Brain Drain Controversy and African Scholars

The phenomenon popularly known as brain drain has attracted growing concern in the United States and abroad (Tulsa Daily World , 1967; Committee on Manpower... 1967; Asian Student , 1968a: 3; 1968b: 1; 1969: 3; Institute of Applied Manpower . . . 1968; U. S. Congress, 1968; Gardiner, 1968: 194-202; Bechhofer, 1969: 1-71; Committee on the International Migration . . . 1970). The notion has been expressed that the poor countries of the world are being deprived of their talent and robbed of their human resources by the exchange of scholars and students which goes on between nations (U.S. Congress, 1968: 16-25; Mondale, 1967a: 24-6; 1967b: 67-9). Implicit is the idea that many students from these less developed countries go to the more highly developed and industrialized countries for study and decide not to return to their homeland.