I know Malaysia is facing this “brain drain” problem and I’ve never gave it much thought. Of course, my Malaysian friend who’s going to get her Ph.D. from Harvard soon, would not return to Malaysia. And there are numerous Malaysians who would/could not return due to various reasons. But the brain drain issue really hit me today.

I was at a colloquium today, two Singaporeans, an associate professor and his doctoral student in special education, were here to share about the Reconstruction of Teacher Education in Singapore. They were talking about how Singapore is moving towards being an inclusive society and is setting aside a large sum of money to fund “inclusive” special education. Teacher training program in Singapore now includes a short 12 hour training on special education and disabilities. It is great but then Singapore is a smaller and richer nation, unlike Malaysia.

Anyway, the colloquium ended and I managed to talk to the two Singaporean speakers. And guess what? Both of them were/are Malaysians (KL-people) working in Singapore. Because of the vast opportunities offered by our neighbor, they are now working towards changing mindsets/beliefs/attitudes of teachers about individuals with disabilities, but in Singapore.

It never dawned on me that special education in Malaysia would be affected by brain drain. I just assumed that not many people were interested in this area. Now I realized that they are Malaysians specializing in this area, but it is our neighbor who’s gaining from their specialties. By the way, I was invited to join them when I’m done here. If local universities (or the government) would not hang on to or attract top Malaysian brains in high profile areas like economics or engineering, I doubt they care about hiring good people in special education.

But what about the special needs population in Malaysia?