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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 foreigncompanies 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 backthe 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 poorcountries 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 goodcause.

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. Besidesthat, 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.