Earlyface

More African students studying in foreign institutions are returning back home to seek better and faster career development, some recent studies have shown.

According to the report of the studies published in the World University News, an online news magazine, these students are coming back home unlike before to grow their nations’ economies.  This, observers noted, was a reward of efforts being made by governments of the various African nations to stop the brain drain syndrome.

Before now, the best and the brightest African students who had gone to study in the United Kingdom and the United States of America were not bringing their talents back to Africa.

But recent studies indicate that the brain drain may finally be coming to an end. Many African students studying abroad are now finding opportunities to use their training back at home. With seven of the world’s ten fastest economies in Africa, young people are noticing that their home may be the place where they have the best chance of quickly establishing a career.

Though Reda Merdi, 19, of Morocco, is heading to the University of Pennsylvania in the fall after finishing up at the African Leadership Academy in Johannesburg, he has no plans to stay in the USA when he has completed his Ivy League education.

“It is more exciting to work in Africa these days. There are way more opportunities, a lot of space for you to work, a lot of space to prove yourself because there are a lot of exciting things going on in Africa,” he said.

The African Leadership Academy was created to train the next generation of leaders on the continent, admitting just 3 percent of its applicants with the goal of convincing them to keep their talents at home.

“Our raw philosophy is that the main reason why people should come back to Africa is not out of any sense of obligation, or because we are forcing them to, but because they really see the tremendous opportunities that exist here for them. And because they see a wonderful future and a real opportunity for them to make a difference,” said Fred Swaniker, one of the academy’s founders.

“If you think like an entrepreneur then Africa is really your paradise… You can really be the next African Sam Walton or the African Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. No one has done that yet. You can be that person,” Swaniker said.

Swaniker added that the number of those returning back home showed the continent’s transformation in the past few years. “Whereas Nigeria was ranked 112 in the world in 2008 for retaining educated workers, it is now ranked 48th. South Africa moved from 72nd place to 48th place in the world rankings, while Ghana rose from 125th to 53rd place,” he said.

When the Johannesburg private equity firm Jacana surveyed African students pursuing Master’s of Business Administration degrees at leading American and European schools, they found that 70 per cent planned to return to Africa after graduation.

Some Nigerians including the former Head of Department, Environmental and Civil Engineering, University of Lagos, Prof. Funso Falade, have said the economic hardship, unemployment and increasing discrimination in Europe could be some of the reasons for the new trend.

Also, a senior official of a recruitment firm in Lagos, Mr. Samuel Adedoyin, said the invasion of Africa by new investors in telecommunications, engineering, oil and gas and banking who prefer to employ Africans with foreign degrees could also be one of the reasons for the new trend.