South Africa’s brain drain
Marion Edmunds
SKILLED foreigners should be lured to South Africa to fill the gap left by the brain drain, according to research for an influential government task team on immigration.
Social scientist Robin Cohen says official statistics have not adequately reflected the exodus of professionals with valuable skills from South Africa, and the education system is not up to the task of quickly replacing those leaving.
The answer lies in aggressively recruiting professionals such as doctors, nurses, engineers, teachers and accountants from overseas, Cohen says, and tracking down emigres and persuading them to come home.
Cohen will make his submission to the Home Affairs-appointed task team next week. He is said to have the support of several members of the task team. The team’s recommendations, due before the Cabinet by mid-year, will be included in a Green Paper which is expected to shake-up current immigration and emigration laws.
The Central Statistical Service (CSS) says that almost 8 000 people emigrated between January and September last year, with only 3307 immigrants coming in. According to the CSS, 34% of emigrants are teachers, 29% engineers, 24% accountants and 13% in the medical professions, leaving professional gaps behind them.
Cohen says the CSS statistics are way below actual figures of emigrants.
“If one combines data from training centres … from destination country immigration statistics and from data on `tourism’, it is evident that a large number of intending and potential emigrants are not tabulated,” he says.
“Even the under-recorded data show that there is a large deficit in the number of economically active people arriving compared with the number leaving. Thus, although there seems to be only a small net loss of migrants, this statistic is more serious when we consider that nearly two- thirds of immigrants are declared not to be economically active.”
Cohen also suggests building a data bank of all skilled South Africans so that their knowledge and expertise can be harnessed in development projects around the country.