Govt apathy brings a trend of brain-drain

Bishnu Prasad Aryal

Owing to the government’s least priority to invest in research and development (R&D) sector, the national progress has fallen lagging farther behind the developed countries. This trend has forced the science and technical manpower, backbone of the developmental infrastructure, flying to the developed nations from Nepal.
“One of the prominent reasons for failing to develop the country is inadequate investment in the R&D and to link each other,” said Dr Dinesh Raj Bhuju, Chief at the Faculty of Science, Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST), government apex body of science and technology. “Thus, it has encouraged our technologists to drain into the developed countries.”
There are more than 30,000 science and technical graduates in the country. It is said that almost all the Science products of government-funded Budhanilkantha School, Kathmandu go to the developed countries. About 80 percent products of Physics and Chemistry, Engineering and 25 percent of IT products of Tribhuvan University migrate to America, Europe and other developed Asian countries, according to a NAST expert.
“However, a large majority of the science graduates are engaged in non-research fields,” said Bhuju, who refused to stay in Japan as a scientist. “Some came with great zeal to do something for own country. However, they are in teaching profession. This is an irony of the country.”

Technologists in non-research field

PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, Finance Minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai, Ministers Krishna Bahadur Mahara, Dev Prasad Gurung, Ram Bahadur Thapa ‘Badal’, Hisila Yami, Pampha Bhusal and Ganesh Shah; Former Chief Secretary Bimal Koirala, Chief Secretary Bhoj Raj Ghimire, Ram Chandra Man Singh-Secretary-Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation, Dipendra Bikram Thapa-Secretary-Education Ministry, Dr Udaya Raj Sharma-Secretary-Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation , Tek Bdr. Thapa-Secretary-Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives, Abanindra Kumar Shrestha-Auditor General-Office of the Auditor General.

“This is unfortunate that the science graduates are either only in teaching or administrative or managerial posts,” said Bhuju. “Government, which should invest in basic research, is yet to institutionalise the R&D. Private sector also must be involved in applied researches.”
Nepal’s gross investment in the sector stands by only 0.3 percent of the total GDP, which is spent on salaries and perks whereas developed countries such as Japan have more than 3 percent in R&D. “If we want to pace the sector utilising our manpower, the government should allocate at least 1 percent of the GDP,” he said. “If NASA can exploit our scientists, why shouldn’t we think upon it?”
Economic crisis, political instability and lack of vision and will power are the main constraints to hinder the exploitation of untapped human and natural resources for the development, said Shiva Prasad Koirala, principal at Kathmandu Engineering College. “Government, instead of encouraging the private sector for the development, is discouraging unnecessarily.”
The developed countries float the diplomatic strategies to attract the science and technical manpower of the developing countries without any investment, veteran scientist Bhuju said. “Germany and Japan floated 25,000 visas for free wrights from developing countries in 2004.”
According to the UNESCO Science Report 2004, 100,000 scientists have gone to the developed countries from Africa alone. “The number from Asia is unexpectedly higher than it,” said Bhuju. “Among 10 million scientists world-wide, developed countries boast of 80 percent of them and 60 percent out of them are migrants from developing countries.”

This article has been published on THE HIMALAYAN TIMES, agenda page of March issue.