Mike's Minute: Why our top achievers are leaving

I always find it amusing when officialdom is confused, and they seem confused, as to why so many of our brightest minds have bailed and gone off overseas. 

This is the group of top achievers at NCEA level and the ones with international qualifications. 

More of them than ever have left the country. Officialdom here doesn’t know if they are enrolled offshore or, and here is the critical point, why they left. 

Fortunately, I can help. Well, at least a bit. 

We had one leave the country to go off and study. We have a niece currently studying offshore and we also have a nephew who left, studied and graduated last year. 

They were, or are, all bright and all got top marks, and here is officialdom's answer: all wanted to get the hell out of here. 

Studying at an overseas university has become a “thing”. 

In one way it is no different to the vast swathes of other New Zealanders who set records exiting in the past few years. 

In simple terms, the brighter you are the more prospects you have. Part of your brain power and academic success will have led you to the realisation that there is a big world out there with a lot of opportunities and you want a slice of this action. 

Anecdotally, as regards higher study post-secondary school, I can tell you the amount of Māori indoctrination at high school these days is not just absurd, but counter productive. 

I know it isn't PC to say so and I know it's not scientifically fact-based. But I know what kids tell me and even in this current generation, which is far more willing and open to this type of bilingual Māori-based approach to learning, by the time you have had five years of it, you are done. 

What they failed to grip when they went hell for leather, and this applies to broader life in New Zealand ranging from Māori names of Government departments to news greetings on the TV at night, is if you over-egg it, you get push back, which is where we are right now. 

But I think there also must be some acceptance that as a small, insular country at the bottom of the world, when times are tough the world remains shiny and brains gets you access. 

I would have once said that most come home. 

But I look at our wider family and I'm not sure that’s actually true anymore. 

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