Some positive news…
By Saad Shafqat
Indeed, the most educated immigrants to the US are now coming from Asia. According to the US Census Bureau, an Asian-born immigrant is twice as likely to have an advanced degree (master’s or higher) compared to the general American population. It is a crippling demographic haemorrhage in which developing countries lose the very people from whom they stand to benefit the most.
Interestingly, though, this is not true for all professionals. Despite great opportunities in the US, a small minority of qualified individuals do nevertheless return to a life in their native countries. It is happening quite a bit next door in India, where it contributes to a burgeoning middle-class prosperity, but it is also happening in Pakistan.
Nestled along the banks of the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard Business School stands at the top of the world’s business and management academia. Every year it graduates around 900 MBAs, all snapped up by six-figure salaries in corporate America. On an average, these graduates include two to three Pakistanis every year. One such graduate is NK, a Karachiite who left for the US after A-levels and eventually found his way into Harvard Business School. After getting his MBA, NK followed the pack, accepted an offer in corporate America, and stayed there for several years. Now, however, he wants to move back and has started searching for the right job in Pakistan to return to.
“I want to return because of my parents and family attachments,” he says, “and also because I feel I could have a comfortable and satisfying life back in Pakistan,” says NK who is very clear that most professionals would return to Pakistan if they could, but some perennial issues keep them away. Foremost in his opinion is security for one’s life, family and property which, although a risk in the US as well, is perceived to be a bigger risk here in Pakistan. “It doesn’t matter what the reality is,” he observes, “because on an issue like security, perception is the reality.”
The other nagging apprehension is proper recognition of merit. It is unsettling to think that one’s work environment could be anything less than meritorious, but there is a feeling that enterprises in Pakistan - both in the private as well as public sectors - may reward personal connections and political lobbying that have nothing to do with individual merit or performance.
Someone whose example could perhaps allay some of these anxieties is Usman Mobin, chief technology officer of NADRA (National Database and Registration Authority), the government agency responsible for developing our national database and cataloguing infrastructure.
After completing A-levels from Lahore, Usman won a scholarship to MIT, arguably the world’s premier engineering institution, where he obtained a bachelor’s and then a master’s degree in Computer Science. In early 2002 he was offered a job with NADRA, which he accepted, though with some trepidation.
“I was delighted at the opportunity to return home to Pakistan, but I was also apprehensive that I was undertaking a government assignment and I would not be able to deliver unless I was properly empowered,” he recalls. So how has it been so far? “Much better than expected,” replies Usman enthusiastically. Now living and working in Islamabad, he says he is very satisfied with the resources and authority he was given, and it has helped greatly in accomplishing the tasks expected of him.
Usman admits that in his days at MIT he never had it in mind to return to Pakistan. Like everyone else in his situation, he had fully expected to settle down in the US. He gives credit to Brigadier Saleem Moeen, the NADRA chief, for luring him back to Pakistan and empowering him with the right tools and the proper degree of work freedom.
Perhaps more than any other, it is the medical profession that enjoys the comforts of American living in the greatest numbers. It is, in fact, one of the easiest ways to settle in the US, and everyone knows it. Every year hundreds of Pakistani medical graduates successfully negotiate the American medical qualifying examination USMLE and secure postgraduate (residency) training positions in US hospitals.
There continues to be great demand for doctors in the US and rewarding jobs are waiting for every residency graduate. America’s overwhelming lure for doctors can be deduced from bare numbers. Of the hundreds of Pakistani doctors who find work in America every year, the ones who return can be counted on fingertips.
Dr Mahnaz Shah, who recently joined a leading hospital in Karachi as an eye specialist after training and working over a fourteen-year period in America, has every attribute to suggest she would have settled into a fine life in the US. After A-levels in Karachi, Mahnaz earned a bachelor’s degree from Rice University in Houston and then an MD from Baylor College of Medicine. Thereafter she landed a postgraduate training spot in ophthalmology, which is a highly competitive specialty. It was enough to fetch her a generous private-practice job and a plush residence in an upscale Houston neighbourhood. So why did she return?
“I came back to Pakistan because it is home. This is where my family is and this is where I want my children to grow up,” says Mahnaz, who is disarmingly down-to-earth despite her list of accomplishments. When asked if the move might represent a compromise in professional terms, Mahnaz was ready with a counterpoint. “On the contrary, I think it is possible for me to accomplish more here in Pakistan than in the US. There is the opportunity to be more productive, to try and make a bigger difference,” she says.
But it can hardly be all about having the right job to return to because, undoubtedly, the jobs in America are better. Dr Arif Amir Nawaz is someone who returned home to Lahore even though he had no job to come back to, let alone the job of his choice. “The important thing for me was to be home and to be with my family,” says Arif, who had left Pakistan soon after his MBBS and had gone on to specialize and work as a gastroenterologist in New York, spending a total of ten years abroad.