Opportunities for NMI scholars

At Issue: The steady and quiet exit of the brain drain train from paradise needs revisiting, now.

Our View: Must create promising opportunities for young Marianas talents after college graduation.

In the last three decades, we’ve spent millions of dollars sending our young scholars to colleges and universities on Guam, Hawaii and US mainland.
Successful students return home to work in either the private or public sector. Others have found better and far more promising job opportunities after pomp and circumstance. Such a decision translates into what’s known as the “brain drain”.
Perhaps there’s a need to revisit whether current goals have missed the point altogether . Otherwise, our investments in secondary education would be loss and the gain of states where educated indigenous students decide to live.
Central to this issue is whether in fact we have come to grasp the need for proactive wealth and jobs creation for returning college students. If so, leadership must demonstrate a track record of success in this area. If not, leadership must buckle down to the task of wealth and jobs creation. Otherwise, all our efforts on secondary education would only fuel the worsening brain drain syndrome.
The re-examination of our scholarship program ought to include an analysis of percentage of graduates who work for both sectors and why. For those who opt to return, are there opportunities for continuing education and training so they keep up with the latest innovations in their specific field of endeavor? Or is this simply a shut door today?
To illustrate a point, we happened upon a Neo-Natal X-ray supervisor at UCLA Medical Center who is, believe it or not, from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. He once x-rayed people here at the old Dr. Torres Hospital. He moved on for more training in his field of specialty. He’s learned how to operate the CT Scan machine and he was on his way to learning Magnetic Resonance Imaging, a more sophisticated x-ray machine than CT Scan. His complaint? Lack of meaningful employment and continuing education opportunities right here paradise. It’s a gain for UCLA Medical Center, a loss for CHC.
It is for this reason that we strongly recommend revisiting our scholarship program to re-examine our long-term goals in education. At the same time, we need to explore to the hilt wealth and jobs creation. It’s the only way to grant young NMI scholars meaningful roles in the Northern Marianas Community. Si Yuus Maase`!