The cynical logic of brain drain

The lopsided system set a cap on the supply of skilled labour and professionals. That is to make sure a few would ride the gravy train at the expense of the vast majority of deserving youth

‘Brain drain’ has now become a political football, though none of the players in the blame game seems to offer solutions. Instead, the whole discourse has become a freakshow where the top ten percentile of pay earners flaunt a feudal-like entitlement -- and complain about having to pay a modest PAYE Tax as driving them out of the country.
(Never mind, poverty has doubled over the last two years, and 85% of Grade 3 students have not achieved the minimum standard of literacy and mathematics.) 
The whole affair is a display of pettiness. Not only does it provide a slanted view of the situation, it misses out on the key details if the country is to lift from its current predicament.

Brain drain for real? 

First, consider what is being bandied about. It is said that Sri Lankans are fleeing in droves to escape the economic crisis.
Last year, 311,269 people left for foreign employment. Based on the departures during the first quarter of this year, which is 25,999 monthly, if the trend continues, a similar number as the previous year would be heading for foreign employment.
This is a substantial increase from 2021 (122,264) or 2020 (53,711), two years when the Covid pandemic constrained foreign travel. Whereas, in 2019, immediately before the outset of COVID-19, 203,000 Sri Lankans went for foreign employment, a similar number in 2018 and 2017.

The highest number of Sri Lankans departed for foreign jobs was in 2014 ( 300,703), according to the data of the Foreign Employment Bureau. After peaking in 2014, the number of departures for foreign employment declined by one-third until 2019, followed by two years of pandemic-infused travel restrictions.
The last year’s spike in foreign departures, as much due to domestic economic conditions, is also due to clearing the backlog of the two years of confinement. If the current trend continues, a similar number as the previous year would go this year, which would then be followed by a decline in the coming years, similar to the gradual decline recorded since the peak of 2014. That, however, depends on the recovery of the local economy.

Are professionals fleeing? 

The second argument is about a brain drain of the professional classes. The statistics do not suggest a major upswing, though. In 2019, professionals accounted for 4.85% and the middle level 2.82% of the total departures.
In 2018, professionals were 4.27% and the middle level, 3.09%. Last year, the professionals accounted for 4.6% and middle level 2.6% of the total number of departures, according to the Sri Lanka Bureau of Foreign Employment.

These numbers refer to the Sri Lankans who go for foreign employment. Therefore, those who migrate for permanent residency in the greener pastures may be missing, but that number is unlikely to hit through the roof. 
PR Visas are a consuming and exhausting process, and employers in greener pastures are not waiting with open arms to welcome developing world professionals, not to mention the unwritten hierarchy of job applicants when you get there, probably unless you go from an Indian IIT to Silicon Valley.

The change in the departure of professionals or middle-level employees is statically insignificant, but many quarters complain about a crippling exodus. If this is just a self-interested slogan to set scores against the PAYE tax, that is alright. But, if this is even remotely true, that betrays a far more troubling shortfall of Sri Lanka’s skilled workers.
It is not hard to find the origin of the problem: the lopsided resource allocation in the professional and higher education and state monopoly that had stifled private investment.
Medical doctors belong to this category. As much as it takes decades to produce a specialist, doctors’ unions and student activists have done their share to enforce a cap on the number of doctors produced in the country, forcing the government to shut down private medical universities.

Majority unskilled 

Third, is this a brain drain? Look closer at the composition of Sri Lanka’s expatriate workforce. Sixty per cent of Sri Lankan workers are housemaids and low-skilled. That number has remained constant since 2017. This is not a brain drain. This is how Sri Lanka releases its demographic pressure. This is a tragic twist of a political and economic system that has invested so much in free education and public welfare.
The fundamental problem in the Sri Lankan workforce is not brain drain but its (low) quality. Low-skilled foreign jobs have been a safety valve to release demographic pressure since the early 80s. That logic could be understood then when the country was seeing a demographic budge thanks to uncontrolled population growth in the 60s and 70s. However, Sri Lanka now produces barely enough for replacement level, yet it has failed to provide opportunities for its children. The low educational and professional achievement of its children and its prohibitionist trade and investment laws have held back the country.

Fix it

For a government with genuine conviction, addressing this sinister status quo is not hard. Public funds squandered on the Lotus Tower or the Mattala Airport in the jungle, if invested in vocational training of migrant workers, would have gone a long way to address the skill deficiency.
However, the crooked status quo continues, cannibalizing the country’s youth, especially the children of the most vulnerable income groups.
Sri Lanka’s resource allocation policy across different sections of its youth is lopsided and bordering criminal. Until very recently, its exams were designed to drop more than one-half of the cohort at the ordinary GCE level, who were then left to their own devices.

The high fail rates were now fixed, but those who were let down by the system had little opportunity and were condemned to a life of menial existence.
They account for the bulk of the unskilled labour force that Sri Lanka exports yearly. Add to this group also about 28 per cent of all students who sit for Advanced levels but fail to qualify for university. They hardly have opportunities for skill development.
An aspiring nation would have provided vocational training and apprentice opportunities and set up technical colleges for this cohort of the country’s youth. A country cannot succeed when half its youth are shackled. 

The second group includes most students who qualify for university but cannot attend a public (State) university. Last year, 62 per cent (171,000) of all students who sat for the GCE advanced level qualified for university admission, but at best, only 40,000 will attend a public university. The vast majority of others are deprived of their opportunity for higher education given the near state monopoly of higher education, which is exercised to discourage private investment in higher education.
Effectively, rather than fostering opportunities for all, the system has become one that stifles opportunities.
 A forward-looking government should encourage public-private investment in education, provide incentives to set up private universities and grant students with tuition fee loans to pursue education.

Some folks called Sri Lanka’s lopsided system a free education. That is baloney. That is the state monopoly of education. The State should provide education as a public good. However, it should not prevent other private actors from delivering the same service, which creates opportunities and increases competition.
Back to the brain drain. The lopsided system set a cap on the supply of skilled labour and professionals. That is to make sure a few would ride the gravy train at the expense of the vast majority of deserving youth.
Those who benefitted from the system now threaten to leave the country if forced to pay a nominal income tax. For someone who was helped by the same education system at the generosity of public funds but had long-held reservations about the moral and economic logic of the system, I cannot help but feel vindicated. 

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