Clinton Urling ‘out of touch’ with ‘brain gain’ concept

Apr 16, 2009 Letters

Dear Editor,
In response to Mr. Clinton Urling’s letter of April 12, 2009 in the Kaieteur News titled “Ms. Lowden’s conclusions are perplexing and illogical”, I wish to say that his ‘bedazzlement’ is disappointing.
Ignoring all Mr. Urling’s personalised statements, I want to move on.
We are all aware that for years professionals and academics leave developing countries in search of a better quality of life in countries of the north.

In the early 1990s, India, China and the Russian Federation saw the migration of some 900,000 skilled professionals to the United States. Governments in developing countries, especially Guyana, made a lot of effort to use scarce resources to subsidize education and provide specialised training for workers who take all the economic and social benefits with them when they migrate. I would think that we should take the responsibility of giving back to nation building.

Migration offers countries accumulated skills and experiences, knowledge, and technology transfer of which we are capable of spreading. I am glad that Mr. Urling agrees that the government should continue to invest in its people.
Mr. Urling rambles on about critically assessing ‘brain drain’ but still brings no real substance to the table. Instead, he babbles about ‘challenging me’ to develop a methodology and quantify the effects of my ‘hypotheses’ on Guyana.

I want to reiterate that Mr. Urling’s reproaches of my use of the concepts ‘brain gain’ and ‘brain circulation’, and how we can put into practice what these two concepts mean, prove that he is obviously not open to new ideas and refuses to at least understand the denotation of the concepts.
He remains to be unwelcoming to new ideas.
Mr. Urling failed to ‘disprove’ my hypotheses. He failed to mention the many hindrances that his sources contend about, which block brain circulation.

He laments about talking strategies about retention and attraction of those who are thinking of leaving and those who have already left, but that is about as good as it gets on his part.
At least I have made my proposal. What proposal did he make?
Again I say if I want to leave Guyana tomorrow and never return, I want to know how Mr. Urling will persuade me otherwise. I have already persuaded myself to remain here. Once again, I toss the ball in his court.
A lot of overseas-based Guyanese are contributing to nation building and making small investments and this is because of the reasons propounded by Balasubramanyam and Wei of the University of Lancaster, namely that the rate of return per unit of investment is greater than that for the traditional foreign direct investment.

I want to say that the investments by these overseas-based Guyanese, whether they are living in Guyana, or residing overseas, are not only monetary, but also cultural.
Again, I invite Mr. Urling to read the Newsletter of UNESCO’s Education Sector on the topic ‘From Brain Drain to Brain Gain’ for more information.
There are other references in the literature on ‘brain gain’ and ‘brain circulation’ to which this letter writer needs to peruse for educational purposes.
In closing, I wish to say that brain gain is a component of Guyana’s National Competitiveness Strategy.
Marissa Lowden

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Clinton Urling ‘out of touch’ with ‘brain gain’ concept

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