Another Brain Drain Story

From: Brain drain: The story behind the dwindling Chinese in Malaysia

Excerpt:

Migration has always been a part of our history, especially in a country like Malaysia, where most of our forefathers were migrants looking for a promised land. They worked their fingers to the bone making their fortunes far away from their places of birth, often with little help and lots of hardship.

There is also the rural-urban migration, where the main pull factor is the seeking of better education and better job opportunities compared to those available in the rural sectors. But the worse kind of migration is what is happening in developed countries today - the migration of fully qualified, hard working professionals to other countries, not because they cannot find jobs, but because they are unhappy with the political system practised by the state.

A brain drain is one of the worst things that can happen to a country; that is the reason why states like Singapore are doing their best to retain not only their own people, but foreigners who study in their local institutions of higher learning. These new graduates are dangled not only with scholarships and a stable career after graduation, but also offered the security of a citizenship.

And it was Malaysia who gave these bright sparks 11 years of free education; Singapore merely complemented it with a few years of university and then got to keep them. Now, who are the biggest losers? Who are the real dummies?