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Jul 24, 2016 Letters
Dear Editor,
The statement from Minister of Education, Dr. Rupert Roopnarine that 93% of all persons leaving Guyana have obtained tertiary education. He made the comment from the 2016 report by the World Bank on Migration and Remittances.
This to my mind is very disturbing news and the Minister considers the situation “a national tragedy and a painful fact the country has to deal with”. He lamented the fact that persons who have been educated locally proceeded to leave after graduating.
He gave a few reasons why persons departed from the shores including remuneration, better working conditions and facilities and also referred to other factors including health reasons and to join family members overseas.
He, however, failed to mention favouritism, jobs for party supporters and friends, regardless which government is in power. This was the trend in the Burnham administration, and when the PPPC took over the government it was not better maybe it was worse.
If the government wants to curb the mass migration by intellectuals they have to make some drastic changes and this is not likely, maybe impossible because party stalwarts will stand up for their supporters and friends although they might not be the right person for the job.
On the other hand, the country cannot offer too many incentives because of its limited resources. British Guiana/Guyana started to bleed by migration – most of them the intelligent ones- before independence in 1966 and during the Burnham era there was mass exit not by only the qualified ones but in all sectors, and this trend continues and maybe worsened when the PPPC took over the government in 1992.
I must say at this juncture that while Guyana is suffering from the brain drain, other countries are benefiting significantly.
Moreover scores if not hundreds of Guyanese have excelled in many fields in education, medicine, computer, law, commerce and trade, and many other areas of science and arts.
Some of them have made us proud and on many occasions comments were made that if they had remained at home they would not have been given the opportunity to grow to such impressive extent.
I should point out also that the standard of living of most of the Guyanese in the diaspora is very high – a level which they could not have reached in the country of their birth.
Some of them — unfortunately only a few – are making significant and reasonable contributions at organizations, schools, churches at home. One name stands out – Dr. Tulsi Singh, of Palmyra, who has been assisting his alma mater – Berbice High School for the past thirty years on a regular basis. He has also been promoting cricket.
Be that as it may – the government should try to work out a strategy whereby they can encourage their qualified professionals, teachers, nurses, tradesmen, farmers, etc to remain at home.
This is not an easy task, but steps must be taken to prevent the haemorrhage because if the trend continues the Co-operative Republic will be grossly handicapped. This is such an important issue the government should seek the assistance of the opposition, religious, social and cultural organizations.
Oscar Ramjeet
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“Be that as it may – the government should try to work out a strategy whereby they can encourage their qualified professionals, teachers, nurses, tradesmen, farmers,
etc to remain at home”
Faint hope and pure verbiage.
Migration is purely personal and you cannot legislate or argue against that. Bear in mind all and sundry migrate and all are based on personal choices.
Some countries insist on a certain level of education and skill. Absolutely nothing odd about that process. Any subsequent analysis would of course show that it was the educated that made up the majority who migrated. To deem this a ‘brain drain’ is really stretching personal choice as a causative factor of the so-called ‘brain drain’.
As much as elementary education is free, that does not seem to reflect itself in the population, probably because it is not at a sufficiently high level. Ignorance and proper speech still seem to be the prevailing mode, compounded by idiotic behaviours.
The educated will strive to migrate in such existentials.