so, many deflect to lucrative courses in order to sustain

themselves, many bow out to sacrifice their stress, time and

certificates to be self employed in order to eke-out their

livelihood.

The most painful thing is that Nigeria as a nation has no regret

on the issue of brain drain, even the human right activists are

not majorly concerned because most of them had their children

studying abroad, even some didn’t have clue on what Nigeria is,

at all, in this case, it is difficult for them to feel the pain

of the masses.

Government has failed to provide adequate learning environs for

the students while the elites are sustaining theirs by sending

them to private institutions. Also, public tertiary institutions

are lacking facilities and research orientation. These are the

killing trend in the education setup in Nigeria, whereas, the

public office holders has nothing to do about it.

The question we need to ask is ‘’how many public office holders starting

from the legislative arm of government, judiciary and executives had their

children in public tertiary institutions?’’.All these needs to be addressed

before anything could be said concerning averting brain drain in

Nigeria.

For example, with Nigeria now 52 years old and still relying not

just on revenues from petroleum resources but indeed on foreign

expertise and technology to exploit it, How will Nigeria acquire

and control the petroleum technology it needs to dig a hole in

the ground to recover its own oil and save 40 percent royalty

lost to foreign oil companies? To this, we must refocus our

energy to develop the brain power of our youths.

A typical example is Dr Emeagwali, the computer guru who hails

from Delta State and went to United State of America in 1974 in

search of intellectual knowledge. Nigerians delude themselves

that Emeagwali is their own, the United States of America, is not

about to let him go.

Indeed to keep him, the American government got his parents, all

their 35 children and grand children to join him in the USA 26

years ago. He became a total brain lost. The simple truth is that

America will never allow one of its top scientific brains to

venture into a chaotic, unsafe Nigeria. sincerely speaking, you

cannot but weep for Nigeria.

Yet, none could dispute the truth in his message to Nigeria and

Africa: the wealth of the future will be derived from developing

the intellectual capital of our children. We must develop “the

clay of wisdom”, the innovations of our younger generation: “we

must put faith in our younger generation as we look to the

future. By reinvesting our petroleum revenues into developing the

potential of our children, we free ourselves from the burdens of

our past,”

In human history, technological development and economic growth

proceed together and a nation that is second to none in science

was second to none in economic power. Hence ‘the grand challenge

for African scientists is to make discoveries and inventions that

can be domesticated and diffused into the continent’s economy.”

technology will allow Nigeria to do more with less, without

depleting its natural resources.

Because petroleum is a depleting resource, Nigerians must know

that it is our scientific discoveries and technological

inventions that will increase humanity’s intellectual capital by

creating new knowledge, new products, and new wealth and move

Nigeria forward into a top 20 economy.

“Africa can alleviate poverty by forcing the frontiers of

science, pushing back the boundaries of what’s possible with

technology, climbing the branches of the tree of knowledge, and

embarking on a journey with an uncertain future. We cannot bring

change without taking risks and without challenging the status

quo. Great discoveries and great inventions cannot be made

without the risk of great failures. Africa must cross the

technological frontier to conquer tomorrow’s challenge.”

The problem of Brain-drain should be tackled at national and

international level on a broad-based and rational pattern, for it

is a global issue. On the national level, a country like Nigeria,

should ameliorate the working conditions of scientists and equip

the laboratories with latest technology. Internationally, the

country gaining by Brain-drain must compensate the losing country

by sending her scientists in return.

Recommendation:

I would rather want the Western World work with developing

nations on ways and means of reversing brain drain instead of

pursuing vigorous aids policy coupled with avoidable and often

inevitable philanthropy, which effectively and paradoxically only

address their moral and cognitive dissonance.

 

All Nigeria needs is cooperation from developed nations, we are

abundantly blessed with both natural and human resources to the

extent that we could transform our land to the best available

anywhere in the world.  Let the ordinary Nigerian be assured that

he needs not be selfish in his dealings with fellow Nigerians and

the nation, that the government would and could provide him with

enabling environment and opportunities to develop his potentials.

 

I sincerely believe that Nigeria cannot wait till it trains

another generation of professionals for it to move forward.

Already, we have enough to restart and sustain meaningful socio-

economic development.  The governments both federal and states

have to actively encouraged Nigerian professionals to return to

the country and contribute to its development.  For sure, our

tertiary educational system will be rejuvenated and reinvigorated

so will other sectors of the economy.

 

 

As individual Nigerians we favourably compare with citizens

anywhere in the world. Unfortunately as a nation we still

lack the prerequisite features that characterize the developed

nations. There seems to be gross absence in our academic sector

and at various levels of leadership, of a sense of public service

for the good of all. The common man has been disillusioned by

years of morbid leadership of criminal proportion. The hypocrisy

as displayed by political leadership is such that is visible to

the blind.

 

Nigeria has no reason other than demonstrable selfish and corrupt

leadership to be in our current socio-economic development. The

good thing though is that all this can be corrected in no time if

the issues about vision and honest commitment to change

are addressed.

 

Most Nigerians see through the hypocrisy of successive

leaderships to the extent they have developed apathy and a sense

of hopelessness. This has bred as offspring, the self-centered

and reckless Nigerian whose main goal is to satisfy his worldly

and carnal desires with mindless disregard for our collective

future. It is only in Nigeria that individuals with influence,

usually money, are above the law. This to me is the bane of

corruption. Ordinary Nigerians see this and develop an attitude

prejudicial to the idea of complete and total respect for the

laws of our land.  

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