The home coming

Indian students clamouring to go abroad to study and eventually never come back is a growing trend. Even though we may like to call ourselves the fastest growing economy of the world and would like to believe in the optimism, the hard truth is that the brain drain in India has not yet reversed.

We like to emulate all that which China does, especially their growth model, then why aren’t we paying attention to this get our best Indian brains back to India? In 2000, only one among every 10 Chinese student returned to China after gaining education in USA or UK; today that number has jumped up to 8 out of every 10 student coming back. Since 2010, majority of the students studying abroad have preferred to go back to China.

The fact that the returnees number grew even before Trump means that current immigration laws are not the only reason. China is doing well and those who return see better job opportunities, better pay scales, an equally good if not better quality of life and more importantly, the pride of contributing to the growth of China. The Chinese Govt too on its part has packed in a slew of incentives for such students to come back.

It’s a pity that we do not have anything like this in place. It is only if the brain drain stops that India will ever have any new discovery of invention to really talk about on the global arena. Maybe the lure of forex inflow through remittances is more than getting priceless human resources?