A WORLD Bank study says that the Caribbean is among small developing countries that are losing a staggering number of their university educated workers to wealthy nations. The study, released earlier this week, documents what is considered to be a disturbing pattern of 'brain drain' - the flight of skilled middle-class workers who could assist in lifting their countries out of poverty. Economists warn that such migration plays a significant role in a country's development. The findings of the study are based on a broad survey of census and other data from the 30 countries in the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which includes most of the world's wealthiest countries. CAUSE FOR CONCERN The World Bank study found that from a quarter to almost half of the university educated nationals in poor countries across Africa, Central America and the Caribbean live abroad in an OECD country, with Jamaica and Haiti recording figures as high as 80 per cent. "For a country with a third of its graduates missing, one has to worry," said Alan Winters, director of the World Bank's development research group. The study, published in a book, International Migration, Remittances and the Brain Drain, also analyses the effect of the money migrants send home, typically to their families. REMITTANCES The study says that those transmittals, known as remittances, help to reduce poverty in the region and are a broader source of foreign exchange. Most experts say the exodus of skilled workers from poor, developing countries is symptomatic of deep economic, social and political problems at home, which can prove particularly crippling in health care and education. Some scholars are questioning whether the brain drain may also be fuelling a vicious downward spiral of underdevelopment. Davesh Kapur and John McHale argue in their book, Give Us Your Best and Brightest, published last week, that the loss of institution can help trap countries in poverty. "It's not just the loss of professionals," said Kapur, a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin, "it's also the loss of a middle class." Reprinted from jamaica-gleaner.com