EMIR Research has previously presented fundamental dynamics behind the brain drain phenomenon.
The correlations (and likely reciprocal relationships) between poor economy, quality of life and brain drain are apparent and supported by the global data.
However, the low quality of life and poor economy are only the parochial results of poor governance and lack of focus on the rakyat and the issues of importance to them:
When citizenry’s expectations are not met while their voices are continuously subdued and ignored, the bright, highly trained, and most qualified among them choose to ‘vote with their feet’.
Human flight and brain drain index (data available from 2007 to 2020) suggests that Malaysian brain drain has been on the rise throughout the period.
Interestingly, the trend has slowed and reversed during 2013-2014 before resuming with the same speed after the eruption of the 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal in 2015.
Another reversal of the trend in 2019 was probably on a big hope in Pakatan Harapan’s rakyat centric, all-inclusive manifesto.
However, after that, the pandemic happened coupled with an ever greater politicking, power-grab race and rakyat side-lining.
And only globally shrinking earning opportunities in the post-pandemic world do not allow us to estimate how many more prolific citizens of our country are already preparing to vote with their feet.
Once the more advanced economies rebound, we have no reason to expect that Malaysia’s brain drain will not resume with the same or even higher speed.
Capable public administration workforce
First of all, there is a startling difference in the level of professionalism of the public administration workforce in more successful countries.
In the world’s classic satiric novel The Twelve Chairs by Ilf and Petrov (filmed too), there is mechanic-intellectual Polesov of superficially over-ebullient nature who always talks big.
However, whenever entrusted with fixing something, he breaks it completely, disassembles and cannot reassemble, takes off and cannot put it back.
Managing a country, the complex and dynamic system for preserving and developing human lives, is a profession that demands the highest pedigree of specific knowledge and skills, just like performing brain or heart surgery does.
So, naturally, you would not entrust such a task to someone like Polesov – big outside, light inside.
Managing a country is the profession that should be learnt and trained and equipped with appropriate tools.
Therefore, the political leaders should be coming from higher education institutions that purposefully, rigorously and holistically prepare them for such a responsible job, rather than from random walks of life.
Even though educational institutions for public administrators are present in Malaysia, the overall decline in the quality of education in our country and the low quality of public administration leadership, save for the few, suggests serious inadequacy of such programs.
The country’s governance goes beyond exceptional fluency in economics, finance and now the frontier technologies.
Other conceptually rich disciplines, including the general theory of managing complex social systems, systems thinking, ethics and even basic research methods are essential to make future leaders well-rounded, conceptually powerful, and able to debate on the level of ideas but grounded in reality.
The public administration education scrolls should be obtained with the utmost difficulty and, over time, become an absolute pre-requisite for entering the political arena on the higher levels.
Participative governance is the key to citizens-centrism
The conceptually powerful public administrators know well that the feedback loops, especially the negative ones, are central to management.
And only the administrator who is generally disinterested in managing the object correctly would ignore such signals.
In an earlier article, EMIR Research discussed the creation of a direct citizen engagement platform powered by 4IR technologies.
The platform is to make space for people’s participation in policy design, delivery, implementation, and evaluation continuously rather than only during the elections.
If Parliament is the place to debate and contest the ideas that define the national destiny, then the rakyat’s voices should be welcomed to provide their input directly.
Furthermore, having this kind of platform where people can voice their opinions collectively and be heard should also engender a greater feeling of togetherness among the people and probably start slowly reversing the devastating impact of decades of identity politics.
Input-Output-Outcome-Impact model of governance
During the World Economic Forum 2019 discussion, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern explained her country’s Input-Output-Outcome-Impact (IOOI) approach to policymaking under which the ministers must robustly justify how their programmes are going to improve the intergenerational wellbeing of society.
While defining “wellbeing”, Ardern said: “We are hoping to embed in actually what the public is asking us for – to address the societal wellbeing of our nation, not just economic wellbeing”.
Ardern also shared how the government is continuously conducting their surveys and other research on various indicators for the quality of life beyond GDP, which again brings us to the point of participative governance.
The IOOI model maps out the transformation of invested resources into the intended outcomes and benefits to many and therefore provides the foundation for solid metrics and implementation control.
It is also a safeguard against populist and short-sighted policies.
Similarly, the IOOI frameworks are carried out by other most exemplary governments such as Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, and others.
In summary, we need to seriously reconceptualise and institutionalise the following structures that powerfully reinforce each other:
- What it takes to be vested with the right to administer at least some state segment, not to mention governing a country;
- Interactivity and rakyat-centricity of public administration; and
- Input-output-outcome-impact framework.
Otherwise, we will continue losing our national talents and end up having a collective mechanic Polesov not only in place of the capable Parliament but everywhere.
Again, only those generally disinterested in the rakyat’s wellbeing and interested in keeping the status quo for ulterior motives would oppose and delay such critical institutional changes.
So let us see who can pick up and carry this pennant to transform Malaysia and who oppose it.
This is a decisively indicative test for rakyat-centricity. – Oct 11, 2021
Rais Hussin and Margarita Peredaryenko are part of the research team at EMIR Research, an independent think tank focused on strategic policy recommendations based on rigorous research.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
