We are not only losing, but wasting brain power

Nov 04, 2010 Letters

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Dear Editor,
It is a long-standing paradox that a country that experiences severe brain drain casually wastes at the same time the brain power that remains (call it the Great Guyana Brain Waste).
I again had cause to fret about this matter on reading in the Kaieteur News of 2010-10-29 a letter, titled, “One year later: UG top student jobless”, written by a justifiably-aggrieved Claudia Heywood about her daughter’s futile hunt for a job. The mother’s pained outcry in the letter, “Enough is enough!
Does one expect her to grab a tray and sell some plantain chips and mettai in front of the Office of the President with the [top graduate] medal dangling from her neck?” should be enough to shame any government into action.
For it is indeed a national disgrace that neither government nor private sector shows any real interest in recruiting the best young minds the country has to offer. Even though wizened, I am still taken by surprise when our best prospective graduates in engineering would mention that no state or private entity has approached them with a job offer. The situation, no doubt, is the same for the top graduates in the other faculties.
In passing, one cannot avoid adding that in the pre-ERP days of the PNC government, an unemployed graduate (much less a valedictorian) was inconceivable and a cause for furious ministerial intervention.
So what gives? The answer: an entrenched culture of mediocrity in government and the private sector. Guyana does not have a performance-oriented or results-driven society and economy.
And it is getting worse when conditions should be forcing us to get better. When we ought to be optimizing the use of our human resources to reduce the impact of growing external threats (such as globalization, climate change and dwindling markets) and to overcome the multitude of internal weaknesses (take your pick), we are losing, mis-using and under-using skills and talent. As a nation, we are engaged in wastage of ourselves.
Feeding and perpetuating the problem are certain conditions, notably (i) parties that believe they will be in power regardless, (ii) decades of protected or stable markets, (iii) the relative ease with which foreign aid could be obtained to keep the country afloat regardless, and (iv) a feeble competitive environment.
In such a situation, the best minds and performers carry no special value. Too many politicians, executives and managers feel there is no pressing need for such persons.
And no wonder, as most local work places engage in ordinary and routine tasks. The fact that we use computers now may have given us a false sense of progress.
But very few places exploit information and knowledge fully or creativity to increase efficiencies or deliver better services to the people. Take three questions in the case: How much data gathering and analysis do we conduct in Guyana to inform decisions and policies?
Do local organisations gather and use feedback from customers and citizens? Is creativity rewarded?
By and large, the country is comfortable in its mediocrity. When we do have to measure, we measure our performance accordingly. Measures such as productivity, efficiency, outcomes or impacts are not in vogue.
We prefer to look at straight inputs and outputs. So, for example, RDCs often inform us with much pride that they spent over 95% of their annual budget. How this expenditure has sustainably improved our lives, we are left to ponder.
An additional consideration comes into focus in looking at the employment of our graduates. All things being equal, who is more likely to be employed in today’s Guyana, an Afro-Guyanese or an Indo-Guyanese? I bring no statistics to this question, but there is the perception that Indo-Guyanese disproportionately dominate the middle to senior technical and managerial levels in the government service.
Here is the point. If they are suitably qualified for the job, so be it. Let it be. If, however, race, political affiliation or family connections gave them an unfair advantage and thereby denied other suitably qualified candidates the job, then the country has a problem. A politically-strapped and rudderless Ethnic Relations Commission has been unwilling to objectively research and pronounce on these matters.
I do not know how to advise Ms Heywood, UG’s best graduate in 2009. There is no consolation in the fact that many others have suffered and are suffering the same fate. Maybe, like hundreds of her fellow recent graduates, she ought to direct some of her applications overseas, while the country tries to determine if a change is possible. It wouldn’t be unpatriotic.
Sherwood Lowe

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