The flight of human capital is a phenomenon that has been of concern to academics and development practitioners for decades but unfortunately, there is no systematic record of the number of skilled professionals that many African countries have continued to lose to the developed world. Termed the "brain drain", it represents the loss of highly skilled professionals from a source country to a recipient country. Kenyan higher education institutions for many years have seemed to operate on the assumption that there will always be people ready to join the institutions as academic staff hence no emphasis on retention. The situation has gradually changed in the last two decades as public higher education institutions in Kenya have continued to face a number of challenges with regard to numbers and quality of academic staff. This led the Ministry of Education-Kenya (2006) to advice the institutions to show more eagerness to recruit, develop and retain qualified academics. However, it is clear that these challenges have not been met. This paper critically examines the migration and brain drain in public higher education institutions in Kenya and its implications and suggests that the institutions should continue to explore strategies on how best to use the skills and experience of emigrant academics, and how to minimise their outflow. [For complete volume, see ED567040.]