Last week, The Daily Star reported that 24 teachers of a public university owe over Tk 3 crore to the university for jumping study leave rules. The story is far from unfamiliar. Teachers take study leave to go abroad, apply for a leave extension citing that they need more time to finish their graduate or postgraduate studies. At home, they keep on receiving their basic salaries. Then these teachers stop communicating. Universities, in response, send routine notices asking them to rejoin. Some teachers request early retirements. Some of them who do not have a permanent post or any security funds may not even bother to respond as they accept a new life abroad.
As someone who had the opportunity to stay back after completing further studies, I feel that portraying the issue of non-returning academics as a crisis of individual morality, rather than reflecting on the lack of institutional incentives that allow Bangladeshi scholars to opt for a different destiny, only tells half of the story. Treating it as merely a loyalty problem will lead to the wrong prescription, where the diagnosis is an oversimplified brain drain.
The truth is far more nuanced, albeit inconvenient. Teachers do not leave their posts because they dislike teaching students in their home institutions. When they are abroad to pursue higher studies in a well-resourced ecosystem, they discover, perhaps for the first time, that an academic life does not have to be tied to petty politics. Universities are places where laboratories are supplied with cutting-edge technologies, libraries subscribe to high-quality journals or have the means to collect books through a strong network, work ethics are strictly maintained, promotions are linked to academic performance, and there are teaching or research assistants for faculty members to concentrate on quality publications or serious research.
The pull factors are obvious. Any serious academic would be lured by the career progress. Their decision is also likely to be conditioned by the institutional push that masquerades as individual choice. Should they return to a department where the infrastructure is nonexistent, or where political loyalty is valued more than scholarly aptitude?
I remember a case where a considerable number of lecturers were recruited at the country’s apex engineering university against a single vacant post. And, these engineers, one after another, left for higher studies and never returned. To be sure, we have every right to expect accountability from publicly funded academics. If a university enters into a bond with its outgoing faculty members under paid study leave, scholarships, salary continuation, or government support, then the parent institution, and by extension its funders (the taxpayers), deserve a return on that investment. No one can dispute this.
But accountability has to be a two-way street. Universities owe their faculty members an environment where they can actually nurture their potential and deliver the services for which they were trained. Many returning academics get frustrated by the lack of facilities and an increasingly politicised environment where they need to adopt various survival strategies. The battle is far from academic in nature.
Even The Daily Star report suggests that a large portion of the defaulted amount is owed by a handful of teachers. Most faculty members have regularised their exit protocol by seeking early retirements. One teacher has been asked to pay nearly a crore in one instalment with interest on the salaries he received during his leave period. The delay in disposing of the issue has accrued interest, spiking the amount further. The system is painfully inefficient, leading to institutional attrition.
But the departure of these teachers is about more than just money. Most of our universities suffer from faculty shortages. If teachers on leave hold on to their posts without settling the account, universities cannot recruit to find replacements. So, we enter a “limbo” that involves not only teachers who never returned but also those who wanted to return and found themselves suspended between ambition and administration.
The pull of a better life abroad with better pay is obvious, and our inability to retain these talents at home is the push factor. We need to ask why we have made it easier for the scholars who defect. Their departures mean that our universities are weakened in terms of teaching and research. We have fewer supervisors, fewer publications, reduced international collaboration, weak academic leadership, myopic curriculum, deferred accreditation, unsatisfactory mentoring, and the list goes on. We enter a vicious cycle where, in the absence of experienced overseas-trained academics, we get lower research and teaching output that hampers our academic performance.Our rankings get negatively impacted. More students (and staff) leave for abroad, weakening our institutions.
So, the time has come to rethink brain drain with a focus on reintegrating the people who have left us. The much-hyped brain circulation relies on diaspora networks. We need to appreciate the fact that many of the teachers who settle abroad often supervise Bangladeshi students, facilitate scholarships for them, and build research collaborations. As high-skilled migrants, they become our sources for financial remittances and philanthropic donations for infrastructural development in their home institutions. They can remain connected with their former workplaces through visiting lectures and mentor colleagues back home through joint publications, online supervision, and research grants.
Here, the goal should be to adopt a brain circulation strategy that does not simply prevent migration. What we need right now is to replace punitive bonds with incentive contracts. Instead of relying mainly on legal penalties, universities need to be forward-thinking in creating an ecosystem to curate returning faculty members. Special research grants, laboratory start-up funds, guaranteed promotion review, and reduced teaching loads can incentivise teachers to return. If they decide to sever ties, at least some mechanisms should be applied to nurture the connections.
Many private universities follow a fast-track promotion for their returning scholars after completion of their PhDs. Public universities are sluggish in creating opportunities for these scholars. They can create a “Returning Scholar Window” with automatic joining, rapid post creation, and priority research funding. Bureaucratic hurdles can be reduced through automation of study leave, extension, joining, promotion, and post creation.
The University Grants Commission should allow universities with greater autonomy to create faculty positions within approved budget envelopes rather than seeking case-by-case approvals. The increased allocation in the education budget provides an opportunity to enhance facilities and develop research centres.
Instead of imposing heavy fines, an easy pay-off scheme or paid services can be drafted to keep the relationship with the teachers abroad. The money that we are owed from these teachers can be adjusted through active links with their hosts through joint supervision, annual seminars, collaborative publications, and visiting appointments. Instead of lamenting loss, let’s look forward to what we can gain.
The question we should ask is why many of our brightest academics no longer see a future in our universities. The real challenge is to create institutions that allow scholarship to flourish. We need to view today’s brain drain as tomorrow’s brain circulation. Once the vision is clear, the loss can hit the profit ledger.
Dr Shamsad Mortuza is vice-chancellor at the University of Liberal Arts Bangladesh (ULAB).
Views expressed in this article are the author's own.
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