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RETAINING OUR SKILLED GUYANESE AND OUR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Jan 26, 2012 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
It was refreshing to learn that the government of Guyana is contemplating allowing scholarship students to be contracted outside of the public sector as part of the fulfillment of their scholarship contracts.
For decades now, there was a proviso incorporated into the contracts of scholarship awardees which required that upon completion of their studies, they would serve the government for a specified period of time.
One of the problems with this arrangement is that the skills of most of these scholarships were under-utilized. The public sector did not always have full use for some of the workers and also many managers were not willing to cede authority and position to these scholarship awardees since they saw them as being only there to fulfill their contractual obligations before moving on to greener pastures.
And because many of the awardees were finding that their skills were being underutilized, because there were not suitable placements for them within the government sector, these graduates soon became frustrated and de-motivated and were willing to migrate as soon as their service was over.
It was not always a case of the money. It was a case whereby many of these graduates saw no future being placed in an office in some government building with little or nothing to do. After a while, boredom sets in and the graduates were only too eager to see their time in these departments come to an end.
All of this may soon come to an end if the new Minister of Labour has his way. He has indicated that the government is considering allowing scholarship awardees to be able to do their contractual service outside of the public sector. That is, that some of them can be placed in the private sector.
This is good news because the country as a whole will benefit. The scholarship students will enjoy greater upward mobility in the private sector than in government departments and they will be able to fully utilize their skills and thus gain valuable experience which will allow them to further their careers.
We should think not just of the government benefiting but how the country as a whole should benefit. But there is one sticking point which needs to be studied carefully.
This proposed scheme to allow the returning students to serve in the private sector should be carefully monitored so that the private sector does not enjoy a free ride. There has to be caution in how this plan is executed because some private sector firms would enjoy the best of skills while the state sector which may be in need of such skills will suffer.
Thus, awardees should only be placed in the private sector if their services are not required in the public sector. Otherwise the state sector will end up providing free training for potential private sector recruits.
Many years ago, this column warned against research partnerships between state-research bodies such as the Institute of Applied Science and Technology (IAST) and private companies. This model was defended as existing elsewhere in the world.
Well there are strong institutional safeguards elsewhere in the world which may not exist in Guyana and the danger in the IAST conducting research for private companies is that ultimately state resources are being used to boost the private sector.
If some invention is made in Guyana, if some product is developed then the least the taxpayers of Guyana would expect is for some patent or copyright protection to be vested in the name of the people of Guyana. But when research is being conducted for the benefit of private firms, such copyrights and patents cannot be registered in the name of the people of Guyana but would have to go to those private entities in partnership with whom the government has undertaken specific research.
Those models need to be scrapped and scrapped quickly. Private sector firms should be undertaking their own research and development. The government should not be contributing to this aspect of the wok because the government is not going to benefit in the long-term. And who says Guyana will benefit.
Most of the profits from new inventions usually find their way into foreign countries. The private sector should benefit from the returning students who cannot be gainfully utilized within the public sector, but when it comes to research and development, any product or invention should be patented to the people of Guyana and all forms of partnership with the private sector should cease forthwith.
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