Malta is one of the most brain drained countries in Europe. This is reflected clearly on the University of Malta’s poor ranking amongst the 2000 Higher Education institutions, only placing in the 1,762nd position.
So what’s causing this?
– The salaries for professional occupations such as medical doctors can be as high as three times as Malta’s rates, so a lot of our country’s top talent prefer to leave and go work elsewhere. Leaving Malta with a pool of lower ability professionals to choose from.
– A poor education system all round: Malta experiences a very high rate of secondary school drop outs, which means that the university has a very narrow choice of talent to recruit to lecture, administer and learn at its faculty.
– Nepotism has become part of our culture, and it’s also present in our university. Staff recruitment is often hindered as it is reserved for family and friends of already existing staff or politicians.
Do you believe that there are more factors that are causing Malta’s brain drain? How do we tackle it?