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Experts urge FG to increase retention rate of professionals

By Matthew Ogune, Abuja
10 November 2019   |   3:26 am
Migration experts have called on the Federal Government to increase the retention rate of professionals to avoid brain drain and optimise brain gain in the country.

Photo: PIXABAY

Migration experts have called on the Federal Government to increase the retention rate of professionals to avoid brain drain and optimise brain gain in the country. They said this could be done through regular professional and educational development opportunities.

At a two-day capacity building workshop for media agencies on migration reportage, organised by Civil Society Network on Migration and Development in Abuja, the experts noted that the challenge before the Nigerian government was to reverse brain drain, or at the very least, mitigate its effects on social and economic development, while optimising brain gain and minimising brain waste of nationals abroad. 

One of the facilitators, Prof. Anthony Kanu of Tansian University, Umunya in Anambra State, who lamented the negative effects on the Nigerian economy, noted that the skills of remaining nationals are not sufficient to grow industries, academia and other sectors of the economy.

Kanu stressed the need for the government to identify the nature, extent, and causes of brain drain and its consequences, adding that the government must trace the outcomes of brain drain in the countries of destination.

The university don called on the government to establish an atmosphere conducive to private sector opportunities that would provide alternative employment or part-time employment to pay professionals within the public service.

He said: “Review and increase salaries applicable to highly skilled professionals employed within the public sector. Design strategies for the replacement of qualified persons who have left Nigeria, for example, through providing scholarships for training in professions that are highly affected, committing those who receive these scholarships through bonds and the provision of guarantees from top government officials to a period of subsequent employment within the country.”

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