NCRI – Iran is ranked number one in ‘brain drain’ among 91 developing and non-developed countries, according to a report by the IMF.
According to the report, each year between 150 to 180 thousand educated Iranians leave their country to continue their education abroad.
In this regard, Mehr news agency has quoted Naser Motiei, Director General of Ministry of Science’s Domestic Students Affairs, as saying on Sunday February 12 that “each year nearly 40-45 thousand students from public universities attempt to verify their degrees in order to continue their education abroad, with most of them holding PhD and MA degrees.”
“Students from Sanati Sharif, Sanati Isfahan, Tehran, Sanati Amirkabir, Elm-o-Sanat, and Ferdosi Mashhad universities refer the most to the Ministry of Science’s Department of Domestic Students to verify their degrees in order to continue their studies in foreign countries“, Motiei added.
Earlier, Iran’s Minister of Science had acknowledged that 150 thousand educated Iranians leave the country each year. “With brain drain, Iran suffers an annual loss of 150 billion dollars, as an amount of one million dollar has been expended for educating each one of them”, he said.
Permanent immigration of Iranian scientific elites, also referred to as ‘brain drain’, has always been in the news over the past years. In May 2012, Shargh newspaper reported that over the past 14 years, 64 percent of Iranian students who received a medal in International Science Olympiads have migrated from Iran, with US and Canadian universities being the most popular destinations for Iranian Science Olympiad medalists.
***
Iranian regime’s Minister of Science acknowledges Brain Drain in Iran
Mohammad Farhadi, the Minister of Science in Rouhani’s cabinet, has acknowledged the brain drain in Iran under the rule of the Mullahs.
According to Tasnim news agency on October 3, in his speech at the International Science and Technology Forum in Kyoto, Japn, Farhadi pointed to the educated population in Iran and said: “there are 11 million, namely 17 percent of the population, with a college degree in Iran while five million students are currently studying in universities and research centers.”
The Minister of Science said: “we are facing a brain drain among the educated population which actually means the migration of the country’s skilled human resources.”
Farhadi stressed that the brain drain has undesirable effects on the development of countries and creates unknown variables. He added: “migration of the skilled workers from a country prevents it from having a sustainable development.”
It should also be pointed out that Ali Rabiei, the Minister of Labor and Social Affair in Rouhani’s government, has announced: “ 43 percent of all the job applicants in the country are college graduates of which about one million three hundred thousand are suffering from unemployment crisis.” He added: “this amount of graduates who are left behind the country’s job market, means nothing but a truly unemployment crisis.”
Also regarding the unemployment of the university graduates, ILNA state newspaper writes: “From 1995 to 2012, about seven million job applicants have been graduated from universities only one million of which have been absorbed by the job market. Currently there are six thousand jobless graduates who have a Ph.D degree and we are facing a new wave of joblessness among graduates with high educational qualifications.”