Professors on $30 a month flee abroad for better jobs

Venezuela has already lost many of its brightest young professionals to better paying jobs in more stable countries, and now the South American country is also losing the professors who trained them, writes Jorge Rueda for Associated Press.

College professors in this socialist country plagued by a cash crunch, shortages and spiralling inflation are abandoning their jobs in droves, unable or unwilling to survive on salaries as minuscule as US$30 per month at the widely used black market exchange rate.

Hundreds of professors have given up their posts in recent years, and the pace is accelerating, according to the teachers' union. More than 700 of the 4,000 professors who once taught at the highly respected Central University of Venezuela in Caracas have quit during the last four years, some taking better paying jobs in other fields inside the country while others have been lured to more attractive academic posts at universities abroad.
Full report on the US News & World Report site