Many people lament the brain drain in Malaysia. It’s bad, and it’s getting worse. I’ve children of my own who could be part of the drain (err, that doesn’t sound quite right).
A brain drain sucks because when brains leave, they leave behind the no-brains. Being lighter, for not having any brains, no-brains rise to the top, displacing whatever brains are left. Like cream in milk. Or maybe scum in a pond. One of those.
Efforts have been made to stop the flow of brains leaving the country. This includes enticing Malaysians who’ve left to return through the “Malaysia My Second Home But Now My First” programme.
But none of these efforts have worked out. We brought back people by the hundreds, while we still lose people by the hundreds of thousands.
Some of the brain drain is a result of unavoidable geoeconomic reality. Rich countries steal the best talent from poorer countries. Look at the number who left India for greener pastures. If only they’d remained, India would … still be where it is today. Nothing would’ve changed.
It’s not just about holding on to the brains, but also giving them the environment to thrive. Otherwise, we’re just processing them like commodities for export to rich countries, but, unlike commodities, getting nothing back in return.
America doesn’t seem to suffer from a brain drain, so it’s difficult to explain the bout of silliness there over the last few years. Maybe they suffered instead from drain brain, but your guess is as good as mine.
Malaysia had been pursuing a brilliant alternative strategy – give our young people bad education so their brain won’t have any brains! Then they’d never leave the country; unless one day they leave for Indonesia to work as housemaids or plantation workers.
You can’t really tell people that’s your actual strategy though. Somebody may lodge a police report against you. Then you’d have to lodge a counter report and hire lawyers and all that stuff. Messy.
But you can dress up your strategy by calling it the National Education Policy, NEP. Engage an expensive consulting firm to write the policy white paper, and play songs about it on RTM non-stop. A no-brainer.
OK, back to today. This is still the strategy, and is constantly being renewed and refreshed every few decades. But now I’m suggesting a new strategy that is totally original and brilliant.
The problem with brain drain is not the actual brains that go away, but the brains left behind. The Brain Ratio, popularly called the “B” number, is ideally 1.0. Now it’s at 3.7, meaning for every brain remaining in the country, 3.7 brains have left.
As an emergency measure, we could do a brain lockdown (BMCO) so no brains would ever leave its district or state or much less the country. Sure, some celebrities and politicians would violate that, but we are talking about brains, OK?
We can also vaccinate against brain drain. But we’d need to vaccinate at least 70% of the population before we reach herd mentality. And by some accounts, we may have reached herd mentality decades ago even without vaccines.
We should use the Chinese vaccine Sinowhack, which has been proven to create herd mentality in China. The religious authorities will certify it halal for Muslims. Indians can take it with whiskey, while Chinese can get it from the non-halal counters at supermarkets.
My suggestion on how to reach a “B” number of 1.0 is incredibly simple – encourage the no-brains to leave the country too! For every 3.7 brains that leave the country, we should encourage 3.7 no-brains to leave the country as well.
In reality, some fellow citizens are already working hard to achieve the “B” number of 1.0 by voluntarily leaving the country and living off their bank accounts in Singapore, Dubai or Switzerland.
But that number is relatively small. Only the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) knows the actual number. And given these are classified as the “C” people, they won’t really affect the “B” number anyway.
We must turn the process into a bilateral government-to-government arrangement and set up a GLC to manage it. We should appoint as chairman a politician who’s an expert in the New Education Policy, and who understands the “B” number well, and perhaps is on MACC’s “C” list too.
Let’s start by exporting some deputy ministers to Singapore. We have a few hundred (so I was told) whereas Singapore is really thin on deputy ministers. They can have some of ours. Or, all of ours actually.
We can even offer some full ministers to go as deputy ministers! Singapore is actually jealous that we have so many ministers while they don’t. So kiasu lah our neighbours!
We may even be able to throw in some prime ministers, current or past, too…
We can send some religious teachers to Indonesia and Bangladesh. We’ve been net importers of their religious teachers – it’s time we address that negative balance of teachers. They’re fellow Muslims and I’m sure they’d appreciate our gesture.
Indonesia will be a breeze for our exports because their language is almost identical to Malay. Bangladesh isn’t a problem either because many there already speak Malay.
We can also export religious enforcement officers to Indonesia. That country is awash with deviant Islamic teachings. They’re letting non-Muslims there wantonly breach Islamic copyrights on such words as Allah and Tuhan. This must stop.
We’ve many “B” experts (who are also on the “C” list) who’ve built global expertise using bilateral country relationships, Swiss bank accounts and bags of cash. They just need to be incentivised to focus on this new national priority.
And these people, instead of being based in Malaysia, can base themselves overseas, further helping to reverse the brain drain and lower the “B” number (and “C” number too) further.
In the worst case, if the target countries are recalcitrant, we can even put our “B” exports in boats and smuggle them through the borders at night. We have lots of expertise in that. Lots of boats too.
A win-win for Malaysia, no? Malaysia shouldn’t have a choice of only either brains or drains.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of FMT.
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