Brain Drain Politics: Ecuador’s Gambit

Ecuador’s foolish gambit

From AP

Galo Guarderas is starting off on five years of study in Spain to make himself an expert in photovoltaics, a vital field for a world tapping into solar energy.

The price tag for the studies is more than $150,000. But the 47-year-old professor of electrical engineering won't owe a cent for his doctorate.

His country, Ecuador, is footing the bill.

Guarderas is a pioneering participant in a new program that aspires to convert this small South American nation into a global competitor. In exchange for each state-paid year of school, the professionals guarantee to work at least two years back at home.

President Rafael Correa isn't just bent on staunching brain drain, in which talented people flee developing countries for lack of local opportunity. He's determined to reverse it, create a brain gain.

"Without human talent Ecuador won't advance," Correa said in a speech last month. "We lack the minimum critical mass of top-flight professionals needed to spur the country's development."

Ecuador's deputy minister of science and innovation, Hector Rodriguez, said the goal is "a radical transformation" from a country whose exports are 77 percent raw materials, chiefly oil, to one that exports technology.

This is represents another example where when you are the hammer everything looks like a nail.

Lavishly spending money for “foreign education” to supposedly solve the nonsensical brain drain issue does not deal with root of the problem particularly “talented people flee developing countries for lack of local opportunity.”

Yes the problem, to repeat, is THE LACK OF ECONOMIC opportunities because of Ecuador’s socialist government (new age or 21st century socialism). Economic opportunities are not driven by education alone but by investments or through a political environment which encourages businesses or enterprises (economic freedom).

In the US, contrary to political wisdom, science or math graduates have not been guaranteed employment.

Feel good policies (to get elected or to remain power) like always will eventually just blow up. In politics, insanity or doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results represents the norm.