TurkStat releases brain drain statistics for 2024
The Turkish Statistical Institute (TurkStat) has released the 2024 edition of its "Higher Education Brain Drain Statistics" bulletin, showing the rate of brain drain among university graduates remained unchanged at 2% compared to the previous year.
The data revealed that the brain drain rate stood at 1.6% among women and 2.4% among men.
Among state university graduates, the brain drain rate held steady at 1.7%, while it slightly declined from 4.5% to 4.3% for graduates of foundation universities. Within the latter group, those who studied on full scholarships had the highest brain drain rate at 8.3%.
By field of study, graduates of information and communication technologies led with a brain drain rate of 6.7%, followed by engineering, manufacturing and construction at 4.4%, and natural sciences, mathematics and statistics at 2.7%.
At the program level, the highest rates were recorded in molecular biology and genetics (15%), business engineering (10.8%), electronics engineering (9.6%), mathematics engineering (9.5%), and bioengineering (9.4%).
The top three destination countries for graduates were the US (19.6%), Germany (19.4%), and the UK (11.3%).
Among those moving to the US, most came from electrical and electronics engineering programs, while computer engineering graduates favored Germany and the UK.
When sorted by language of instruction, French-speaking graduates had the highest brain drain rate at 9.9%, followed by English, German, and Russian instruction. (NÖ/VK)
