Brain drain or repayment strain?
2003-06-30 11:03
Dear Editor
An increasing number of young South African graduates are leaving the country to work overseas. This 'brain drain' is affecting all professional areas, but more specifically there's great concern about the lack of future engineers in SA, as most of us have already left or are leaving SA to work, and eventually live, in a foreign country. In general, everyone blames the economy, but I have a different view.
I was the top student of my school, matriculating with 6 distinctions. My choice of a future career, was a therefore a difficult one to make as I was interested in studying almost everything. I wanted to study medicine, accounting, engineering, politics, and art. But I didn't have the money.
So I chose engineering and signed a contract with a large South African company on the terms of my bursary.
I graduated with flying colors, eventually receiving the award for the best engineering project in the faculty. I am one of those people who loves South Africa and would like to see it grow into something that I dream of. And I am willing and capable to work for it.
'I wanted to be president'
Hell, I wanted to be the South African president. Not a Nixon or Gore or Putin or Blair, I wanted to lead my country like a Mandela.
After I graduated, I had to start working for the company that paid for my studies, according to the bursary agreement. I am well aware of the fact that I was very fortunate in getting a big company to pay for my studies and offer me a job afterwards. At the time of signing a bursary agreement, it seemed like a great idea as I was confronted with horror stories about the lack of job opportunities in SA. After graduating, I realised that this was where the road ended.
I was trapped.
Soon after I started working with this company, I was offered specialised training by an international company, based on my university project and results. This was a chance to see the world. This was a chance to gain knowledge and to bring it back to South Africa. But, according to the bursary agreement, I had to stay in SA, with the bursary company, for the following 4 years. I asked for my bursary obligations to be postponed for a year. It was rejected. My relationship with this company was severely damaged, mainly because of my frankness and honesty about what I thought of their grip on my future and unwillingness to let me grow personally and professionally ? for whatever reasons they had.
I quit.
According to the bursary agreement, I now had to repay the money they "invested in me". Keep in mind that the money loaned to me, and to what they called "previously disadvantaged students", was most probably deducted from their tax obligations as company expenses for donations or sponsorships. Giving us a chance to study, was not only very good advertisement as a company of the "New" South Africa, it also held great financial benefits for them.
I have to repay them the capital sum, calculated with compounded interest over a 4 year period. Interest being computed using the Prime Interest Rate + 1%.
'Honest guy'
I am however an honest guy, and I did sign a contract, and I am keeping to it.
The repayment of a bursary like this, makes it impossible to graduate, and stay in South Africa. If you are boxed in while working anywhere, you become stagnant. If you've got goals that are beyond the comprehension of those around you, you need to leave.
If you have the guts to leave a company like this regardless of the threats that financial survival holds, in order to pursue a better future, then you are one of the guys South Africa needs. I have many South African friends in the US, UK, Middle East and East, in exactly the same situation. We want to work in South Africa. We want to better South Africa. Everyone says we stay away from South Africa, because earning Dollars or Euros are financially much more attractive to us. I'm sick of hearing this and reading about this in the media. Actually, a lot of us are earning Dollars and Euros to repay study debt in South Africa, which cannot be paid while working there.
'Useless' to return
In order to repay my bursary debt, I will be working overseas for at least the next 4 years. And with the specialised experience I gain here, it will be useless to go back to a South African firm.
New opportunities are popping up all around me. In a few years time, I will most probably be living in the States, earning Dollars for the rest of my days. All because I was "forced" out of South Africa to repay a company that pretends to "uplift the community" and "support education". And in the process, all they actually do, is get a whole lot of free advertising, therefore attracting local and overseas investors, because they are "investing in the new South Africa". Not to mention the extra money they make from a loan scheme.
I believe that South African youth should be allowed to study abroad if they are presented the opportunity. This shapes you as a person. This develops your skills, self-esteem and working ability much more than a local opportunity. And when we are "allowed" to return, this will actually increase South Africa's knowledge power.
I am telling my story to let you know that there are many, very capable, South African's scattered across the world - knowledge and intelligence included. The majority of us want to dream about a future living in South Africa. And a whole lot of us are only out here because we are repaying study debt.
Foreign, for me, now means South Africa.
Johannes Schoeman
Dubai, UAE