The term brain drain was coined by the spokesmen of the Royal Society of London to describe the outflow of scientists and technologists to the United States and Canada in the early 1950s. Since then the term has become synonymous with human capital or the migration of highly educated individuals from the developing, mostly third world countries, to the developed ones.
Over the past few decades, more since Pakistan has been lurched full throttle into economic and political chaos, the phenomenon has become the bane of the society. The number of repining Pakistanis who wish to settle abroad is rising every year and the ones who are actually capable of breaking loose are coincidentally the educated ones, contributing alarmingly to the growing crisis of the Pakistani brain drain. To leave the country and settle abroad has become the zeitgeist of current day Pakistan.
Unfortunately either the government does not realize the severity of the problem or prefers to brush it under the proverbial rug like so many other issues. The migration of the Pakistani professionals to foreign countries, namely, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand has increased considerably with young educated and skilled Pakistani such as doctors, IT Experts, scientists and other professional either already gone or planning to leave. The fact that workers from all skill levels are losing or have completely lost faith in the economic future of the country was revealed by the Gallup survey that indicated that even the semi-skilled and unskilled workers want to migrate outside in search of better prospects. 62 percent of the adults who were surveyed expressed the desire to migrate abroad while 38 percent said that they would prefer to settle outside permanently.
It is often thought that the transmittance of funds by the ones who leave the country as a result of brain drain is a good enough substitute for these individuals actually staying in the country and working. But that idea is valid only to a minimal extent as there can be no substitute for services these professionals could be rendering the country by staying within the borders and adding to a far rapid economic, scientific and technological development of the country. Again, that can only happen if the proper infrastructure is provided to them whereby the country could earn manifold the money it receives from transmittance from the migrated workers.
According to Dr. Fitzhugh Mullan of George Washington University every doctor who leaves a poor nation leaves a hole that cannot be filled. He says,
“That creates enormous problems for the source country and the educational and health leaders in the country who are attempting to provide healers”.
Research shows that at 20 countries export more than 10 percent of their physician work force to richer nations with nearly no reciprocation as the US exports less than one-tenth of 1 percent of its doctors. Economic factor is primarily responsible for this mass migration of the scientific community from poorer, host countries like Pakistan. In Pakistan the value placed for a scientist with an advanced level degree is Grade 17 which comes with a salary that is totally insufficient to meet the basic requirements of a family. So it is no surprise that the advanced countries are exploiting the situation by offering these individuals far more handsome incentives.
Asif J. Mir writes in ‘Pakistani Think Tank’,
“We cannot achieve long-term economic growth by exporting our human resource. In the new world order, people with knowledge drive economic growth. We talk a lot of poverty alleviation in Pakistan. But who is going to alleviate the poverty-the uncreative bureaucracy that created poverty? Hypothetically, the most talented should lead the people, create wealth and eradicate poverty and corruption”.
Phillip Bonosky, contributing editor of Political Affairs, writes in his book Afghanistan-Washington’s Secret War.
“Pakistan seems to have nothing but problems. Endemic poverty which was Great Britain’s imperial gift to the colonial world-a poverty on which the sun never sets-skilled (badly needed in Pakistan itself) abroad in search for jobs. Hardly any country has suffered more from the brain drain than has Pakistan. Nearly 3,000 (annually) graduates of Pakistan’s medical colleges are jobless; most go abroad. The educated see their future not in their home country but in any country but their own”.
According to a report in the The Observer, London,
“Pakistan is facing a massive brain drain as record numbers of people desperate to leave their politically unstable, economically chaotic country swamp foreign embassies with visa applications-The biggest number of applications for British visas are from Pakistan. Doctors, lawyers and IT professional and leading the exodus, but laborers and farmhands are joining the queues of malnourished people who gather daily outside the US embassy in Islamabad”.
The greatest effect of brain drain on any country is what is seen in Pakistan today; rampant corruption, poor administrations, lack of motivation and a fast diminishing nationalism. Unless there is nationalism there can be no collective progress and poverty and crime will continue to increase under the umbrella of plethoric apathy. Whatever the solution it needs to come fast and it needs to be come now otherwise – when the educated are away, the uneducated will play – as they are playing at the moment.
Photo Credits: Flickr.com. Clicking on the photos will take you to their source pages.
“It was Hazrat Omer (may allah be pleased with him) who said:
If a stray dog dies of thirst by the side of a river, then, even that is my fault!
We need a leader who thinks like THAT.”
Exactly.
A lot of Pakistanis abroad are looking to come back, dissatisfied with increasingly negative views towards Muslims and immigrants as well as an increasingly immoral culture.
I am one such person. I was born and raised in the States but I came to Pakistan for graduate studies and to at least get in touch with my family and to lay the foundations for possibly living and working here myself one day, as well as raising a family here, inshallah. I’ve still got a long ways to go to adjust.
A lot of recent government programs have made it easier, but the overall state of affairs (particularly on the economic front) need to continue improving. The unfortunate truth is, as long as the economy’s growing, most Pakistanis coming back in would love the opportunity to pay their way to get everything, justice included, since they’ve got plenty of money (and an advantage over many locals in that respect).
The reason there is a brain drain in Pakistan is because there is no justice in Pakistan. People who work and become successful are targeted by low lifes using the state machinery such as police and courts. The police and the judges can be bought and sold so there is no justice. Even if someone manages to get justice and takes himself out of the false cases he has been subjected to, then the police and the judges create hinderances to stop the law taking its course and punishing the false allegation of the accuser.
Why is this injustice here? Well, what do you expect when you do not dole out justice to the Judge, whom you pay a paltry Rs18,000 to Rs20,000 per month and then expect him to dole out justice when he himself is not getting justice… or take the police man, who is facing the same problem. These individuals wield a lot of power but are powerless to feed themselves and hold their body and soul together without buying and selling justice as if it were a commodity.
Cure. Give justice to everyone, and Pakistan will prosper
It was Hazrat Omer (may allah be pleased with him) who said:
If a stray dog dies of thirst by the side of a river, then, even that is my fault!
We need a leader who thinks like THAT.
Zindagi-ki-Diary,
you have again demonstrated the catch 22….unless the educated return and try to fix the situation, Pakistan will remain in the slumps but the educated won’t return until the country is out of the slumps hence Pakistan will remain in the slumps and the educated won’t return…..Who will break the latch on this catch?!
@ Zindagi Ki Diary …..
Docs specially have nothing to do with politics !
Good Law and Order cannot make anyone escape from death….the nighr in teh graveyard will not be spent on the face of earth…
9/11..7/7..and Madrid Train blasts..is their anything uncertain than death !
qualified professional can get reasonable money at end of month in pakisatn to live as an honurable man..but not minarates of pounds and dollars….but with 3rd class citizenship…..
I can sweep the streets of my own country…instead of being a 3rd Class Citizen of US..UK…or by hearing leave our land…and other racial…and filthy comments !
the same 1001 bahanais….we all are fed up now..by hearing these lame excuses. just if you dont want to serve Pakisatn..plz. dont add salt to our wounds by these crocodile tears….sorry to say !
Being myself a physician of Pakistani origin in USA, I can tell you – I myself tried 4 times in 15 years to return to Pakistan but political, law and order, economic or religious instability forced me back to USA.
As much blame we put on USA for global problems, we pakistanis have no interest and probably no clue of taking care of ourselves. There is a reason ‘paki’ overtime became a slur in west. Its heartbreaking but did we ever pause why our own cream wants to go away !
Lot of comments in this post makes a lot of sense and was a very important post – congratulations