Although they do hope that things will get better in Romania,
few of them actually want to return now, “with the definite purpose
of changing things for the better in Romania,” as one of them
says.
Mihai Dudu]= is a student of one of the best universities in the
world, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He has a
full scholarship, works in the campus, in research; he is a member
of the schoolís dance team and wins invention contests.
He has a promising future and is happy with his life as it is now.
Would he be willing to return to Romania? “No. I am not tempted to
go back to my country. I for one want to become as good as I can in
what I do and I would not have the resources for that in Romania.”
This is his answer and the answer of many other Romanians, either
students or people who completed their education abroad and chose
to stay there.
Both the business community and the government want to find
leverage to make experts trained abroad return home. The problems,
however, come up when trying to figure out what positions could be
given to these young people upon their return. The state granted
approximately 150 Special Scholarships of the Romanian Government
(BSGR) from 2004 through 2007, with 100 students completing the
programme already. To qualify for the scholarship, the students
were required to return to Romania to take management positions in
the public sector for three to five years. Only a mere 20 students
are working in the local public sector for the time being, and such
scholarships have not been very tempting for Dudu]= or for the
friends he talked with, either. That is because, he believes, it is
hard to choose what you want to do between 22 and 28 when you are
18.
Andrei Caramitru, managing partner of the local office of
consultancy firm McKinsey, pointed out in a previous conversation
with BUSINESS Magazin that attracting Romanian elites from abroad
is a joint responsibility, of the state and private companies. As
far as the latter are concerned, they not only do not try to get
such a graduate, but most of them, except for multinationals, do
not even realise how important such a thing is.
The consultant said that what is essential for education is the
cooperation between the public and the private sectors, using the
Canadian or Swiss model (Caramitru went to college in Switzerland
and lived there for 13 years), where the government thoroughly
researches what fields need personnel, disseminates the data to the
educational system and always adjusts supply to meet demand. To do
that, however, Caramitru went on, we would require more practical
and vocational schools, which could supply personnel exactly where
the economy needs it.
In some cases, though, the need to recruit staff for a specific
company leads to greater initiatives. In August, the Dinu Patriciu
Foundation and the League of Romanian Students Abroad launched the
joburilaorizont.ro project in order to get Romanian graduates
abroad to come home. The foundation has been granting 100
scholarships worth 15,000 dollars for master or doctoral studies
abroad every year since 2008.
The students are bound to come back and work in Romania either in
the public or the private sector for a period equal to that spent
studying. This year 32 students who got a scholarship are expected
to come back until December. Out of them, says Tincu]a Baltag, the
general manager of the foundation, 16 have already returned and
some have even managed to get a job with multinational companies.
“One of them informed us he would start his own business, which
will create several tens of jobs,” Baltag says.