December 2003
Brain drain: The persistent out-migration of many of the best young minds cripples societies in the developing world by removing future leaders, educators and researchers--those required to develop a modern community that includes science and technology. The effects of brain drain are exacerbated by governments' weak support for whatever talent remains in science education. In Africa, for example, faculty are so severely underpaid that most of them must take second and even third jobs to survive, and their teaching loads are heavy. These conditions make it virtually impossible to do serious research. Also, governments in Africa give almost no support for graduate students, so faculty do not have the quick hands and fresh thinking that help propel research in the United States. These overburdened faculty also lack modern equipment and ready ways to update their skills. Despite these obstacles, small scientific programs of high quality do exist, even in some of the poorest countries. Such communities could be enhanced considerably, and their successes more likely replicated, by the simple sustained presence of trained scientists, young or old, from the developed and the advanced developing countries. Article here.
