Why brain drain in the sciences is happening in Africa, expert explains
The growing trend where students who major in the sciences including engineering travel beyond the African continent to seek greener pastures can be attributed largely to limited resources in their countries and their working conditions.
A science teacher at the St. Austin’s Academy school in Kenya indicated that many African countries are experiencing the brain drain, particularly in the field of science because of the unavailability of resources within their respective countries to pursue higher education in those areas.
Rose Tata Wekesa who is also the first individual to attempt the longest science lesson record with the Guinness World Record also noted that these trained individuals in science majors like medicine, engineering among others are put in compromising situations where they opt to seek greener pastures in other countries because of their working conditions.
“There are some engineering courses I see in my country, we don’t have those industries here because we are still a developing country honestly so if a student is doing a certain course and there’s no industry, nowhere for that student to apply their information, they’ll definitely go to another country to practice and to make sure that they get experience from that other country,” she told GSW’s Wonder Hagan.
“Another thing you’ll find is that even when they are doing that work within their countries, they are underpaid and overworked so they end up looking for better opportunities for greener pastures and when those doors open you realise that we are training many people in our countries and then they are going to work in other countries where they are getting better deals and opportunities,” she added.
Although she acknowledged that there is a general improvement in government investment in various African countries including Kenya, she noted that there needs to be practicality in training and the provision of well-equipped labs to promote science education in countries within Africa.
“I think we are trying in Kenya and Africa at large because I’ve seen that there are some industries set up in Africa that use a lot of scientific applications, and also the fact that we have universities that offer medical studies, pharmaceutical studies. We are trying, we are not there yet as the way developed countries are but we are not where we were, there’s quite some improvement and I can see science being applied to some extent,” Rose noted.
“But we need to improve on the training for the teachers who will go to teach those sciences, we need to train them more using practical methods. I feel that there’s a gap in terms of how the science teachers are being trained, and if science teachers are not trained effectively, they will also not teach science effectively unless someone with quite a passion and someone who will go and do research themselves to improve themselves professionally.
Another thing the government can do to promote science education is to make sure that every school has science labs and the labs are equipped well because you can find a school with a lab but the labs are not equipped or very few so you find some students finishing their education without actually touching some apparatus,” she added.
