‘BRAIN DRAIN’ HAPPENS BOTH WAYS – WE LOSE SOME, WE GAIN SOME. – PART I.
…HOW MANY SCHOLARS FROM FOREIGN COUNTRIES WHO ARE WORKING HERE?
By Mansor Puteh
YES, THIS IS WHAT MANY MALAYSIANS HAVE FAILED TO ASK THEMSELVES.
THERE IS EVEN AN ASSOCIATION OF EXPATRAITES LIVING IN THE COUNTRY WHO PUBLISH THEIR OWN MAGAZINE.
BUT SADLY, THIS ASSOCIATION IS DOMINATED BY THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING OR EUROPEANS; WEREAS THERE ARE MANY NON-ENGLISH PERSONS WHO ARE WORKING IN THE COUNTRY WHO ARE NOT MEMBERS OF THE ASSOCIATION.
IF THEY ARE, THEN THIS ASSOCIATION WILL BECOME ONE WHICH IS NOT ENGLISH OR EUROPEAN-DOMINATED BY AN ASIAN ONE.
In fact, do they also not want to consider all the factory workers from Bangladesh, Nepal, Vietnam and Myanmar as ‘expatriates’ too, so they are qualified to be members of this association?
Maybe an expatriate is someone who is qualified while a foreign labor is someone who is not. But who gets to define the term anyway?
There’s talk about it lately. Some people are complaining why are there some Malaysians who had opted to work abroad, thus benefiting the foreign countries.
But the truth is that there is definitely no brain drain of politicians from Malaysia to other countries.
Because I don’t think there are countries which want to buy over politicians from Malaysia, especially those who claim to be smart and want to hang around forever.
And there’s definitely no brain drain of opposition politicians who seem to have strong support from America and also Australia. But so far none of these countries are interested to buy them over.
There can also not be any editor of newspapers in Malaysia who can be bought over by newspapers in other countries, including those in Hong Kong, India and America even because many Malaysian newspapers are fond of promoting these countries.
There is just a bit of brain drain from Malaysia to other countries, but they are mostly cooks and laborers in Chinese and Melayu restaurants in England, Australia, New Zealand and some other countries where they do not have people who can cook Chinese and Melayu food that well.
So far there is no brain drain of our politicians, opposition leaders and other NGO personalities; university vice-chancellors, professors, high ranking police offers and other military personnel.
The type of brain drain that happen only involves those who will find ways to get out of the country, because they had already created in them some contempt of it, especially if they have a professional degree or not much tertiary education and who marvel at the thought of being able to live abroad where they can earn more doing the same thing and not be bothered by local politics and other nonsensical social, cultural, linguistic and religious issues.
They accept the language of the majority there – English, or even French and other languages where they have to learn from scratch – because they know they cannot use their own mother tongue.
So they have to adapt and be fully assimilated in these countries and become poodles, without any fangs to show to anyone. No political party to be members of.
This is what all Malaysian ‘brain-drainers’ have become. Yet, not surprisingly, they are happy and contented at not being able to excel in whatever they wanted to do.
But I doubt if there are many Malaysians who is that qualified who can find employment abroad. And none or not many Malaysian Chinese who have been known to want to flee to China, Taiwan or even Hong Kong to work there.
The most that they will do is to go to Singapura which is not too far away from Malaysia. They are scared to take up permanent residency in China or citizenship.
Some Chinese and Indian-Malaysian criminals have been known to flee to China and India to hide. But they are not expatriates. And this sort of ‘brain drain’ is definitely welcome by any Malaysian but not by the law here or there.
If there is brain drain of Malaysians abroad, chances are they won’t go very far working in the foreign countries; they will be just another worker. None has been known to excel. They still long for Malaysia, but not so much with their off-springs who won’t have a clue about it until much later in their lives.
And what they are not talking is just how many foreigners who are qualified and who are working here in Malaysia.
Brain drain works both ways – we lose some, and we gain some. This should even out the equation and hence, debate on this issue is frivolous.
The real problem is why send Malaysian students abroad to study when upon their return they are not given preferential treatment and they are often told not to rest on their laurels.
Many who are in new industries are forced to create everything – to form their own companies and bid for tenders and jobs together with those who are already in the business for a long time and who had created an uneven playing field.
It’s well and good to provide Malaysian students with the best education available so all of the can score good grades and enter university and become useful to the society.
But it’s bad planning if many of them leave the country to work elsewhere, thus denying the country its much needed manpower to develop its economy.
It is even worse when those who are qualified are sidelined or even sabotaged by the government and their agencies who open their doors to those whom they know and who are not well-educated.
Just how qualified are the CEOs of the government-linked companies or GLCs? Can they survive on their own? Why must they be retained for so long? They should be allowed to leave their posts and see if they stand on their own?
Did the government know what MARA and JPA or the other scholarship and study loan agencies are doing and who they had sent abroad to prestigious universities to study?
Unfortunately even MARA and JPA are not able to trust those whom they had educated so that they can be offered important and interesting posts. They just do not know how to do it, to attract the attention of the government and Melayu leaders.
One of the ways is for MARA to establish an association of MARA scholars so that those who had benefited from them can be grouped together to form an interesting think tank.
If MARA had done this since they first started to offer scholarships and study loans to the Melayu and some Bumiputera students to pursue their tertiary education abroad, surely by now they can easily have a few hundred thousand members, all of whom are well-trained and educated in all fields.
But this has not happened.
I have written to them and also to the relevant minister, but they didn’t seem to care.
By Mansor Puteh
YES, THIS IS WHAT MANY MALAYSIANS HAVE FAILED TO ASK THEMSELVES.
THERE IS EVEN AN ASSOCIATION OF EXPATRAITES LIVING IN THE COUNTRY WHO PUBLISH THEIR OWN MAGAZINE.
BUT SADLY, THIS ASSOCIATION IS DOMINATED BY THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING OR EUROPEANS; WEREAS THERE ARE MANY NON-ENGLISH PERSONS WHO ARE WORKING IN THE COUNTRY WHO ARE NOT MEMBERS OF THE ASSOCIATION.
IF THEY ARE, THEN THIS ASSOCIATION WILL BECOME ONE WHICH IS NOT ENGLISH OR EUROPEAN-DOMINATED BY AN ASIAN ONE.
In fact, do they also not want to consider all the factory workers from Bangladesh, Nepal, Vietnam and Myanmar as ‘expatriates’ too, so they are qualified to be members of this association?
Maybe an expatriate is someone who is qualified while a foreign labor is someone who is not. But who gets to define the term anyway?
There’s talk about it lately. Some people are complaining why are there some Malaysians who had opted to work abroad, thus benefiting the foreign countries.
But the truth is that there is definitely no brain drain of politicians from Malaysia to other countries.
Because I don’t think there are countries which want to buy over politicians from Malaysia, especially those who claim to be smart and want to hang around forever.
And there’s definitely no brain drain of opposition politicians who seem to have strong support from America and also Australia. But so far none of these countries are interested to buy them over.
There can also not be any editor of newspapers in Malaysia who can be bought over by newspapers in other countries, including those in Hong Kong, India and America even because many Malaysian newspapers are fond of promoting these countries.
There is just a bit of brain drain from Malaysia to other countries, but they are mostly cooks and laborers in Chinese and Melayu restaurants in England, Australia, New Zealand and some other countries where they do not have people who can cook Chinese and Melayu food that well.
So far there is no brain drain of our politicians, opposition leaders and other NGO personalities; university vice-chancellors, professors, high ranking police offers and other military personnel.
The type of brain drain that happen only involves those who will find ways to get out of the country, because they had already created in them some contempt of it, especially if they have a professional degree or not much tertiary education and who marvel at the thought of being able to live abroad where they can earn more doing the same thing and not be bothered by local politics and other nonsensical social, cultural, linguistic and religious issues.
They accept the language of the majority there – English, or even French and other languages where they have to learn from scratch – because they know they cannot use their own mother tongue.
So they have to adapt and be fully assimilated in these countries and become poodles, without any fangs to show to anyone. No political party to be members of.
This is what all Malaysian ‘brain-drainers’ have become. Yet, not surprisingly, they are happy and contented at not being able to excel in whatever they wanted to do.
But I doubt if there are many Malaysians who is that qualified who can find employment abroad. And none or not many Malaysian Chinese who have been known to want to flee to China, Taiwan or even Hong Kong to work there.
The most that they will do is to go to Singapura which is not too far away from Malaysia. They are scared to take up permanent residency in China or citizenship.
Some Chinese and Indian-Malaysian criminals have been known to flee to China and India to hide. But they are not expatriates. And this sort of ‘brain drain’ is definitely welcome by any Malaysian but not by the law here or there.
If there is brain drain of Malaysians abroad, chances are they won’t go very far working in the foreign countries; they will be just another worker. None has been known to excel. They still long for Malaysia, but not so much with their off-springs who won’t have a clue about it until much later in their lives.
And what they are not talking is just how many foreigners who are qualified and who are working here in Malaysia.
Brain drain works both ways – we lose some, and we gain some. This should even out the equation and hence, debate on this issue is frivolous.
The real problem is why send Malaysian students abroad to study when upon their return they are not given preferential treatment and they are often told not to rest on their laurels.
Many who are in new industries are forced to create everything – to form their own companies and bid for tenders and jobs together with those who are already in the business for a long time and who had created an uneven playing field.
It’s well and good to provide Malaysian students with the best education available so all of the can score good grades and enter university and become useful to the society.
But it’s bad planning if many of them leave the country to work elsewhere, thus denying the country its much needed manpower to develop its economy.
It is even worse when those who are qualified are sidelined or even sabotaged by the government and their agencies who open their doors to those whom they know and who are not well-educated.
Just how qualified are the CEOs of the government-linked companies or GLCs? Can they survive on their own? Why must they be retained for so long? They should be allowed to leave their posts and see if they stand on their own?
Did the government know what MARA and JPA or the other scholarship and study loan agencies are doing and who they had sent abroad to prestigious universities to study?
Unfortunately even MARA and JPA are not able to trust those whom they had educated so that they can be offered important and interesting posts. They just do not know how to do it, to attract the attention of the government and Melayu leaders.
One of the ways is for MARA to establish an association of MARA scholars so that those who had benefited from them can be grouped together to form an interesting think tank.
If MARA had done this since they first started to offer scholarships and study loans to the Melayu and some Bumiputera students to pursue their tertiary education abroad, surely by now they can easily have a few hundred thousand members, all of whom are well-trained and educated in all fields.
But this has not happened.
I have written to them and also to the relevant minister, but they didn’t seem to care.
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