Dr. Bahaa Helmy Writes: International Schools and the Emigration of Egyptian Minds

The emigration of minds, or brain drain, is one form of migration, defined as the movement of people with high levels of education from one country to another for the purpose of residence and work. The International Organization for Migration defines a migrant as any person who is moving or has moved across an international border or within a state away from his habitual place of residence, regardless of the person's legal status, whether the movement is voluntary or involuntary, what the causes for the movement are, or what the length of the stay is. The United Nations defines a migrant as “a person who has resided in a foreign country for more than one year irrespective of the causes, voluntary or involuntary, and the means, regular or irregular, used to migrate”. The International Organization for Migration's 2020 report stated that more than half of all international migrants (141 million) live in Europe and North America, and that the Gulf states have the largest numbers of temporary migrant workers in the world. The organization noted that Syria has the highest number of internally displaced persons, at 6.1 million people, and is also the largest country of origin of refugees, with more than six million, without indicating how many of these displaced persons and refugees hold degrees or postgraduate qualifications in the various sciences. Regardless of the benefits that accrue to the state as a result of migration — whether driven by the search for material gain, the influence of globalization, getting away from areas of conflict and war, the large disparities in wages and per capita income, or climate change and bad weather conditions — if remittances, migrants' acquisition of different cultures, the improvement of their material and living conditions, and the acquisition and transfer of knowledge and experience to the homeland constitute benefits for the country from which the minds emigrate, the losses resulting from the emigration of brains from their countries of origin are very great, whether for plans for development, production and sustainable development, or in terms of the negative effects on the national bonds between migrants and their countries of origin — at a time when the benefits reaped by the developed countries that acquire these minds and their intellectual, scientific and economic output are growing. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) considers brain drain a serious matter, and the emigration of highly qualified workers is very costly socially, besides the economic losses to the country of origin. You see that many developed societies are made up of multinational migrants: two-thirds of migrants with a university education, at the very top of the talent scale, live in the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia; 85% of all Nobel Prize winners in the sciences are in the United States, thanks to emigrant minds; and currently the top 10 countries of destination attract 60% of migrants worldwide. The Ministry of State for Emigration and Egyptian Expatriates' Affairs is making great efforts to communicate with Egyptian emigrants and invite them to take part in the “Egypt Can” foundation established by the ministry, and in national participation to achieve sustainable development. However, we note that the international organizations concerned with migration or education have neglected to include the category of gifted pupils in pre-university education in their countries, especially those enrolled in international schools that follow foreign systems such as the American, French or German systems and others, who enroll in universities abroad and do not return afterwards. We therefore fault the previous definitions of migrants for limiting them to those with high scientific or technical levels and for not including gifted pupils in pre-university education, who are influenced by the thinking of some foreign teachers who focus on the negatives of the local society and weave dreams before our children to affect their spirit of loyalty and belonging. We therefore call on the international organizations to announce a code of conduct obliging the developed countries to stop their policy of draining our societies of promising minds, especially our children in international schools, and to commit to preserving the national state's efforts in education as a goal of the sustainable development plan. And we call on both the family and civil society institutions to communicate with children in pre-university education and raise their awareness, and on the Ministry of Emigration to create a database of our children studying at universities abroad and to follow up with them continuously, to link their minds to the homeland and reduce the rates of emigration among them.