20 March 2006

Africa’s Brain Drain: Britain’s gain - Africa’s pain?

The loss of talented academics from Britain to the USA is well known, but a lesser known Brain Drain is sucking academic talent from sub-Saharan Africa to the developed world – with damaging and potentially disastrous consequences.

The international migration of academics is widely accepted as beneficial to university and educational life. But many African lecturers say the loss of academics from developing countries can seriously deplete their higher education systems. UK lecturers' unions NATFHE and AUT welcome the international flow of academics – but say developing countries must be better compensated for their loss.

NATFHE and AUT are hosting a conference: ‘Brain Drain in a Globalised World’, at NATFHE’s London conference centre on Thursday 23 March, to explore ways of better sharing the benefits of international academic migration.

Originating from ideas by African academics, it will examine the findings of a joint union project and explore ideas for policy and mitigating actions which can be adopted by British trade unions, NGOs (non-governmental organisations), universities and government.

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, assistant general secretary of AUT, said:

"If a small developing country loses just a few of its best lecturers and researchers to a UK university, it can be losing 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."

ENDS

 ‘The Brain Drain – academic and skilled migration to the UK and its impacts on Africa’, produced by Alex Nunn of the Policy Research Institute of Leeds Metropolitan University.

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