German chemistry graduates were in high demand on the job market, so East African students like Shalier'an being snapped up by German companies was not an isolated case, but a widespread phenomenon.
Germany's chemical industry had not actually gotten off to an especially early start. Most of it had only emerged after the 1860s and 1870s, while the rise of Germany's chemical industry itself had occurred only in recent years. The widespread entry of German higher education into the chemical industry had likewise only begun after the 1870s.
Thus, education in Germany's chemical field had in fact lagged behind the development of the chemical industry, creating a situation in the talent market where demand exceeded supply.
At this time, German chemical companies set their sights on the vast population of East African overseas students. East Africans currently made up the largest group of foreign students in Germany, especially after the 1880s, when more than four thousand East African students traveled to Germany each year.
By comparison, Japan sent only a little over a thousand students to Europe and America during the same period, only just surpassing two thousand by 1890.
And that was merely the number of East African students in Germany. Including those in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Sweden, France, the Netherlands, and elsewhere, the number of East African overseas students alone surpassed ten thousand in 1892, while East Africa itself had only a little over seven thousand university students.
In other words, most of East Africa's higher education was achieved with the help of foreign higher education. There was no helping it: East African higher education talents capable of serving as faculty were, in this era, top elites in any country without exception.
Meanwhile, the number of university students enrolled in Germany had already surpassed thirty thousand, not including