A blind future

Malaysia trails Singapore in attracting brains
By Yow Hong Chieh
November 11, 2010

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 11 — Singapore has trumped Malaysia in the brain gain stakes, according to a recent Gallup poll which saw the island-state beat some 150 countries to come out as the most favoured destination in the world for educated migrants.

Bucking the trend in developed Asia, Singapore stands to more than triple its population from brain gain alone if it opens its borders to all educated migrants who wish to reside there.

The republic easily outshone Southeast Asian neighbours Malaysia, which is nearly 30 times less attractive to educated migrants, and Thailand, which those same migrants only find marginally attractive.

Singapore also topped the survey as the number one destination for young migrants, and could potentially boost its population by more than five times if this category of migrants were allowed in.

Gallup researchers interviewed nearly 350,000 adults, aged 15 and older, in 148 countries between 2007 and early this year to calculate each country’s Potential Net Brain Gain Index and Potential Net Youth Migration Index.

Both scores represent the estimated number of adults who wish to permanently leave a country subtracted from the estimated number who wish to immigrate there, as a proportion of the total adult population.

Educated adults were defined as those with four or more years of education after high school or the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree or higher, while young adults were defined as those in the 15- to 29-year-old bracket.

Within the 10-member Asean region, Singapore thrashed rivals with a potential brain gain score of 317 per cent compared to Malaysia’s 11 per cent and Thailand (3 per cent) and Laos (-11 per cent). The Philippines stood to lose the most through brain drain, with just over a third of its educated population wanting to leave (-36 per cent).

There were no brain gain numbers for Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia, while Myanmar and Brunei were not included in the survey.

Singapore also stood to gain the greatest population increase from potential youth migrants with a score of 537 per cent, followed by Malaysia (34 per cent), Thailand (-4 per cent), Indonesia (-7 per cent), Laos (-15 per cent), the Philippines (-28 per cent) and Cambodia (-39 per cent).

Other developed Asian countries like Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan posted negative brain gain scores, although Japan remained attractive to young migrants with a potential youth migration of 23 per cent.

Asian powerhouses China and India, too, both looked to lose 18 per cent of their more than one billion population each through brain drain, with China standing to lose slightly more of its youth at -10 per cent compared to India’s -9 per cent.

The poll found that developed regions were more likely to attract young rather than educated migrants, with only developed Asia seeing any significant brain drain.

“The United States and Canada — two of the top desired destination countries in the world for potential migrants — are poised to experience higher youth gains than education gains,” the organisation said.

Canada outshone its southern neighbour, posting an impressive potential net brain gain score of 144 per cent compared to 12 per cent for the US. However, both countries appeared to be much more attractive to the young, with Canada racking up a 301 per cent in the youth migration score and the US, 152 per cent.

Europe on the whole registered 121 per cent potential net youth migration and 25 per cent net brain gain, with the UK leading the youth gain pack (235 per cent), followed by Sweden (181 per cent), France (168 per cent) and Ireland (128 per cent).

Within the region, however, Spain was the most attractive to educated migrants (106 per cent), then Denmark (65 per cent) , Sweden (64 per cent) and Austria (61 per cent). The UK only managed to score 13 per cent in this category.

Advanced economies like Australia would similarly see more youth gains (276 per cent) than education gains (187 per cent). New Zealand posted comparable numbers of 235 per cent potential net youth migration to 178 per cent potential net brain gain.

Coming in dead last for the competition for brains was the Dominican Republic, with almost 42 per cent of the population saying it will leave if it could, closely followed by Nicaragua (-41 per cent), Moldova (-39 per cent) and Iran (-36 per cent).
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There have been talks about bringing back our educated brains home. But the Government is not doing any concrete work beside forming committee and giving them big spending money to jolly round the world.

The first and major task should be to get rid of the uneducated illegal and legal migrants which stand at 2.3 million at the latest count. A country cannot give benefit and privileges to both uneducated and educated migrants. To do so is simply impossible and has never been done in any country. The uneducated migrants have long brought in uncivilized and culture that have resulted in us losing our jobs, insecurity in living and unhygienic surrounding and manner of respect. The easy access to owning M-kad due to double standard, greed and selfishness of the authorities is another factor.

Mahathir had admitted in the past that by giving easy access of M-kad to uneducated Indonesian is a way out for Malaysia to dilute the population of the Chinese, Indians and others so that UMNO can and will continue to rule and control this country. So too to members of UMNO who are not willing to relinquish their heavenly seats to the young and educated Malaysians. So on the one hand Najib is giving billions to bring the brains back but the heavenly kings are not willing to let go and insists on having the uneducated migrants, the result is easy to predict as another charade comes and goes, our money down the drain. Our best brain remain in foreign country.