Brain drain

Though Pakistan is rich in diverse talent and intellect, its productive human capital is fast disappearing — well before it could contribute to national development. This is because Pakistan is inhospitable to those who are talented, skilled and professional. The country’s disregard for intellectual cream is manifested in the dearth of opportunities on merit, state-of-the-art research culture, and remunerations matching candidates’ talent, coupled with the indifference of the successive governments to creating employment opportunities so as to hold the growing academic and intellectual talent in the country. Pakistan, like many developing countries, is more apt at disowning the intelligentsia that could have otherwise made a great difference in changing the destiny of the country for the better.

Pakistan has, since its inception, failed to recognise this vital reality to contain the intellectual and talented pool. One’s reference, personal connections, and money count more than one’s ability and intellectual prowess. Recruitment to most key positions across the country, particularly in Sindh, is barely made on merit. The frequent surfacing of illicit recruitment scandals in the Sindh Public Service Commission, Punjab Public Service Commission, and Balochistan Public Service Commission speaks volumes of the lack of transparency in the recruitment process.

The ossified officialdom, red-tapism, colonial power-hunger tendencies, and the army of retired re-entering the job market obstruct the entry of new talent with an advanced knowledge base. Rising unemployment and a saturated job market is yet another factor behind young graduates moving abroad for more rewarding careers. Due to the job market volatility, most students studying at universities within the country or abroad are being absorbed in rewarding and lucrative foreign job markets. Hearts, like the mind, go where they are appreciated. Pakistan’s professional lot prefers working in a country where they get rewarded in accordance with their skills and abilities.

With an increasing number of intellectual and skilled individuals bidding adieu, Pakistan stands on the verge of losing its productive human capital. The Bureau of Emigration and Overseas Employment highlighted that over 10 million citizens have left the country for more rewarding financial and professional prospects abroad. Higher Education Commission documents suggest that over a hundred PhD scholars sent abroad did not return to the country.

With a country devoid of its qualified, trained and skilled graduates and scholars, the prospects of innovation, inventions, intellectual grooming and social mobility become bleaker as time passes by. Pakistan’s relatively dismal performance indices in the scientific, research, space exploration, engineering, IT and medical domain are because of brain drain. More worryingly, the absence of intellectual policy input and interventions of skilled professionals breeds the culture of malpractices and mismanagement because of which the country’s social fabric and psyche is increasingly getting wired in corrupt mindedness.

Unlike other countries across the world where brain drain is treated as a critical socio-economic problem with adverse implications on all aspects of life, Pakistan has never acknowledged that. It is evident from the absence of a pragmatic approach aimed at containing the phenomenon.

It’s a fact that no country can claim prosperity unless its professionally trained and skilled human capital passionately engages in the task of nation-building.

An intellectually stimulating and socially nurturing environment pays off priceless dividends in the longer run. It isn’t the lucrative salary alone that attracts the skilled workforce. A dignified social psyche and attitude is what lures the professional expatriates to return and contribute to the homeland. The absence of justice, political harmony and socio-economic stability would accelerate the phenomenon of brain drain. A skilled person is highly unlikely to return only to suffer discouraging social milieu, red-tapism, favouritism and nepotism. Reversing the accelerating loss of human capital from the country warrants radical economic and educational transformation. The government needs to step in to stop the country being deprived of its geniuses, talent, intellect and creativity.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 20^th, 2022.

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