The recent disclosure that the United States administration is offering visa incentives to attract international science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) students and researchers to that country as part of its mission of increasing its talent pool in those disciplines has attracted attention in some likely targeted countries, including Guyana, where the move is being seen as a development that may further denude what are already modest talent pools in those disciplines.
The announcement in the US, made through the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) will implement guidelines designed to govern what is described as a visa allocation regime that will provide for up to 36 months of academic training for STEM students on a non-immigrant visa. Under the programme, the Department of Homeland Security will add 22 new fields of study in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), and Optional Practical Training Programmes to the programme. “These actions will allow international STEM talent to continue to make meaningful contributions to America’s scholarly, research and development, and innovation communities,” a release from the administration said.
But Coordinator of the local Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), Karen Abrams, told Guyana earlier this week that while the disclosure would appear to create an opportunity for students from the region to have access to higher education whilst securing possible permanent stay in the US it would almost certain be regarded here in the Caribbean as “a likely further extension of the brain drain” from which the Caribbean has historically suffered. “One can understand any country seeking to recruit the best brains that are available, though in the instance of Guyana and the rest of the Caribbean this development could end up being a permanent loss of skills in circumstances where we badly need those skills for our own development.”
Abrams acknowledged that “from a Guyana and Caribbean perspective, young ambitious persons with migration ambitions might see the development in terms of individual opportunities. I believe, however, that it is up to the governments here to take action at the level of their respective education systems to offer opportunities which our bright young people may see as worthwhile options to migration.” She added that while no country could be justifiably criticised for pursuing what it believed to be the actualisation of its own interests, “we in Guyana are dealing here with skills that are currently in high demand here now and will be even more needed in the future.”
The United States Science Board is on record as saying that while the country leads in attracting international STEM students, “the coronavirus pandemic contributed to the decline of international higher education enrollment,” the result being that enrollment in US institutions in science and engineering by international students fell 20 per cent between 2019 and 2020.
A report on the disclosure alluded to a 2021 Op-Ed on the issue published by James Gates, President of the American Physical Society, and Gerald Blazey, Vice President for Research and Innovation Partnerships at Northern Illinois University, in which the two reportedly said that more needed to be done argued that the U.S. was slowly falling behind in research and development.
Abrams told the Stabroek Business that Guyana, particularly, had reason to be concerned about the possible “brain drain effect” of the recent US announcement since it had occurred, she said, “at a stage of the country’s development where it could now better afford to invest more in the skills necessary to raise the level of education in the disciplines that are now key to taking the country forward. Some of those are among the disciplines named by the authorities in the US that are needed to keep ahead at the top of the pile.”
Abrams added that Guyana should now “read the tea leaves” and create a more convivial environment in which students can have access to the very disciplines referred to in the US announcement since, as it happens, those are among the disciplines that the country needs badly. She said that the local STEM programme which she heads “will remain available to Guyanese students,” but that she saw the US’ announcement as an indication that it would be in Guyana’s interest to throw more weight behind the existing STEM programme in order to make it more accessible across the various areas of the country.
