VietNamNet Bridge – Analysts have been talking a lot lately about the so-called “domestic brain drain”, the movement of scientists leaving state-owned institutes for private companies.

Associate Professor Dr. Duong Van Chin, for example, the director of the Dinh Thanh Agriculture Research Center, an arm of the An Giang Plant Protection JSC, was a state employee in the past, working for the Mekong River Delta Rice Institute.

Chin declined to reveal the salary he received in the past as the deputy head of the institute and the pay he receives now for his current job.

However, he says businesses always pay more to scientists than the state-owned research institutes.

Chin said he was the specialist who brought Vietnamese rice varieties to Africa. He made many trips to the continent, either at the invitation of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), or foreign groups, or per the request by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).

“I did this as assigned by the State, because I was a state employee. But now I only work on research projects which are believed to bring benefit in reality,” he said.

“We conduct research now not to put our works in mothballs,” he added, explaining the difference between his two jobs.

According to Chin, there are two kinds of employees in society – civil servants and employees at private businesses.

In Vietnam, civil servants account for 10 percent of the population, while the proportion is just one percent in South Korea.

“The number of workers receiving salaries from the state budget is too high. As a result, the pay for every worker is modest,” he said.

“Therefore, don’t criticize the scientists who leave state-owned agencies,” he said when asked about the “domestic brain drain”.

A human resource development expert, who asked to be anonymous, commented that the state should not try to retain experienced specialists if it cannot treat them well.

“Let them (the specialists) go. I share the same view with Chin,” he said. “They will still serve the country’s development, no matter where they work, for state-owned institutes, or private companies. Private businesses should be encouraged, because they also create assets and pay taxes to the state.”

What does “treating scientists well” mean?

Chin described how scientists are rewarded for their scientific works. His company, when using rice varieties created by the Mekong River Delta for commercial development, has to pay VND200 per kilo of seeds as a royalty.

However, the money is nothing if compared with the efforts the scientists had to make to create new varieties.

Meanwhile, the majority of seed trading companies do not have the habit of paying royalties to scientists.

Dat Viet