Stem the brain drain

Minister of Science, Technology and Tertiary Education Senator Mustapha Abdul Hamid raised the issue last week when he spoke at the first national awards ceremony for TT icons in science, technology and innovation. And there is no doubt that the brain drain affects this country. Exact statistics are not available, since no government seems to have thought it important enough to research the matter, but it seems likely that the majority of national scholarship winners end up staying or going overseas.

Minister Hamid noted that the public recognition of icons can play a role in restoring to young people a sense of place, identity, history, national pride and loyalty to their homeland. This may be overstating the case, nor does uncritical patriotism do a society any good. However, it is true that a solid sense of national identity does result in citizens preferring to remain in the land of their birth. This was the challenge successfully faced by nations like Japan and Singapore in the 1950s and 1960s, when they sent their most capable citizens abroad to learn from the developed nations, always assured that most of them would return to help develop their own countries.

But what causes a person to want to stay in their country when better opportunities are available elsewhere? Or, put another way, what causes a person to leave his country when they can be financially comfortable and have an established social network at home? Mr Hamid naturally did not mention it, but the political party he serves must take significant blame for the brain drain that Trinidad and Tobago continues to experience to this day.

After all, it is well-known that Dr Eric Williams, the country’s first Prime Minister, would readily sideline, shun and undermine any individual who disagreed with him or whom he saw as a threat. This led to a large portion of the Afro-Trinidadian intelligentsia leaving the country in the 1960s, while the upheaval of the 1970s helped persuade members of the other racial groups to also pull up roots. This may be a factor which has led today to the academic underperformance of Afro-Trinidadian youths in terms of scholarship lists — not because these youths are less capable as a racial group, but simply because most of the potential scholarship winners write SATs or otherwise migrate before writing CXC examinations.

And yet, keeping persons at home, or ensuring they come back after studying overseas, is not a hard task This is because, given reasonable options, most people prefer to live in the land of their birth - as shown by the fact that most migrants tend to become even more Trini than those who stay here. So, if persons of talent and skills feel that they can make a contribution and have their work recognised, they will stay at home even if they can earn much more in other countries.

However, for this to occur, people in positions of power must change their attitude. They must promote and support talented individuals, recognising that such persons are going to rock the boat and will often be arrogant — two attributes which are not easily tolerated in our insecure culture. Outstanding young persons must be nurtured and put into influential posts by the time they are 40, since innovation will outweigh inexperience. And people in power must also adhere strictly to regulations in terms of promotions and so on — with the example being set, as historically it has never been, by the Prime Minister.

If this change can start at the top, then the country can arrest the brain drain, and this will certainly catalyse the developmental process.