Proactive Make.it. Work how to take advantage of brain drain

1. Proactive Make.it.Workhow to take advantage of brain drain Team: perspective Romania/University of Vienna

2. Status quo • Romanian students have often problems to find jobs in their country, because of inadequate preparation for a real job: society doesn’t encourage an education adapted to the actual requirements of the job market. • Also, due to a faulty system, in which young people are lead by society to think that a graduation diploma guarantees their financial success, are not properly prepared for the job, they get disappointed and demotivated. • They end up in an unsuitable working place, where they can’t develop their full potential, causing the BRAIN WASTE phenomena. • Rate of youth employability: 27% in 2008, approx.7.5. mill. unemployed young people= huge costs!

3. Society faults • The problems acknowledged by the young generation in Romania are roughly: lack of opportunities, political instability, economic depression and health risks related to profession. • Here we can add thepsychological frustration of loosing their passion for their profession, because they feel that their work does not improve society, that they can no longer advance in their profession and that their salary isn’t enough to live here. • The unpreparedness of the youth causes great yearly financial loss, so that there are less money to be invested in education, thus continuing the cycle of economical fall by creation a generation of unqualified youngsters. • All these causes and many others raised the risk of firing a large number of employees and created the conditions for increasing unemployment (Herman, 2008).

4. Effects • Because of this, Romanian youngsters seek more opportunities by studying abroad and eventually remaining there to work, because there is a living standard, that should be provided by the country of origin. • They look in host countries for better opportunities, political stability, freedom, developed economy, better living conditions, causing the BRAIN DRAIN phenomena. • Aging population, high number of non-implemented reforms, poor quality of the workforce, the need to import workforce from other countries are long term effects that will destroy the economy and will make it impossible to correct the damage. • Romanian society needs to let go of the illusion that everything will improve by itself or will be corrected by other countries policies, because measures have to be taken independently and fast!

5. Calculations • Macroeconomic issues like inflation,transition from the command economy to the market economy causedsevere disequilibrium with matching international socio-economic requirements low standard of living • price liberalizationin 2008 the price of • the consumer goods was 3120.96 times higher than in 1990, 2465.37 times rise of prices for alimentary goods, 3204.79 times for non-alimentary goods and 5569.57 times for services (NIS, 2009). • Since 1989, the student population has decreased as the need of highly skilled professionals has increased (Bowers, 2002). • Only 0.47% of Romania’s GDP was spent for research purposes (INS,2010, cited in Socaciu, 2011)

6. Proactive measures • A severe migration of elites which “has reached alarming proportions and can only be limited through cooperation and bilateral agreements with Western countries” (Hovart, 2004, p. 79) • In the context of student mobility, is often referring to “the cycle of moving abroad to study, then taking a job there and later returning home to take advantage of a good opportunity” (Moguerou, 2006, p.1) • The Romanian institution should create an institution based solely on the management of funds destined to acquire modern equipment, to train competent teachers and to adopt teaching methods used in the Western countries. • This idea is correct as it is only based on economic remittances - $4.5 billion in 2010 out of the $325 billion worldwide (World Bank, 2010) were used in Romania without significant results – which are a very important part of the GDP.

7. Possible ideas • The main contribution to the decline of the employment in Romania was given by the restructuring of the Romanian economy, the dissembling of economic and social reform elements, the errors of employment policies which nowadays should be concerned more with thinking in perspective than with recovering the effects already done. • The “brain drain” problem could be easily transformed in a “brain gain” by trying to unite the professionals educated abroad with their conationals with proper political measures and work together to improve the country's level.

8. Solutions • “For every nation, the educational system represents its highest achievement” (Bowers, 2002, p.203) • Policies should be targeted into both directions. Return policies, together with investments in education and research, seem to be the most suitable for Romania as these apply for countries where students have already migrated (Grible, 2008).

9. It will work! • The LSRS (League of Romanians Studying Abroad) has already manifested the wish of international students to return to their homeland if the government supports them and recognises their achievements.

10. Summary • To sum up everything, students have a high impact on society and not only since modern times. This impact could bring negative outcomes if the students are massively involved in migration and do not intent do return. • Thank you for watching!