“Skills emigration or the ‘brain drain’ has become a major policy and research issue at the national, regional and continental
level in Africa. African governments emerged from colonialism with a woefully inadequate skills base. After independence, most invested heavily in skills creation, universalizing access to primary and secondary education, setting up new universities and training colleges, offering generous financial support in the form of grants and bursaries to students, and sponsoring the brightest and most promising to go overseas for advanced training. Coupled with a complementary strategy of temporary import of expatriate skills, this strategy seemed to pay off in many countries. The skills base of many countries expanded rapidly and most locally-trained citizens were absorbed into the public and private sectors.”
