Bangladesh faces a shortage of trained manpower, especially in critical areas like healthcare and engineering and higher education. At the same time, every year, a large number of trained personnel emigrate for higher education and jobs. Experts are of the opinion that developed countries like Australia, Canada, USA and UK are taking away our meritorious students, offering them opportunities for higher education with attractive job packages.
Surely, such a crisis indicates the need for transforming Bangladesh into a country where young, creative people will want to stay and try to make something of their lives. Even if local salaries are much lower, local costs are also somewhat lower too; many professionals might choose to stay in their homeland if some basic conditions are improved.
Those who go abroad topursue higher education,
should be motivated to come back and serve their own country
Hence, it is good news that the government is giving highest priority to preventing brain-drain by inviting talented graduates to join public services and contribute in the ongoing mega development programmes of the country. To achieve the goals the government has taken many initiatives, including substantially raising salaries, offering low interest bank loans, drastically improving housing for officers and other lucrative facilities to encourage talented graduates to apply for jobs at home.
As a democratic country Bangladesh cannot forbid its citizens to leave.
It can, however, put in place systems that would make it possible for the country to benefit from the investment made in the young through subsidised education, particularly technical and medical.
In this regard, adopting Australia’s deferred tuition plan would be pertinent. Under this system, all tertiary education is subsidised by the government, with students paying only a portion of the cost as fees. Graduates who go on to work in sectors deemed as priority by the government are not required to pay any additional amounts, but those who migrate or move to non-priority sector have to pay the subsidised amount over a set number of years.
This ensures that higher education remains affordable and that government’s education subsidy is not misused. For developing countries like Bangladesh, the loss of human capital is a serious issue. Those who go abroad to pursue higher education, should be motivated to come back and serve their own country. Implementing more creative policy can be the way to stem the migration of trained manpower.
