By Muzaffar Syah Mallow
For many years, the government has persistently tried its best to bring back highly skilled and experienced Malaysian workers from abroad through the Returning Expert Programme (REP).
At the same time, it could consider initiating another sort of programme with the main objective of retaining current skilled Malaysian workers from going abroad in the first place.
The REP was originally introduced way back in 2001 with the aim of encouraging Malaysians abroad with expertise in selected priority sectors to return and work in Malaysia to contribute skill sets and experiences towards the development of the country.
With the inception of the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) in October 2010, the programme has evolved and is now under the purview of TalentCorp.
The new proposed initiative could be called the Retaining Expert Programme, with the aim of retaining, as much as possible, many skilled local workers within the country from going away or migrating to other countries.
Beyond doubt, there are currently many highly educated, well experienced and hardworking skilled workers within the country who deserve similar attention as given to the skilled Malaysian workers abroad.
The time has come for our nation to give recognition to these skilled local workers, who have the potential to develop our economy and contribute a lot to our own society.
It would be very sad to see all these local skilled workers moving away to other countries or being lured by jobs in other countries while their expertise and intelligence is badly needed in our own country.
As the country moves forward to become a high income nation, with so many national ambitions ahead like the National Transformation Programme 2050 (TN50), the government needs to seriously study this proposed plan by examining all the contributing factors which drive our local skilled workers to go abroad, and identify ways and steps to retain them locally.
Muzaffar Syah Mallow is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Syariah & Law, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia.
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