Double drama, Albania has few educated people and high brain drain

A World Bank comparison of countries in the ECA Region (comprising 19 developing countries from Central Asia, Central Europe and the Caucasus to the Balkans, including Albania) showed that countries that have a small percentage of the population with higher education also have high brain migration.

According to the graph below, Albania has about 13% of the population with higher education at a time when 45% of them have emigrated.

While more than a third of people with higher education emigrate from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kazakhstan and Moldova and more than a quarter in Armenia, Bulgaria, Croatia, the Kyrgyz Republic, and North Macedonia emigrate.

Countries with the fewest college graduates have the highest emigration rates among them. Also a large part of graduates with secondary education emigrates to pursue higher studies abroad.

Of the 151,274 individuals aged 20-24 who migrated to the European Union from ECA countries in 2022, some 25,967 (17.2 percent) did so for education.

The World Bank points out that there are several factors that support the emigration of highly qualified workers. "Pull" factors include the proximity of the countries to the European Union, where the demand for skilled labor is strong.

While the "push" factors include limited job opportunities for some specialized professions in the countries of origin. The World Bank suggests that countries of origin should try to reduce the strength of the driving factors.

For example, increased wage competition and productivity in high-skill endangered occupations may help to weaken the incentives to emigrate.

Small countries like Albania can focus on the development of specific sectors, such as personal and health care and services for tourists, which can affect the inhibition of the educated.

The developed world now has many examples of how the education system should develop with the economy. For example, the educational systems in the US and the UK and developed European countries have adopted different approaches to integrating research, education and talent identification.

Historically, the United States and the United Kingdom have invested in research centers within universities, which have developed robust mechanisms for identifying and nurturing talent, often through competitive admissions processes and specialized programs that also offer scholarships.

Universities in these countries have strong links with industry, which provide opportunities to identify and develop talent through internships, co-operative education programs and industry-sponsored research projects.

The German system developed a dual structure in which universities focus on teaching and research on industrial developments. This model from several European and post-communist countries identified talent through performance in rigorous secondary education systems by identifying talents at an early stage./ Monitor