Brain gain: Not an easy mission

 The government should initiate utilising the knowledge of Nepalese diaspora by setting up a mechanism to encourage collaboration between research institutions based in Nepal with similar Nepalese institutions abroad

Brain drain is a situation when well-skilled and educated professionals leave their countries to reside and work in other countries. In the literature of migration this is known as the origin country while the latter is termed as the destination country. The terminology of ‘’brain drain’’ is also known as human capital flight and is a widely used buzz word in the literature of international migration. Developed and/or industrialized countries like USA, CANADA, UK and Australia are applying several policy instruments such as diversity visa (DV) lottery, high- skilled migration program (HSMP) to attract global talents. Developing countries, in contrast, are constantly losing their talents from decades. Brain gain is an idea of reversing the situation of brain drain. It is a thought of bringing knowledge and skills back home and utilise them for the development of origin countries.

There are several factors that positively influence the migration decision on educated and skilled manpower. These factors can mainly be divided into two strands. The first strand is known as pull factors which include a set of positive characteristics associated with destination countries such as higher paying jobs, social security, superior economic outlook, less political instability, well regarded foreign training, intellectual freedom, and rich culture and so on. These factors together optimize the expectation of professionals and/or educated persons in origin countries that they will enjoy better-quality and dignified life in developed countries, if they migrate. The second strand is the push factors which comprise negative characteristics coupled with developing or origin countries. Some of them include unemployment, political instability, discrimination in the labour market, lack of research and development opportunities, lack of freedom, poor working condition etc. Because of these two factors a problem of ‘’brain drain’’ in developing countries is believed to be perpetuated despite the fact that it has been realised as the problem of their economic development. The detail of the article is Full Article