Although her choice and tolerance of me as a marital partner may to some cast some slight shadow of doubt over her mental powers, my wife is, like a great many Malaysians I know, highly intelligent.

She's extremely industrious, too, having studied for years in Australia for a bachelor's degree and then a post-graduate degree, and she recently completed her master's programme by distance education.

Two years ago she brought her qualifications and teaching skills back to Malaysia with hopes of contributing to her homeland in the fields in which she specialises, multimedia and international education.

Her first job was as a lecturer in an institution billing itself a 'university college', whatever that means in Malaysia. In the UK and Australia, it is a residential institution that's part of a university. In Malaysia it seems to be a college with pretensions or ambitions above the reach of its faculty and facilities. Or so the one my wife lectured at turned out to be.

Many of the lecturers were under-qualified for their roles and ill-paid, poorly-regarded and shabbily treated by the management. And the bulk of the students were the offspring of the Malaysian and third-world rich, many of whom considered the world owed them a living or at least a qualification. The establishment pandered to this sense of privilege by pressuring academic staff to pass even those with at best marginal marks.

My wife, who happens to be as strong on integrity as intelligence and industry, refused to kow tow to this and a good many other aspects of the so-called university college regime. After two stormy semesters, her services were abruptly terminated.

This merciful release from a sharp lesson in life at a Malaysian tertiary educational institution freed her to seek other teaching opportunities, and she eventually found one at a Malaysian-owned international school. This seemed more promising, as it featured both an overseas syllabus and a largely expatriate staff.

Despite her overseas qualifications and experience, however, she was classified as a "local hire" and thus not entitled to many of the benefits her fully-imported colleagues enjoyed.

This and the fact that the school did not have the need or budget to employ her full-time left her perennially short of money. The resultant financial pressure, together with some other frustrations too complex and tedious to bore you with, eventually got the better of her naturally sunny disposition and rendered her extremely depressed.

Money over mind

So did life in Malaysia in general, as I couldn't help noticing. I felt somewhat guilty about this, as when I met her here all those years ago she had been the original irrepressible spirit, capable of blithely shrugging off, like a good many Malaysians evidently and even enviably can, the parlous state of the nation's public affairs.

But on her return this time around, perhaps partly due to my pernicious influence, she started doing something she had wisely and scrupulously avoided in the past: reading what passes here for newspapers. And predictably, she found their sordid blend of silence and spin as disgusting, enraging and ultimately alienating as so many of us do.

Not that she needed the press to depress her, as the country's political system of secrecy, deception, corruption, injustice, racism and religionism have turned out to be even more vividly evident than when she had vacated the scene seven years earlier.

The deficiencies of the public education system seem as dire as ever too, especially the tertiary system, in which countless numbers of students are struggling, partly as a result of Dr M's decision a decade or two ago to dump English as the primary language of instruction in schools.

The present prime minister talks a great deal about the nation's need for more "intellectual capital", but the irony is that as long as he and his party are in power, the cream of the crop will keep either sinking into politically-induced, media-faciliated torpor or choose to keep their wits about them by vanishing into intellectual exile. Like my wife has her heart and mind set on doing again just as soon as she can arrange it, and this time, I fancy, forever.

"Good riddance", I can hear advocates of the 'Malaysia, love it or leave it' school of thought cry, "we have so many more bright people here we won't miss her."

And of course they're entitled to their opinion. But also, by definition, their opinion is also likely to be less and less informed and intelligent by the day, as the country's IQ keeps falling steadily as thousands of brains go gurgling down the drain.

And the cortex vortex, far from slowing down, has picked up speed in recent months, following racially-threatening scenes at last year's Umno general assembly, starring the education minister, of all people, as one of the principal keris-wavers.

Let's not overstate the impact of this intellectual exodus, however. Lots of very bright Malaysians wouldn't dream of leaving their beloved country, a great many return after their studies overseas, and those who do choose to depart permanently are quickly replaced by brainy expatriates from around Asia and elsewhere in the world.

In any event, maybe it's not so much a matter of brain drain or gain as money over mind. After all, what's the point in worrying about intelligence, education and training when you can achieve a 'space programme' by purchasing tickets to ride on a Russian rocket; or 'develop' a 'miracle' Malaysian Microchip by the simple expedient of buying and re-branding second-hand Japanese technology?