‘Time to plug the brain drain’

Press, 7 February 1986, Page 16

‘Time to plug the brain drain’

By

IAN MACFARLANE,

president of the Hutt Valley

Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

New Zealand’s education budget vote is being dissipated by over-generous bursaries, tertiary grants and courses of study which have little or no relevance to the 1980 s. Sadly there seems to be a total lack of planning and appreciation of what is needed. In an age when New Zealand could pioneer education and learning systems we wastefully fund students into university degree courses totally irrelevant to the needs of our nation. Universities are crowded with students studying botany, French, sociology, philosophy, zoology, anthropology — the apologies go on and on — and worse still even for some of the more significant courses, engineering for example, New Zealand can only absorb so many graduates.

The time to restrict enrolments for the more esoteric courses is long overdue; and it is not only the student costs which waste the budget. There are departmental costs too, not to mention the high salaries paid professors and their associates. Total elimination is not advo-

cated. Those that wish to pursue those courses should be free to do so — if they can pay the price.

What is advocated is that the state’s resources be channelled for the benefit of New Zealand. The country needs computer and hl-tech people — it needs people to join the health profession, secondary school teachers, useful languages such as Japanese, Chinese and Indonesian — the language of our markets of the future — and yes, we still need accountancy graduates. So let us plan and design courses to achieve optimum returns on monies invested. After all the training and education vote comes from the public purse so should be for the public good. The system needs to be lighter on its feet and very much more flexible in its approach to and planning for training.

There is a definitive need for the Vocational Training Council to establish, promote, and have legislated a budgetary allocation to achieve these objectives. Re-

grettably there is a gulf between the employer’s requirements and the present educational system and only selective support for the training of skills needed by commerce and industry. Major course training lasts from one to four years and a simplistic budget puts the annual cost at some $12,000 — $15,000. What is needed is a recognisable incentive for “the product needed’’ — the trained personnel to meet industry’s requirements. Agreed, there has to be a balance between social acceptability and specialist training and this may well result in an increase in the cost of higher education. The student who chooses to embark on a course of study with little or no relevance to the needs of the New Zealand society should be required to make a significant contribution.

For those who channel their energies towards a recognisable benefit for the country student loans or other support should be easily obtainable but repayable should the graduate then depart overseas without “repaying” the nation’s investment.

This could be scheduled just as is the depreciation factor within a company’s normal trading pat-

tern. Taking the proposition a stage further, a company could have the opportunity of sponsoring a student through university or any tertiary undertaking and then claiming “depreciation” for the graduate over a legislated number of years. Should the graduate leave to go overseas or transfer to another company the sponsoring company, would be “reimbursed” as for the sale or transfer of a piece of plant or machinery.

The present disastrous situation now obtaining in New Zealand requires that we recruit overseas. We thus attract those who seek our quality of life, those chasing the dollar or wanting V.I.P.' treatment. Sadly those people usually stay for a limited number of years. If the employer cannot “import” the finished goods and the nation does not train to requirements, the inevitable duplication of effort, expenditure, and resources will occur. Separatist schools of learning will develop and the example of the resources of the Health Department being eroded by private medical schemes will occur. It is time to put the plug in.

New Zealand’s brains have been draining away not only for the fashionable "0.E.” and because of our salary scales, but also because our students have been allowed to undertake courses which have little or no relevance in this country.

In some cases the wastage is horrific. One remembers the proud parent at a cocktail party who allowed that he was travelling to Harvard to watch his son graduate. Congratulations were preferred, “We look forward to your son’s return. New Zealand’s economic, financial and management services will benefit from his learning period in the States.” We were generous in our praise; but no. The son had accepted employment In Wall Street. It was unlikely that he would ever return to New Zealand.

An urgent review of. university courses offered is required. Students should be answerable to the nation for the benefits of higher education and, in the event that graduates leave New Zealand to take up permanent employment overseas, substantial compensation should be payable to New Zealand for the long years of State-fund tuition.