‘Brain Drain’ Seen As Brake On National Development

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31786, 17 September 1968, Page 7

‘Brain Drain’ Seen As Brake On National Development

If New Zealand continued to lose skilled manpower at the present rate, the projected rise in living standards, outlined at the first meeting of the National Development Conference, would be unobtainable, said Professor lan McDougall, national president of the Association of University Teachers, in an address to staff and students at the University of Cantei--bury yesterday.

Professor McDougall, who is head of economics at Massey University, said the denial that there was a “brain drain,” made by the Minister of Finance (Mr Muldoon), was demonstrably false.

In the year ended March, 1967, there had been the normal net inflow of some 350 skilled people who held university degrees or other professional qualifications. The situation for this year displayed a disturbing net outflow of 294 of these qualified people upon whom the economic health of this country was so vitally dependent, he said.

Those groups in which there was a net loss included architects, engineers, chemists, physicists, geologists, professional medical workers, teachers of all kind, lawyers and technicians. “The country can ill-afford to train, let alone to lose the future contribution of these people to our national output,” said the professor.

“The situation is, moreover, worse than that described by the statistics because the departure figures do not include New Zealand graduates departing to undertake further study abroad; they do include such people when they reenter New Zealand as trained personnel” Staffing “Critical” Professor McDougall said the staffing position in the universities could only be described as critical. “Never have our universities been in such an unfavourable position in recruiting or retaining staff.” Conditions of appointment relating to housing, superannuation and research were considerably more attractive in those countries with which we must compete for staff. Salary comparisons were ludicrous. For example, a New Zealand university lecturer could increase his income by over 80 per cent if he were to migrate to Australia. Current statistics showed “a deepening crisis of confidence” among university staff. In the last five years the expanding demands made upon the university system required an increase in university staff of approximately 130 teachers a year. Until last year, when devaluation and large salary increases overseas made New Zealand conditions so unattractive, about 50 of this annual requirement had to be recruited from abroad because, of our inability to supply sufficient qualified teachers. Since last July, however, there was evidence to show that New Zealand universities had not only failed to attract overseas staff but had incurred a net loss

of some 35 staff members which could only be attributed to the lamentable disparity in conditions of employment here and abroad. Quality Questioned

Given the conservative estimate of the Department of Education that the university population would double in the next decade, one could only wonder where the teachers would be found to provide the staff for the necessary expansion. Part-time and inferior-quality appointments were being made and it could take a generation to eradicate the effects of these poor quality appointments. Professor McDougall said that, by its very failure to announce a decision about the university staffing problem, the Government was by default, condemning a future generation of New Zealanders to a third-rate university system. The time was fast approaching when his association would have to advise its members that there was a complete lack of confidence in the ability and willingness of the University Salaries’ Committee and the Government to confront the situation. “When that time comes we shall have no alternative but to tell our members to seek elsewhere for future career prospects,” he said. The Government had, unofficially, given two reasons for its failure to deal with the current situation. Mr Muldoon had stressed the inability of the country in its

present economic circumstances to pay higher salaries for skilled personnel, including university staff. This was nonsense compared with that of a farmer who, when his land was being eroded, refused the expenditure necessary to check the erosion. Did the Minister contend that skilled people, relatively poorly paid, contributed less to production than their counterparts in advanced and less advanced economies overseas? "Iniquitous” Contention The second line of argument advanced recently by the Minister of Labour, Mr Shand, in a “Compass” programme, was equally nonsensical. Mr Shand claimed that a stretching of the salary structure would endanger the goal of a fairly equal distribution of the national income. This contention was iniquitous because the vast majority of salaries in New Zealand were determined by market prices which reflected the contribution of the individual concerned to the national output. The farmer, for instance, was paid what his produce fetched him on the market So too was the newspaper proprietor, the artist or the labourer. Why, therefore, should those people in the public sector of New Zealand ijiiquitously be singled out and their salaries held below market value in the name of egalitarian principles? Surely a reasonable

distribution of the national income was best achieved by our progressive income tax system and not by this blatant discrimination against one particular group in our society. Spending On Education Professor McDougall said the Minister of Finance should cease to make “grossly inaccurate comparisons” about the cost of educating ,students in New Zealand and overseas in an attempt to restrict the rate of increase in expenditure upon education, lest in ignorance “he do untold damage to the economic growth prospects of our society.” Mr Muldoon should realise that the share of national income allocated to education in New Zealand was low by the standards of most advanced economies. Naturally, if Mr Muldoon started from a low base he could show a high rate of increase in expenditure on education. “What we need remember, however, is that we spend less than 4 per cent of our national income upon education whereas countries such as the United States, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, etc., spend 6 per cent or more and are planning to allocate even more resources in future to investment in education because of the importance of this type of expenditure for their prospects of economic growth,” said Professor McDougall.