Brain Drain

The highlight of my day today was meeting up with an old friend, Sam, whom I had been intimately acquainted with in my varsity days. As overseas graduates, we belonged to the two thirds of the Singaporean population at our university who chose to resume our lives back at home.

Having a hearty conversation about our friends who were now overseas brought to my mind the problem of severe brain drain that Singapore has been facing in the recent years. Reports have stated that the number of skilled Singapore youth’s leaving for a better life abroad has topped a whopping 1000 each year. The exodus of 4-5% of 30% of the top 30% of our population has worried our Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew deeply, who prides himself on the effort he had devoted to bringing Singapore from Third World to First. He also expressed that Singapore’s emigration rate, one of the highest in the world on a per capita basis, is one of the greatest blows to the local government.

http://www.littlespeck.com/content/people/CTrendsPeople-080224.htm

The great escape

The reasons that account for this predicament are amongst many others, the higher salary levels, lower-stress work environments, opportunities for greater exposure and distinct lack of entrepreneurship in Singapore. A desire for higher payrolls and ideal job environments seemingly resonate with the high salary and job expectations that many of our young graduates harbour in this day and age. Besides, others have cited reasons falling outside the ambit of career concerns, such as the high cost of living and rigid educational system which imposes an abnormally huge burden on their children, for seeking greener pastures abroad.

It is most perturbing to know how demanding Singaporean youths can be. We bemoan the lack of entrepreneurship without comprehending the difficulties of our country in achieving high standards of entrepreneurship due to our dearth of manpower and talent. We criticise the government for setting the bar too high for our educational standards, yet do we also not realise that these government policies the ones that created the ideal educational environment that brought us to our current economic position- a skilled workforce with one of the highest literacy levels in Asia? Surely it’s not hard for supposedly educated people to recognise the irony!

We are often so idealistic, and selfish with respect to our own preferences; such has resulted in a situation where some or most of us have adopted the ‘escape’ attitude instead of courageously facing up to challenges and hardships that confront our nation today. Our problem of brain drain is only another disappointing evidence of such a phenomenon.

Other good reads:
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/328684/1/.html
http://www.lyen.net/gpage78.html
http://www.asiaone.com/News/Education/Story/A1Story20090428-138051.html