In 1986, the World Bank invited African VC's to Harare. It told them that it had decided that Africa was better off without universities, and so the VC's were asked to shut down their institutions so that education money could go to primary schools.

That wasn't going to work. VC's were not going to work themselves out of a job (one wonders why the World Bank didn't give that work to African presidents). Anyway, knowing that, World Bank devised another tactic. It attached conditions to funding.

Universities had to accept foreign faculty as expatriates, and "technical aid" consisted of sponsoring African PhD students to study abroad. In some African countries, up to 50% of those students didn't return. Of course. Where would they return to? Most countries ranged 30-50%.

That's how brain drain started. What began as a World Bank policy has now become a GoK one. Send skilled and unskilled labor abroad. Doctors. Nurses. Fundis. Domestic workers. Maritime workers. Anybody. Even TVET graduates. twitter.com/wmnjoya/status…