Nepal: a soon-to-be an 'Elderly Asylum'

A version of this article was published in print at the Op-Ed section of The Himalayan Times on 24th August 2016 on the title- Working Abroad: Contemporary Mindset.

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                                                                      PC: THT

If all productive manpower, given a chance, is going abroad to work or to study with a hidden motive to settle down, who is here to stay? The fear of our country turning into an elderly asylum may not be, hence, far-fetched idea anymore. 

Data suggest that Ministry of Education had issued over 29, 000 no objection certificates in the fiscal year 2014-15 alone. An estimate has it that about 80% of those receiving the certificates would go abroad for further studies. While studying over the trend, this fiscal year marks the record high number of the issuances, increasing in each consecutive year. 

The top three study destinations for the Nepalese youths constitute Japan, Australia and USA. Seeing the number of youngsters cramming in the preparatory institutions and the candidates taking appointments for the standardized tests months before clearly indicate that the craze of going abroad in student visa, which has been found to be relatively easy than others, is ever on the rise.

Similarly, labor migration is also increasing alarmingly. The labor permits issued in the fiscal year 2013-14 exceeded 5, 20, 000; the number definitely increases as the year passes. Current statistics suggests way more than 25% of total national economy is contributed by the remittances.

It is almost like there is not even a single household in the city area, irrespective of where, where at least one of the family members of which has not gone abroad apparently in the name of further study. By contrast, most of the rural households have at least one family members working abroad. The contemporary youth mindset is, thus, if you are eligible to study abroad, you will apply for student visa and fly; and if you are not, you go apply the working visa to the Gulf or Malaysia and fly. Either way, leaving the soil of motherland is the ultimate goal. The one who accepts all the challenges living here is eventually considered incapacitated for the global platform.

Life is not always a race, and we should walk out at our own pace with our own preset goal. For that, everyone does not have to go to a foreign land. One who wishes to live in his/her own country is not disabled or crippled. But these things are not explicitly comprehended by a cash loving society like ours. For example, let us imagine, you are a relatively settled professional with ‘acceptable-standard’ lifestyle here, and there is this another mediocre guy of your recognition, say a high school friend, who went abroad years back after not-so-good academic records but now flicks literally a sack of dollars to his family. Your father would grin and bear it in front of the parents of this very guy boasting over their son’s prowess. Nothing should be known about the donkey-work he endures illegal hours in the student visa. When they make a momentary return to the country they would splurge like dickens and there are onlookers who will look at you like a wretched guy struggling only to make ends meet. In the comparison your service to the own society where you were born, and your unique contribution to render national economy stay afloat is never brought in to the forefront. Where there is money, there is greatness. 

When all the people around you are playing the endless chain of imitation game—of mimicking others’ footsteps to earn money and presume it a success, you will surely be left alone in despair only to share the bleak prospect of staying and serving your own nation. And that’s when everything conspires you to stay online till wee hours lurking around websites to seek abroad opportunities. Or, it is not until late that your face will be among many familiar faces that regularly visits consultancies, which apparently guarantee you to let you fly overseas.

These days everything about abroad is charming, about here is unattractive. The example of which can be found in the names of today’s boarding schools. Is not it the destitute mentality of parents who compete to admit their children to a school whose name is an international brand? There is no affiliation at all to the international institute—in the name-dropping—but there is this charming English name taken from a place in California or wholly copied from a renowned college somewhere in the another part of the world. Generally, these are the schools which have students over quota. Moreover, starting from the kindergarten education, school does not care about Nepali language as if it were the most disgusting of all languages. These very toddlers are taught to speak like English, walk and eat like English, behave and do everything like English; so much so that Nepali language is,oftentimes, strictly prohibited giving a superficial impression to the children that it is like a crime to embrace mother tongue. In primary level there is hardly a book in Nepali, and parents bask in pride when their children speak like a Native American. So, from the start of the formal education to the university, the education offering institutions have been developed to be the production house of ‘export quality’ human resources.

"That means ‘diaspora’ will be a very common population phenomenon generation after generation, if we can’t rule out the underlying causes."

One is crazed to fly somewhere far and disappear forever rather than working or seeking work here. Youths, who have gone there to acclimatize to the new culture, wish to settle their family there. When they make vocational home visits—which is scarcely, of course—they cope very hard to adapt in our very own system, pollution and whatnot. Week lengthens like a year and shortly after that their duration of stay shortens with a good excuse. That means ‘diaspora’ will be a very common population phenomenon generation after generation, if we can’t rule out the underlying causes.

If all productive manpower, given a chance, is going abroad to work or to study with a hidden motive to settle down, who is here to stay? The fear of our country turning into an elderly asylum may not be, hence, far-fetched idea anymore.