Brain Drain in Malaysia

Wow. What can I said. This issue actually never occurs to me. Or it did, but I don’t know what people call it. This is one of the workshops that I attend during Tomorrows Leader Summit 2011. The workshop was facilitate by Mr Rau a/l Muniandy. He is someone from MOSTI (Malaysia’s Ministry of Science and Technology), just worked there. Honestly, I don’t really want to be in that particular room. I expect it would be something else, but we discuss something that is serious and hopelessly bland, and I was forced to think like the government during this session. And believe me, I don’t really want to think like a government. Somehow, this issue did create this critical mind in me. I was drawn to blog about it. 

The topic starts just like how many other topics start. However, things get heated when we were asked to consider why this phenomenon happens in our country. Most of us in the room did not really into the discussion, but there was this two young women, debate over the rational of the young minds migrated to somewhere else. 

Oh yeah, before I go further, let us understand first what is Brain Drain. Brain drain happens when skilled or professional or talented citizen decided to migrate to other country or place for some particular reason. They may go back to their first country, or may not. Nearest examples: there are many talented Malaysian, especially the Chinese, migrated to Singapore. The reasons can be:

1.       Personal. Or simply means that they want to live somewhere else.

2.       They don’t feel like they belong to the country, or frustrated that the original country is not up to their pace. Or maybe they don’t feel they have the opportunities in the original country, and want to try their luck outside. This may due to political reason.

3.       Political stability is one of the causes. Imagine in a place where war constantly happen. We can’t even sleep at night.

4.       Safety reason. Throughout the history, many people move from one place to the other because of the natural disaster that might occur without warning. These people wanted to protect their family to a place where natural disaster is not a problem.

5.       Getting some experience maybe? From other country before they come back.

6.       High income and high currency value (perhaps) in a particular country. This has been the main debate as of why Malaysian student who study outside country did not want to come back to Malaysia. Some people claim that they just want more money.

I am very sure that the list goes on and on. There are so many valid reasons out there. But today, I want to discuss more about the students that was sent and sponsored by the government that refuse to come back to serve in Malaysia. There is a lot of talented Malaysian working at another side of the world until it is crucial for the government to make plans and incentive to get people back to Malaysia. I found this article from a blog that I follow. It somehow relevant to my discussion. 

http://www.loyarburok.com/human-rights/why-you-can-i-cannot/why-malaysia/

Back to the two debating young women. Let’s just call them A and B. Both have friends study oversea. They see things differently. I think one of these two young women was studying oversea before, but she came back. I think it was A.

So, A’s argument. She has many friends study oversea, including her. She came back, her friends don’t. She stressed that even though her friends are not yet home, they still love Malaysia and defend that they are the most patriotic or so when talk about Malaysia.

This B girl, does not agree. She said that loving the country is not as same as being patriotic. Personally, I think she does not know what she said. It’s not that I support A’s opinion, but she has to look up what is the difference between being patriotic and being nationalistic. Patriotism and nationalism is two different things. I did not tell her this. Maybe she knows. B thinks, that her friends that does not want to go back to serve Malaysia is selfish, thinks about their own, their backs and their families without consider that the country need their expertise. Then, she continued her statement that, those people would not want to go back to Malaysia because when they return here, they expected their income will be higher than anybody else, because they think they deserve it and they have the experience. If Malaysia did not provide better life for these people, they would not want to come back. Hurm, I remember during the forum, we are labeled as incentive-generation. We need incentive to move forward. What an ungrateful generation, is it not?

Before time was wasted more, they were stopped by the moderator (Cyril Dason) and Mr Rau himself. I wonder if that is the right thing to do. I mean, it is right, but somehow, they way that someone did it (not both of them, just one of them), does not really want to hear us. We just leave that aside. 

I did not write this article to give a conclusion, I would rather you make the conclusion yourself. There is not much agreement to this matter during this session as we were stopped as time is so jealous of us. Think what you want to think, and never restrain yourself.

We move on to brainstorming on how to bring back the youth to serve their own country. Mr Rau did share good things, as in what to consider before making a big plan. The process was called the LOGIC MODEL.  It consists of step-by-step method on doing the best thing based on resources that we have in hand, and explaining the 4W1H.

1.       Input

2.       Objective

3.       Rational

4.       Goal

5.       Activity

6.       Output

7.       Outcome; Short-term (effect on mindset, feeling) , Midterm, Long-term

These steps also relevant when making a major decision in life. I am quite tired, so I guess this is for the night. Hope this scribble does get attention of somebody. It may not be much detail, or maybe a bit boring or not interesting. But I am learning :). 

Goodnight.

meet Cyril Dason(left), of Sarawak Blogger, and Mr Rau, of MOSTI