Brain Drain 'damaging' African Higher Education

The migration of academics from Africa to universities in Europe and the US is having a damaging effect on the continent’s higher education, lecturers warned this week.

About 30% of Africa’s university-trained professionals and up to 50,000 Africans with PhDs now live and work outside the continent. The problem is particularly acute in sub-Saharan Africa.

The Association of University Teachers(AUT) and the lecturers’ union Natfhe are now looking at how developing countries can be better compensated for their loss. Ideas include reciprocal migration, better links between universities in industrialized countries and those in developing nations and improving the infrastructure in the countries faced with losing its workers.

The issue is to be discussed at a conference next week, organized by the two unions.

In a leaflet promoting the conference, Brain drain in a globalized world, the unions write: "Our sister unions in Africa have voiced serious concerns about the impact of brain drain on the capacity of higher education to meet local needs."

It also says that Education International, the global body representing education unions, is "urging" affiliate members to become aware of the new brain drain.

The conference follows a report commissioned by the AUT and Natfhe last year, which looked at the issue of the global brain drain.

Researched by Alex Nunn, from Leeds Metropolitan University, the report recommended that greater discussion was needed on the issue of compensation. It also called for better promotion of the benefits for academics if they return to Africa after working abroad, and said the UK and foreign governments should be lobbied about improving access to, and the quality of, education and reducing poverty in the developing world.

The unions warn that as African countries achieve universal primary education, one of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals, there will be growing demand for secondary and higher education.

"[The] brain drain makes it increasingly difficult to develop an adequate tertiary education sector," say the unions.

Paul Bennett, national official at Natfhe, said: "The UK hosts many of the most talented academics from around the world, including some from poor countries in Africa. They are entitled to come, are very welcome and our universities benefit hugely from them - but this is an unequal relationship, which can sometimes damage the countries from which they come. We want the government to compensate those exporter countries and help them to build up their own higher education systems."

Brian Everett, the assistant general secretary of the AUT, said the loss of just a few of a country’s best lecturers and researchers could mean it loses a "large chunk" of its academic base.

"As migration rules and patterns change, we want the academic world to respond in ways which share the benefits of international working and migration more fairly. We need to see the benefits of lecturers moving between countries as much more of a two-way exchange. We need to see investment in their universities, cooperation in developing their higher education capacity and other tangible long term benefits," he added.

The conference, which will be attended by academics from Zimbabwe and Sierra Leone, will be held at Natfhe’s London office next Thursday March 23, between 12pm and 4.30pm.