Introduction
Universities all over eastern and central Europe are searching for a "brain drain" policy. For a long period after the Changes, the fortress policies of the EU countries and the USA ensured that it was tedious and unpromising for talented and well-qualified graduates from these countries to try to build a brilliant career in the official Western economy. The black and grey economies, which were more open to them, offered restricted opportunities and unattractive work, and therefore held limited attraction for the best graduates.
However, the situation is now changing rapidly. The EU countries, in particular, are beginning to face up to their demographic realities and skills shortages. All the industrialised countries are going to be competing for a limited pool of talented graduates specialising in information and communications technology (ICT) or engineers with advanced ICT skills. An attractive pool of culturally compatible talent lies in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, with their high-quality technical university graduates. Already, the legal and other barriers that have prevented these graduates making a career in the west are being lifted.
Until recently, it was possible (though not ideal) for the technical universities to operate without a clear brain drain policy. Now, some countries—notably the USA, Ireland, Germany and the UK—are making work permits more available for certain categories of workers, especially for those with advanced ICT skills.
For the Czech Republic and other Central European countries, accession to the EU is presumably not far away. This will lead, sooner or later, to far greater mobility of workers and to removal or lowering of the barriers that put immigrant workers at a disadvantage. In the case of graduates with advanced information and communication technology skills, the opportunities for mobility are unlikely even to be delayed until EU accession.
Those of us working in the international offices and in the ICT-related departments of technical universities in this region are receiving a rapidly increasing number of requests from recruiters and companies abroad for privileged access to our top students and graduates.
University funding and students' rights
The technical universities in the Czech Republic still receive as much as 90 per cent of their funding directly or indirectly from state sources. Only students taking an exceptionally long time to graduate are required to pay fees. Some state scholarships are awarded. Student dormitories, student canteens, transport passes, etc, continue to be heavily subsidised.
The situation is somewhat different in other former Soviet bloc countries. In Russia, for example, state funding of the universities reached critically low levels some years ago, and only tuition fees and a determined effort to find other non-state sources of funding have enabled the technical universities to survive. Russian universities earn a much bigger proportion of their own funding and are thus much more economically autonomous than the Czech universities.
The ordinary rules of a liberal economy would dictate that such a substantial sponsor as the Czech state can claim major rights over graduates, or at the very least require compensation for any "stolen" graduates. Nevertheless, although Czech graduates benefit from a heavily state-subsidised system, they are allowed to seek work outside the country. Students even have the right to interrupt or abandon their studies to take up employment or continue their studies inside or outside the country. Czech society seems to regard this as an issue of personal liberty and university autonomy, rather than as an issue of the (mis)use of public money.
The duties of a university
Every university has a duty (and it is important for the reputation of the university) to ensure that its graduates find good positions in the employment market. Even in these good times of full and attractive employment for technical university graduates, it is necessary to have a careers advisory service and excellent links with industry and commerce to ensure not only that graduates are employed but that they find truly suitable and fulfilling employment. Careers advice to graduates and links with industry, commerce and public sector employers continue to be weak points at the Czech technical universities.
American universities, and in particular their MBA programmes, measure their success in terms of the starting salaries achieved by their graduates and the salaries they are earning five or ten years after graduation. As far as Czech graduates with advanced ICT skills are concerned, their salaries will be very much higher:
- If they go and work abroad
- If they stay at home and work for an international company, probably outside their field of specialisation
- If they work in the private sector
- If they leave the university (which offers extraordinarily low salaries)
It would be bizarre to measure the success of the Czech Technical University's (CTU, Prague) study programmes on the basis of the salaries earned by graduates, ie by the numbers who abandon the Czech national economy and, especially, academic life. Nevertheless, adequate salaries are very attractive to graduates who are making their way, have young families and would like to buy a flat, a car and new shoes for the baby. The present salary situation produces unhealthy distortions and anomalies, and favours a brain drain.
(Un)limited work horizons
The CTU receives most of its funding from Czech sources and has a particular affinity for Czech society and Czech industry, commerce and public services. The name of the university refers to the establishment of a Czech language institution of higher technical education, alongside the longer-established German language institution in 1869.
It is normal that the university should generally favour partners whose taxes and other contributions support the university's existence. We would like the local economy (Czech-owned and international companies) to offer professionally challenging and well-paid jobs to our graduates. Above all, we would like our own university to be able to offer salaries that enable good graduates to follow an academic career and ensure the future of research and technical education in the country. Building up the local economy is a particular responsibility of CTU graduates.
Another responsibility of CTU is to produce graduates able to function in the European and global economy. Such graduates will not limit their work horizons to the territory of the Czech Republic. The location of the Czech Republic, at the heart of Europe, between Dresden and Vienna, and the small size of the Czech nation and economy determine the need for Czech engineers to be open to international opportunities and influences.
The threat of a brain drain
Mass emigration is not a normal phenomenon (though the policies followed by the economically advanced countries in recent years seem to be based on fear of uncontrollable immigration). People normally seek to emigrate for political reasons—because they are persecuted or in danger (eg through war); or for economic reasons—for much more money, much better opportunities and much higher professional respect; or because they have been actively recruited and have received a very attractive offer.
It does not seem likely at present that an enormous proportion of CTU graduates will want to go abroad to work and cut their links with the Czech Republic for ever. For most young Czechs, neither the political situation nor the
economic situation is desperate enough to make emigration an attractive or necessary option. However, some of our top graduates, who are highly sought after, will surely be tempted by well-paid offers of good opportunities from western countries.
Top graduates are a special category of potential migrants. They are attracted abroad as much by better opportunities as by higher salaries. For a scientist, stimulating colleagues, top-class laboratories, libraries and computing facilities are as great an attraction as a high salary. Top graduates have qualifications and skills, including language skills, that smooth the path of emigration. Last but not least, they will be lured by recruitment campaigns and perhaps even red carpet treatment.
Brain drain and brain gain
It is often suggested that a brain drain is a normal and inevitable phenomenon, and only repressive closing of the borders—either by receiving countries or by giving countries—can restrain it. An internal brain drain, above all from the provinces towards Prague, seems irresistible—is an external brain drain such a different phenomenon?
It is also sometimes pointed out that a brain drain should not be seen as a win-lose situation, whereby the richer receiving country gains and the poorer giving country loses. It can be thought of, rather, as a win-win situation, because the emigrant will send remittances or accumulate capital which can benefit his or her country of origin, will gain experience and skills which may later be transferred to the country of origin, or may form a valuable bridge between the country of origin and the country of adoption.
The attraction of working abroad
In any event, it is not clear that the Czech Republic need be a "net loser" in the brain drain. Prague, in particular, is a magnet for young people. Both Czechs and foreigners find Prague a particularly attractive place to live in, and good professional opportunities are available in plenty of fields.
Colleagues from Russian and Bulgarian universities have told me recently that when their students and graduates go abroad they do not expect to see them again. The experience of CTU is that almost all of our outgoing students return, and that plenty of incoming exchange students seek ways of staying on or returning.
A university policy on the brain drain
The technical (and other) universities need to have policy to deal with attempts to lure our students and graduates away. What should our attitude be when a genuinely attractive offer is made to them? How can we protect them from bogus offers and disappointments?
The Czech (unlike, eg, the Russian) universities would probably be wrong to anticipate a haemorrhaging of talent from the country in the coming years and can afford to take a fairly relaxed view. Nevertheless, attractive offers will surely be made to large numbers of top graduates with ICT skills, and the universities need to find ways of reconciling its happiness when its graduates receive good offers with its regret at losing a talented colleague and with the interest of our main sponsor, the Czech state, in retaining good graduates to stimulate the Czech economy.
- Since all graduates have the right to work outside the country, and we think that some will choose this option, information about job offers, placements, etc, from all reputable sources should be made freely available (eg on web sites).
- Faculties (or the university) should have expert careers advisory services, which will also give advice on working abroad.
- The university should distinguish between general access to graduates, which should be available to all reputable employers, agencies and agents, and privileged access to graduates.
- In the case of privileged access, employers, agencies and agents are targeting top graduates. Privileged access should not be given away: it is a valuable asset of the university, and should be made available only to employers who offer a major contribution to the university. It should be made available to reputable:
- local employers in the private and public sector, whose taxes indirectly support the university;
- international employers who are research partners of the university, who offer scholarships and internships to students, funding for researchers to participate in conferences, or who donate equipment to the university, etc. (The exact form of the contribution should be negotiated with the partner, and should be mutually advantageous.)
Employment agencies and agents should generally receive privileged access only if they provide very special services in return. What agencies and agents provide are knowledge of and contacts with employers and a range of follow-up services. Generally speaking, the university should make a point of being in such close contact, through its careers advisors and through its academic staff, with leading employers of our graduates that no intermediate agency or agent is necessary.
What might the government do?
A government faced by the threat of a brain drain might adopt various strategies:
- Attempt to prevent graduates working abroad
- Attempt to recoup the cost of the graduate's education
- Attempt to create conditions at home that will make it attractive for graduate to stay in the country.
In the Czech Republic, freedom to leave the country is a recent hard-won gain. It is unthinkable that the right of graduates to travel and to work abroad should be restricted again.
The arguments for and against tuition fees and for and against subsidies for students lie outside the scope of this article. The only practical way to charge students would be by means of student loans. Loans paid to graduates who emigrate are likely to be hard to follow up—students who stay at home are more likely to repay their loans than those who emigrate!
The third option could work best in the Czech Republic. There are perhaps only two major categories of top Czech graduates who are likely to be very actively recruited by the rich countries, but whose working opportunities, salary and social status are desperate enough to make emigration seem to offer a much more attractive life than is available at home.
These are graduates, especially PhD graduates, who would like to make an academic career in engineering, mathematics or other sciences, and graduates who would like to make a career in medicine. By considerably improving the conditions for these two groups, a major outward brain drain could be averted. By allowing the present situation to continue, the government would be contributing, by neglect, to the growing numbers of young Czech academics who have come to the conclusion that the best way will be to make their careers abroad.
Brain mobility
Attention has been turned mainly on averting a major outward brain drain. However, mobility is by no means a bad thing, and the Czech Republic, especially Prague, should attempt to balance its outgoing brain mobility with incoming brain mobility. If the emigration of bright Czechs is a loss, is not the immigration of bright foreigners a gain? Much more could be done to welcome able foreigners to live and work in Prague. Barriers, most notably the Kafkaesque work permit and residence visa requirements, need to be lowered, and talented people need to be made welcome, whether they are coming for a short visit or to make a long term contribution to the economic and cultural life of the Czech Republic.
The long-term future
The employment market for Czech technical university graduates will not at all times continue to be as outstandingly good as it is now. The brain drain policy proposed here assumes that top Czech technical university graduates are assets fought over by potential employers inside and outside the country, and that the home market can also provide good—though less well-paid—jobs for them. When harder times return—and many companies are already responding to the recent economic downturn by citing that recruitment-privileged access to our good students and graduates will need to be given more freely—graduates will have to lower their expectations, perhaps travel farther afield and be grateful to find even a reasonably satisfactory job, near to home or far away.
Robin Healey, 21 October 2001
Robin Healey works in the International Office at the Czech Technical University in Prague.
Moving on:
