India faces a shortage of trained manpower, especially in critical areas like healthcare and engineering. At the same time, every year, a large number of trained personnel emigrate for higher education and jobs. Between 1999 and 2015, migration to the US increased by 225%.

Problems/Cause of Concerns:

• Better education and job opportunities and a higher standard of living are cited among the reasons for this outflow of trained personnel.

• Initially described as brain drain, there has been later appreciation of the possibility of subsequent brain gain.

• However, the outflow of trained manpower is cause for concern, as it adversely affects the quality and quantity of local human capital formation.

Possible Solutions:

• One way to ensure this would be to adopt a system like Australia’s deferred tuition plan.

• Under this system, all tertiary education is subsidised by the government, with students paying only a portion of the cost as fees.

• Graduates who go on to work in sectors deemed as priority by the government are not required to pay any additional amounts, but those who migrate or move to non-priority sector have to pay the subsidy amount over a set number of years.

• This ensures that higher education remains affordable and that government’s education subsidy is not misused.

Conclusion:

For developing countries like India, the loss of human capital is a serious issue. But creating barriers is not the solution. More creative policy is the way to stem the migration of trained manpower. As a democratic country built on the cornerstone of individual rights, India cannot forbid its citizens to leave. It can, however, put in place systems that would make it possible for the country to benefit from the investment made in the young through subsidised education, particularly technical and medical.

Source:Economic Times