EDITORIAL - Brain drain

It is that time of year when we reward our brightest young people for their academic performance. This year, 45 deserving stars were the recipients of Barbados Scholarships and Exhibitions. There were also six recipients of The National Development Scholarships and one of The Commonwealth Scholarship among other scholarship recipients. On occasions like this, and in the absence of natural resources, we are reminded that our country’s greatest resource is our people. In recognition of this fact, Barbados has continued to maintain and develop our education system with hundreds of millions of dollars annually. In fact, in the last budget, in excess of $485 billion was earmarked for education. So, when we hear statistics such as those cited in the Inter-American Development Bank’s quarterly report, that two thirds of our tertiary level education is finding its way out of the island, we must stand up and take notice.

This issue known as brain drain has been widely discussed over the years, and is described as the loss of the academic and technological labour force through the movement of human capital, more often than not from developing nations to developed ones. The issue of brain drain is a complex one in small economies such as ours.

There are varied pros and cons of this type of emigration, and therefore much debate on what if anything should be done about it.

One of the arguments put forward on the negative effects of the exodus of skilled labour, include the fact that it represents a loss of tax revenue to the home country. This is due to the fact that young workers are primarily the ones who make the biggest contribution to taxes while taking less from the nation’s purse. In addition, the loss of these young people represents lost entrepreneurial innovators who could potentially have contributed to the employment of others. In some cases, too, the movement of these highly skilled persons can contribute to a shortage of skilled labour and technological expertise in certain sectors of the economy.

Minister of Education Ronald Jones earlier this month reminded scholarship winners of their obligation to return home after their studies and give back to Barbados, while some years back our Prime Minister Freundel Stuart reported that as a country we no longer want what they have earned, but what they have learned!

Others argue that while it is easy to identify the ways in which our development can be adversely affected by brain drain, we should also acknowledge, and account for the positive spin offs from it. Positive impacts include inward investment, increased trade flows and significant amounts of remittances, which emigrants send back to their home country. Remittances contribute in large part to the balance of payments and GDP of the home country.

Some of our young people have pointed out that they would like to return but their options would be unemployment or underemployment, as in many cases Barbados doesn’t have available opportunities in some areas studied. While they are varying points of view on this issue, it is clear that by the sheer number of young
people leaving the country and the amount of investment put into them, that we must seek some return on this investment. Therefore, let us look at developing short, medium and long-term strategies to attract these bright minds back to their home so that we can reap the benefits of all of our investment!