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Let Us Gain and Retain the Best Brains

Article by: Zainul Arifin

Reviewed by: Muhammad Abbas Bin Abdul Razak

In the above article, the writer describes the phenomena of brain drain that is
happening in Malaysia. Through the brain drain, the country is losing many highly
qualified, professionals, academicians, researchers and scientists to developed
countries. Many foreign companies and institutions hunt for such professional
people while they are still in the universities abroad. Normally these brilliant
professional minds are allured by the advanced nations that offer lucrative jobs
with big money and sophisticated facilities for them to advance in their research.
The other form of brain drain explained by the writer is through the hiring of
Malaysians to work for foreign companies established in Malaysia. The research
and findings of Malaysian professionals will either be benefited by the foreign
companies or exported to advance countries.

In his opinion, the writer gives a good number of reasons why Malaysians emigrate
to more developed countries. Among others, the host countries offer them
handsome salary, for their personal development and progress in their field of
choice, looking for a good education for their children, unhappy with the political
system in this country, better living standards and also for climatic reason (four
seasons).

The government in its effort to prevent the phenomena of brain drain has
introduced a program called ‘brain gain’. In trying to entice the Malaysian experts
and professionals who live abroad to come back, the government allows them to
bring back cars without being taxed, grants permission for their foreign spouses to
work in the country and most importantly offers attractive salary. All these are
done by the government in the hope that these professionals, experts, technocrats
and scientists will come back and share their knowledge and learning with others
in the country for the betterment of this country.

The writer besides appreciating all efforts done by the government to bring back
the brain drains into the country, also calls on the government not to neglect the
already available talents in the country. He uses the term ‘brain retention’ to
describe the effort of the government to identify, recognize and register those who
have produced world-class findings in the area of palm oil research, agriculture and
medicine. The writer also calls for the government to cater for the needs of these
big brains and think tanks by providing facilities to do research. Furthermore he
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also suggests the government to provide grants and attractive packages equally
good as the one offered to the ‘brain drain’ group so that they cannot be lost to the
developed nations. Lastly, the writer suggests to the government to mobilize the
two groups, the ‘brain drain’ who are back in the country and the ‘brain retention’
who are in the country to contribute for the national interests.

In my opinion, this is a good and concise article describing the issue of brain drain
that is happening to the experts and professionals in Malaysia. The writer candidly
explained the push-factors and the pull-factors that cause the brain drain. He also
gave some practical solutions to overcome this problem. However the problem of
brain drain is not an issue that happens in Malaysia alone. Brain drain happens all
over the world, particularly in developing and third world countries. The developed
countries in the world look for the intelligent minds in the poor countries and buy
them to work to their interest. By doing so, this will allow the rich countries to
maintain their status quo as advanced nations of the world making the poor
countries in the world to lag behind in terms of development and progress.

I feel the article should have also dealt with the moral issue of brain drain. Raising
questions like, whether it is proper for the professionals and scientists from Islamic
and under developed countries to help a country like America and its allies in the
west in the area of nuclear physics. This sometimes could be used to produce
sophisticated weapons that can be employed to wage war and invade weak
countries. In such a case, knowledge and expertise contributed by brain drain
scholars from Muslim countries is being used for destruction rather than for a good
cause.

In my opinion, brain drain from advanced countries to poor and under developed
countries should be a positive thing to do if it is for the cause of developing and
improving the living standards of these countries and at the same time can put
them on par with the rich and advanced countries.

Certainly brain drain is not a good thing for a developing nation like Malaysia. As
the country has set a target to be a developed nation by the year 2020, this issue of
brain drain can somehow slowdown its pace towards achieving its goal. Besides
that, Malaysia as a good Muslim country should overcome this problem of brain
drain so that it can continue to share positively its expertise with other Muslim and
other third world countries.