Brain Drain and Brain Gain

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According to Wikipedia, Brain drain is defined as a large emigration of individuals with technical skills or knowledge, normally due to conflict, lack of opportunity, political instability, or health risks. This is also called as human capital flight. There are inevitable advantages and disadvantages for the countries. Firstly, let us look at the disadvantages; the host country of emigrant loses economic benefits because he/ she are not contributing to the economic developments of the country though he/she studied at the cost of the tax payer money. On the other hand, the country which receives these expertise at free of cost is gaining brain. Most of the time, these brain are incredibly talented and contribute a lot to the economic success of the country. For example even American congress passed a bill to praise IITians for their tremendously contributions to the American economy.

This topic of brain drain was most discussed in India till India opened its closed doors to the foreign competition and started liberalizing its socialist era policies. But in recent times, Brain drain is never a hot topic to debated or discussed in the public domain. There are several reasons and now much hyped word is “Brain Gain”. We will look into Brain Gain later in this entry. Now let us analyze what caused the brain drain from some of our prestigious institutions especially IITs and IIMs. Undeniably these institutions are one of the elite institutions in the world and they produce best candidates for real world challenges. But our socialist era policies were not supportive enough to create economic or job opportunities here in India. Hence, they chose to travel abroad for better financial opportunities at the cost of our money. Most of us will know that IITs and IIMs education is heavily subsidized by the tax payer money. To quote a few facts “The UNDP estimates that India loses $2 billion a year because of the emigration of computer experts to the United States of America. Indian students going abroad for their higher studies cost India a foreign exchange outflow of $10 billion annually”.

How do we solve this problem in a simplest and logical manner especially the emigration from our centrally funded universities? There are workable strategies implemented in many countries to avoid emigration of best brain that were studied at the cost of their tax payers’. For example, we need to devise a bond at least two to three years for students who studies at the subsidized fee have to work mandatorily here in India. Students not paying subsidized fee should be exempted from the bond. In this way, it helps to tap their talent in India and reduces the brain drain by considerable amount. This is not coercive imposition on students because students are given choice to either choose subsidized fee or full fee. This will also help finance our strained and obsolete infrastructure. In the current scenario most of the IIT or IIM students must have gone for some form coaching classes. As we all knew coaching class charge a whopping amount of at least a lakh per annum. Only an upper middle or middle class can pay such a humungous amount of money. So it may not be wrong to ask these kids to pay their real fee and do whatever they wish to do after graduation.

Recent surveys and placements results from IIMs and IITs are conspicuous that now majority of students more than 95% want to work in India. This paradigm shift has to be attributed to the increasing opportunity in India and also dwindling financial opportunities abroad. Liberation of India from “Black capitalism” to real capitalism faithfully encouraged Indian elite to stay and contribute to rapidly burgeoning economy. Ironically, there is also perceived reverse emigration of brain from western countries which previously attracted best brain from developing countries. The word “Bangalored” was publicized very heavily in western media. India’s IT hubs and manufacturing hubs are attracting NRIs as well as foreigners to set up companies here in India. Interestingly more and more people are shifting their family to India for personal and cultural reasons. So, globalization has leads to reverse brain drain or brain gain to India and other developing countries. It is estimated that 90% of the world’s scientist and engineers will be living in Asia by 2010. That year is not too far, so let us wait and watch. May be recession is having an effect on brain gain as well as drain.

Lastly, even our prime minister of India, Manmohan Singh asked Indian students to travel and study abroad to bring unique skills back to India or build Indian brand overseas. Students who wish to explore and upgrade themselves may go overseas to learn vital skills bring it back to India if they wish. This actually makes sense because we do need Indians living abroad to convince their company to set up shops in India or start their own company in India. Though this may be categorized as brain drain but still India is gaining in long term economically and culturally.