The human development dilemma

Feb 06, 2010 Editorial

The fact that 80 per cent of our skilled people are migrating certainly paints a gloomy picture for the future. It means that this country is getting less for its investment in human development; training people is a very costly exercise.
An example of the skyrocketing costs of educating our youth is the recent investment of US$13,000 worth of state-of-the-art electronic equipment by the Guyana Telephone and Telegraph Company in the Government Technical Institute. One wonders how many of those that are benefiting from the telephone company’s benevolence will be around in another ten years.
Indeed, for as long as we could remember we have been producing our own teachers, nurses, skilled artisans and the like. Such was our training regimen that all those who graduated were good enough to work in any part of the world. There was a time when the cost of living was such that we were content to stay and serve. But there was always the lure of life overseas. That lure now has so many of us leaving that we cannot train people fast enough and even those we train are never good enough because their foundation was rather weak. Things had even reached the stage where we were forced to lower the entrance qualifications to our top learning institutions.
What makes it worse is that all those who leave seem to have very good reasons. People can now say that they left because of the crime. In the past they said that they were running from a dictatorship. Some even left because, as they said, they were the victims of discrimination.
What we do not hear a lot of is the migration of people because they are dissatisfied with the pay. This was the talk for most of the time as recruiters came from every part of the world to solicit skilled people from Guyana.
Our decision-makers are wise enough to realise that they cannot stop the outward flow of the skilled people. They also say that they cannot match the financial rewards offered elsewhere. But there must be something that we could do.
It is a given fact that we do not have the money to recruit foreign skills to replace those that we have lost.
Countries like Botswana have been able to secure foreign funding to help them replace the lost skills and the people from that country did not migrate in the numbers like we have been doing. They died of AIDS.
It has been recognised that foreign aid cannot develop a country, but foreign investment would. Foreign investment would also help reduce the brain drain but there must be something that the government must do. It must allow the foreign investor to pay the kind of wages that the investor feels is real.
The government often dictated to the investor the kind of money that he/she should pay to avoid a conflict within the society. What is considered a fair pay in most societies would be seen as super salaries in Guyana, given the low value of our currency. But even before the investor comes a lot has to happen in Guyana. One of the things is political stability. By no stretch of imagination can we say that we have a stable political climate in Guyana. Every time it seems as though something is going to happen to make the climate stable someone or some event serves to widen the rift between the parties. More recently, the various parties have been accusing each other of seeking to infiltrate non-government organisations, church groups and the like.
The protesting miners, though, were at pains to ensure that there could be no accusation of political infiltration. Supporters of the various political parties and who are miners made it known that they needed no political support.
The government, however, feels that there is some hidden group influencing the miners’ actions.
Whatever the case, the charge has been made and one can expect a prolonged bout of hostility, especially between the two main parties. This will do no good for political stability and certainly no foreign investor is going to come. Without these foreign investors the economy is going to slide further downhill and our skilled persons would continue to leave at the high rate currently assessed by the research agency. What is most worrying is that no one seems to be doing anything to effect a change in our condition.

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