Why is it so difficult for public-funded Malaysian students to return from abroad after their graduation?

IT’S BEEN the same old tune; this talk of trying to pujuk (cajole) Malaysians studying abroad to return home to serve the country that sent them – at great public expense – to further their education.

If they had rich parents who sent them to expensive universities, by all means do whatever you please. They don’t need to have a guilty conscience even if their parents’ wealth was earned in Malaysia.

Unless we are all crazy rich Asians (like in the Hollywood movie), many Malaysians would never have had a chance to study abroad if not for scholarships and bursaries awarded to the best and the brightest.

Those bright-eyed eager beavers who had never set foot outside of Malaysia – and left their villages and towns with the prayers and goodwill of friends and family in the hopes of their return – now need to be cajoled?

Just because they have been abroad and now feel educated, sophisticated and “crazy rich Asian-like”, they don’t want to come home?

Scholarship “oppression”

Is anyone aware that the Queen’s Scholarship was an annual education scheme introduced by the colonial government in 1885 to enable promising students in Singapore and Malaya to enrol at a British university?

The scholarship scheme was first proposed in October 1884 by Colonial Secretary and Acting Governor Cecil Clementi Smith to enable promising students to complete their studies in Britain before returning to assume a professional career.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim meeting Malaysian student diaspora in New York in conjunction with his participation in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in September 2023 (Pic credit: Anwar’s Facebook)

Since those colonial days, it has always been the aim of awarding scholarship for studies abroad so the recipient who would return with First World knowledge so they can contribute to their Third World homeland.

Even Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the fourth and seventh prime minister (PM4 and PM7) – was a government scholarship recipient who joined the King Edward VII Medical College in Singapore to study medicine in 1947.

He wrote in his memoirs published in the Annals Academy of Medicine: “I found myself a member of the Malay minority of seven in the 1947 student batch of 77. It was very disheartening especially as I had only 3As while the non-Malay students all had 6As and above.

“I suppose the British Colonials were practising affirmative action without officially announcing it. There must have been many non-Malays with more ‘As’ who were not admitted.

“But if not for this discrimination, I would probably not be able to make it as PM of Malaysia.”

It makes me wonder if Tun M would ever have become PM if he had been sent to Britain and – after adopting British ways – would suffer scholarship oppression that required him to return to Malaya to serve the nation.

Brain drain

In 1991 when Tun M was PM4, he made an official stop in London where he also made time to address Malaysian postgraduates at Malaysia Hall. I was in attendance and so was a young Khairy Jamaluddin.

In his statesman-like and clinically to-the-point-style of talking, Tun M spoke about the goals of Vision 2020 and why students should return to Malaysia after graduating so they could help in nation building.

In September 2023, the 10th PM Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim (PMX) – on a side event while attending the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York – had to make same sales pitch to Malaysians about their homeland having enormous potential to rise as a vibrant economy.

While urging Malaysians in the US to be goodwill ambassadors, Anwar also said the government was looking into ways to attract skilled Malaysians to return and contribute to the country to address the brain drain threat the country is facing now.

“Top scholars, top economists, top accountants are leaving the country or have left, so now we have to make sure that we have a system that can encourage them to come back by offering incentives,” he said.

Among the contributing factors to the Malaysian brain drain syndrome are the “less attractive salary and benefits” offered in the country, the lack of career prospects and the unavailability of opportunities in certain fields.

Malaysia already has the Talent Corporation Malaysia Bhd (TalentCorp) that was established in 2011 under then PM6 Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak to woo talented and skilled professionals working abroad to return.

In a news article citing a 2021 survey that it conducted, TalentCorp revealed that 92% of the Malaysian diaspora expressed a desire to return to their homeland and contribute but lacked a suitable platform to do so.

Thus, TalentCorp has introduced the Malaysia@Heart initiative (MyHeart) to provide returning Malaysians with networking opportunities and employment options.

Homeland

Coincidentally, the recent news reports about 43 Malaysians rescued from a human trafficking syndicate operating a telecommunication fraud in Peru was a shocker. How could they be so gullible?

The Channel News Asia (CNA) report claimed the Malaysians were ensnared in a scam that reportedly originated from crime syndicates in Taiwan and China. Apparently, many such reports of job scams have emerged in recent years.

Even more surprising are reports that Malaysians are among the top asylum seekers in New Zealand and Australia.

Former New Zealand immigration minister from 1996 to 1999, Tuariki Delamere, posted on Facebook that as of Oct 1 this year, there were 229 Malaysians out of the 1,243 asylum seekers in his country.

Pic credit: Reuters

In a Feb 2021, Free Malaysia Today (FMT) reported that figures tabled in the Australia parliament showed a total of 546 Malaysians among 1,931 “plane people” or asylum seekers who arrived by air.

The report also cited Australian High Commissioner to Malaysia Andrew Goledzinowski who revealed that around 33,000 Malaysians sought refugee status in Australia over the last few years.

Between trying to cajole Malaysians to come home, rescuing those tricked by job scams and faced with asylum seekers fleeing perceived or real persecutions, how do we deal with those who really no longer care for their homeland?

Maybe we should just let them go in peace. – Oct 17, 2023

 

Niza Shimi was a former journo with a leading mainstream English media.

The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.

Main pic credit: Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim’s Facebook

 

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