An Examination of Academically Successful Secondary School Students’ Aspirations with Regard to Potential Human Capital Flight (Brain Drain)

Abstract

The main goal of this study is to determine the extent to which academically successful students studying in secondary schools in Turkey that only accept students scoring in extremely high (94th-99th) percentile on standardized tests harbor intentions to emigrate from Turkey in the future. In addition, a secondary goal is to examine why they intend to carry out the various academic work, scientific work, cutting-edge technological research, and/or plans, patents, and discoveries related to R & D that they have already designed or plan to do in the future in different countries, i.e. why they intend to emigrate. The study was designed in accordance with qualitative research methods; three different groups were defined in order to obtain three sets of data. The first set of data was collected from 40 students from a school in Ankara that only accepts students who score in the 99th percentile or higher on the LYS-TEOG [LYS=Undergraduate Placement Exam; TEOG= Transition From Primary to Secondary Education Exam), the second set of data was obtained from a total of 98 students from a school that accepts students whose scores range from the 97th to the 99th percentile on the LYS-TEOG, and the third and final set of data was collected from a total of 56 students from a different school, one that accepts students whose scores range from the 94th to the 96th percentile on the LYS-TEOG. NVIVO 11, a qualitative data analysis computer software package, was used during the analysis of the findings; content analysis was the preferred research method. The findings of the study indicate that a large percentage of the most academically successful students in Turkey intend to emigrate as a direct result of the lack of trust in their own country, non-merit-based hiring standards & administrative decisions, the perception that science and research are not highly valued in Turkey, and concerns over the lack of support for workers and researchers alike.

Keywords

• Human capital flight,Brain drain,Research & development (R&D)

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