Cost Of Youth Exodus

Each year, as thousands of young Nepalis pack their bags and board planes to foreign lands, we clap them on the back and say, “Best of luck!” But beneath the smiles and well-wishes, there’s an uneasy silence. One that grows louder with every departure. What we’re witnessing isn’t just a wave of students seeking better education or professionals chasing global careers; it’s a slow, steady bleed of potential. And it should worry us all.

Let’s be honest, no one leaves home for no reason. The root causes of this exodus are deeply familiar: lack of economic opportunities, political instability, poor governance, and a general disillusionment with the system. Our youth aren’t just seeking greener pastures, they’re escaping a landscape where their dreams are choked before they even take root.

According to recent data, over 700,000 students have received no-objection letters from Nepal's Ministry of Education in the past decade alone. That’s not just a statistic, it’s a generation choosing not to build their future here. And what happens when they don’t come back? We lose more than just their skills or tax contributions. We lose innovators, leaders, teachers, and thinkers. We lose the very people who could shape a better Nepal.

Yes, remittances keep our economy afloat. They’re a financial lifeline. But that comes at a cost we rarely talk about. Families grow apart. Parents age without their children beside them. Communities hollow out. And the country itself becomes dependent on an external economy that it cannot control.

There’s also a dangerous shift in the national psyche, a belief that success lies only beyond Nepal’s borders. This mindset is infectious. It seeps into classrooms, into families, into government policy itself. Instead of fixing broken systems, we adapt to their failure. Instead of reforming education, we build consultancies. Instead of generating jobs, we export our people.

But what if we looked at this differently? What if we saw our youth not as temporary citizens, but as the foundation of the future? The government needs to act, of course, with real investment in education, entrepreneurship, research, and innovation. But so do us, as a society. We need to create space for young people to dream here, not just in Melbourne or Toronto.

I’ve met brilliant Nepalis working in labs in Europe, teaching in American universities, designing in Tokyo, coding in Silicon Valley. They left because they didn’t feel seen, supported, or valued at home. And until we change that, structurally, culturally, emotionally, the flights will keep taking off.

Brain drain isn’t just an economic issue. It’s a crisis of faith. And it’s time we asked ourselves the hard question: Are we building a country our young people want to return to? Or are we just waving them goodbye, hoping that their success abroad will somehow substitute for our failure at home?

Because if we keep losing the best of us, what will be left?