sundaymorningstaple wrote:Frankly, I think both are false reasons for returning. I believe most that do return because they just cannot hack it overseas. They are used to the gahment molly-coddling them but it a lot more difficult when you have to do the thinking yourself. They are intelligent and do well overseas, but I think it's too stressful for them to have to do all their own thinking outside of the workplace as well.
Generally agreed. But I think it is a parsed issue.
Those who attend 1st world universities abroad, either have an epiphany and 'see the light' of opportunity abroad and take it, or they do or don't see it and decide to return to the 'secure fishbowl' that is Singapore.
I've written previously of my first hand encounters with 'Contact Singapore' abroad. Which is, not to put too fine a point on it, a generously budgeted government department that operates abroad, tasked with persuading those expat SGns with the skills and cojones to leave [aka 'quit'], to return home.
The irony is that those with the wherewithal to 'quit', are precisely the kind of people the government need for the future plans of this country.
p.s. Finding other than the highly disparaging and condescending term 'quitter' to pin on them might be a good start, and such a tag points to the cultural basis of precisely why many 'talents' choose to make their lives elsewhere. I mean if you were educated, skilled, and global, why would you opt to return to somewhere where the government [no less] and society lable you thus? QED.