Education for scientific professions in the poor countries

Media

Part of Panorama

Title: Education for scientific professions in the poor countries
Creator: Lewis, W. Arthur
Language: English
Source: Volume XV (Issue No.7) July 1963
Year: 1963
Subject: Professional education -- Philippines; Medical education; Developing countries; Higher education standards
Rights
Abstract: A grave problem the Philippines shares with the rest of the have-nots in the world.
Fulltext: ■ A grave problem the Philippines shares with the rest of the have-nots in the world. EDUCATION FOR SCIENTIFIC PROFESSIONS IN THE POOR COUNTRIES W. Arthur Lewis The poor countries need three types of persons train ed scientifically beyond the high-school level: technicians, basic scientists, and profes sionals. By professionals we mean those trained in agricul ture, medicine, dentistry, ve terinary science, engineering, architecture and similar arts. Such courses of education have this in common, that they borrow materials from a number of basic sciences, which they use as a founda tion for specialized work. This raises a number of pro blems, to which this paper is devoted. The capacity of a country to absorb university gradu ates is an index of its dev elopment. If we take gradu ates in all subjects, includ ing the humanities, the ab sorptive capacity measured in terms of the annual in take of> graduates seems to range from as low as 20 to as high as 3,000 per million inhabitants. Frederick H. Harbison has recently assess ed the absorptive capacity of Nigeria at 50 million; in re cent guesses for the West Indies, I have been using a figure of 300 per million. The concept of absorptive capacity is not a precise one however. As the number of graduates increases, the pos session of a degree becomes a condition for jobs for which it was not previously required, for example, in agricultural extension, den tistry, or teaching in high schools. Also, the gap be tween the salaries of gradu ates and non-graduates dimi nishes as graduates become available for more types of July 31 jobs. In other words, the absorptive capacity increases pari passu with the supply of graduates and cannot be de termined independently. It may still be possible to pro duce from historical or con temporary data a curve relat ing the absorption of gradu ates per million inhabitants to the per-capita national in come, but this has not yet been done. All one can say at present is that, in the sense there are vacant jobs, in nearly every poor country, there is a short age of persons trained in the scientific professions. This is all one needs to. say. Most poor countries could substan tially increase their output of professionals without any danger of the supply exceed ing the absorptive capacity during the next two decades. In the United States a number of universities consider that professional courses should be undertak en only after a student has already acquired a first de gree. This can be defended on two grounds: the student needs to have 'a good general education before embarking on a scientific profession. The first ground is empha sized, rather than the second, though the second may be in cluded in the first. In Great Britain the pro fessions we are dealing with can all be studied for a first degree. Before entering the university, however, the stu dent will usually be requir ed to have specialized in science in the high school, as -evidenced by his having passed certain science sub jects (specified separately for each profession) at the Ad vanced Level (formerly the Higher School Artificate), equivalent to or slightly be yond what a junior college in California requires. In short, whether professional courses should be postgra duate or not depends on the university requirements for enrolling—in basic science, which in turn depend on the standard^ reached in the high schools. The high schools in Great Britain teach two years more of science than a public high school in New York City does, and as this is the level of university entrance, professional courses may be taught as training for first degrees. The poor countries vary widely in the standards to 32 Panorama which their high schools as pire. In Africa the British and the French have sought to establish standards at their metropolitan levels, and, in so far as they have succeeded, most of Africa should be able to follow the British or French patterns. In some other countries (for example, Egypt or India), in which the numbers of high school students have swollen more rapidly than funds or trained teachers have, high school standards are lower, and both entrance and exit levels into and out of uni versities are substantially lower than in Western Eu rope. Faced with low stand ards of entry, the universities in such countries must either lower the professional stand ard or else lengthen the course (of which the extreme form is to make the profes sional course postgraduate). The question as to whether there should be less basic scince is a difficult problem. A number of arguments point toward reducing the amount of basic science in professional courses in the poor countries. The students have less practical work in their backgrounds than do July the students of rich countries, and therefore they need more time for this aspect. They have less practical experience because in their societies it is • offensive for a middle-class person to do manual work instead of employing a ser vant to do it for him. (This is a form of share-the-wealth which custom has decreed in areas that do not have social insurance.) Students also have less experience with me chanical devices, since they do not live in a mechanical civilization and therefore do not become familiar with mechanical devices from an early age, as do children in the rich countries. Conse quently, more time is needed in their professional training to accustom them to using their hands. Because technicians are not as well trained and not as reliable as in the rich countries, professionals have to spend more time supervis ing them; the professionals must be able to show their technicians just what to do. This also means relatively more time for practical work. Since professionals are scarce and therefore work in greater isolation from one 33 another, each must have more of all-round compet ence. For example, an engi neer sent to look after public works in an isolated rural area should be able to turn his hand to civil, mechanical, and electrical tasks, hence he must be given relatively more “know-how” of the va rious sides of his profession, and he has relatively less time for basic science. The same argument tells in gen eral against providing oppor tunities for specialization in the undergraduate profes sional course. Most univer sities require the student to familiarize himself with every aspect of his profession (if we count civil, mechanic al, and electrical engineering as three separate professions) and to postpone specializa tion until postgraduate courses. A medical student is not allowed to choose be tween pediatrics and surgery. In the rich countries, how ever, there are some except ions: an agriciultural student may choose between, say, chemistry and entomology, and an electrical engineer may choose between power generation and electronics. Specialization usually in volves more basic science. It is arguable, therefore, that universities in the poor coun tries should be less willing to permit specialization at the undergraduate level. In some professions the need of using local materials for teaching. purposes in creases the factual burden of the course and thus reduces the time available for theore tical principles. This situa tion occurs wherever the lo cal material has to be an auxiliary to, not merely a substitute for, the material used in teaching in tempe rate countries. For example, the medical student in the tropics has to know about all the diseases that occur in tem perate zones, since these also occur in the tropics, and in addition he has to know about tropical diseases. In adapting any syllabus for use in a poor country, one has to decide how much of the factual framework taught elsewhere can be scrapped in favor of local conditions and how much must be re tained. In some cases the re sult must be a net increase in the facts to be studied. The professional must learn more social science in 34 Panorama the poor countries, since so cial change is occurring more rapidly there than in the rich countries, and therefore the professional is more deep ly involved. His own work is one of the important forces causing social change. More over, his status in society is continuously being affected by the changes taking place. Some room, therefore, should be found in his course for instruction in the sociology of change. One cannot class this problem with other as pects of general education and dismiss it by saying, “This should be done in the high schools before the stu dent reaches the universities.” Students of high-school age are not ripe for sociology. So much for the arguments for reducing courses in basic science. A strong case can also be made for maintain ing the amount of basic > science taught. This argu ment would begin with the premise that the professional is isolated , and consequently needs to be able to turn his hand to many things. To do this, he must have a sound training in basic principles rather than a superficial training in techniques. In his isolation he will meet many new problems which can be solved only by taking thought and by returning to basic principles. He needs both more science and more technique, and if one has to be sacrificed, it is not ob vious that it is the science that should be curtailed. The correct answer to our question is probably this: if the professional standard is to be as high in the poor as in the rich countries, pro fessional courses should be a year or so longer in the poor ones, to allow for an inferior background in high schools, the need for more practical work, an increase in the syl labus because of the incorpo ration of local materials, and the need for a greater em phasis on social studies. But should the professioal stand ard be as high in the poor as in the rich countries? There are several arguments for a lower standard. Even in the rich countries most profes sionals are overtrained for the work they actually have to do. University syllabuses tend to be framed with an eye on the student who .will become a university teacher or research worker, whereas July 35 the great majority go into jobs they could do just as well with a year less of aca demic training. The poor countries need proportion ately even fewer research workers, and separate provi sions can be made for their training. To maintain equal standards requires a longer and correspondingly more expensive training in the poor countries, which they can afford. Many such na tions have abandoned the at tempt to maintain equal pro fessional standards, even if they once tried to do so. Given the great shortage of professionals, especially in rural areas, such a nation is better off with four threequarters trained professionals than with the three fully trained. Although many countries have abandoned the attempt, many others still strive to maintain their professional standards at European levels, not only out of national pride but also for other rea sons. The routine portion of professionals’ work is us ually passed over to tech nicians, whose numbers can be multiplied more easily. This practice makes it all the more important that the re latively small number of pro fessionals who supervise tech nicians should be thoroughly trained. The psychological effects of inferior standards are bad. A poor country is likely to employ a number of welltrained foreign professionals, and it is embarrasing if its own professionals are admit tedly of inferior quality. This is especially true when the better paid or more res ponsible jobs are held only by people with foreign qua lifications. The local univerversities are downgraded in the public eye, and students try to go abroad for educat ion rather than to their home institutions. The lat ter are discouraged and find it hard to recruit or keep good staffs. This further re duces their quality by ad versely affecting their capa city to do useful research. For such reasons, a number of countires have abandoned the inferior professional qua lifications they previously of fered (for example, Nigeria has dropped medicine, and Trinidad, agriculture) and have substituted qualifica tions intended to equal simi 36 Panorama lar qualifications, in Europe. Although the great major ity of the graduates of pro fessional schools are required for jobs that demand com petence but not brilliance, a significant number are need ed to undertake fundamental research. The biological sciences and the professions based on them demand much more fundamental research than do the physical sciences. Whereas the phy sical structure of the earth is much the same in tempe rate as in tropical zones, the living organisms differ consi derably. An engineer can transfer from a temperate to a tropical environment with only small adaptations; but an agriculturist has to spend a year or more relearning his job. How fundamental is "fun damental”? Some research requires scientific training imagination of the highest order; in the process, new scientific truths of universal application will be discover ed. In the biological sciences it is hardly profitable to dis tinguish between pure science and research of the kind the poor countries need — for example, research in animal and plant genetics, leading to the breeding of new useful types; human and animal physiology in hot climates; pests and diseases, animal, plant, and human; or plant and animal nutri tion. Basic principles al ready worked out in tempe rate countries will be appli ed, but since the animals, the plants, the insects, and the microbes are different, the research has to start al most from scratch; it de-. mands the highest qualities, and is likely to yield new universal principles. The situation in the phy sical sciences is rather differ ent. Here the main research task is to devote known prin ciples to making inventories of economic resources: disco vering minerals or under ground water supplies; assess ing soils; recording river flows and meteorological data. Such work demands professional competence ra ther than scientific imagin ation. The principal scope for fundamental research is in such fields as these: clima tology; methods of combat ing the effects of torrential rain, earthquakes, or months of contiuous sunshine on July 37 such structures as roads, dams, and buildings; the uti lization of local resources, such as crops, forests, build ing materials, sources of ener gy; the conversion of sea wa ter; the invention of new en gineering processes that use less capital. Some of this re search (especially on the ex ploitation of materials) can be done in the laboratory in temperate countries, but vir tually all the biological re search, and nearly all that part of the physical research that is concerned with the effects of the local environ ment, have to be done on the spot. There ought, therefore, to be a large number of funda mental research stations strung round the globe be tween the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. Actually there are very few such stations. The tropics are not yet ade quately equipped even to make routine inventories of their resources; and they are far from coming to grips with, fundamental research. It is not necessary that each country establish a battery of high-quality research sta tions. For example, there are now twenty countries in West and Equatorial Africa between the ex-Belgian Con go and the Sahara Desert^ but most of them have less than 2,000,000 inhabitants and could not support ex pensive research institutes. Asia fares better, having few er and larger countries, of which several could main tain their own scientific es tablishments, as. indeed India already does to a very consi derable extent. It is true even of Southesat Asia, how ever, as of Africa and Latin America, that the necessary stations for fundamental re search wilT not be establish ed on a substantial scale un til groups of countries learn to combine for this purpose, with or without the United Nations or other interna tional assistance. There have been some good beginnings, for example, sugar-cane breeding in the West Indies, cocoa research in West Afri ca, or rubber research in Ma laya, as well as outstanding work on tropical diseases (done mainly in the laborato-. ries of temperate countries). Nevertheless, a n immense scope for expansion remains. Since the professionals de pend on basic science, their 38 Panorama research work depends on a supply of persons with a firstclass training in science, whether educated in the pro fessional or in the science schools, like the professional ones, mainly produce per sons who need to be compet ent father than brilliant. Most of their graduates go in to high-school teaching or in to routine jobs in commerce or administration. There is little manufacturing in dustry, and such as there is generally does, not engage in research or else it conducts its research in parent - esta blishments in the rich coun tries. The universities them selves are the largest market for highly trained scientists capable of good research. Nevertheless, every university srience school is under pres sure to do some research and keep up its standards, partly to make its own teaching lively, partly to contribute to knowledge, and partly be cause good scientists cannot be retained unless they are given opportunities for re search. Many universities are therefore able to produce some men who, given further training, would do well in research. In the professional schools, professors interested in re search tend .to feel badly handicapped by not having learned enough basic science in their own undergraduate days, and this prejudices them in favor of putting more and more basic science into the undergraduate sylla bus, even at the cost of lengthening the course. This is hardly necessary, since the small number of professional men who go on to research can learn the extra basic science need during their postgraduate training. What seems important is that, whereas the undergra duate course can be taught adequately in a professional school that has very little basic science, postgraduate training and research in pro fessional ’ subjects can be done adequately only in close association with strong science schools. Thus, while undergraduate teaching can be dispersed over a number of schools, postgraduate teaching must be concentrat ed in a small number of in stitution in which both basic science and professional study are highly developed. It is all the better if these July 39 postgraduate teaching insti tutions can be linked with the fundamental institutes. Study in foreign countries has many attractions that study at home lacks. Stand ards are usually higher, the qualification carries more prestige, and its monetary value may exceed that con ferred by the local school. Also, travel provides valu able experience. If the studehts go to foreign universi ties whose costs are met prin cipally out of public funds and not out of students fees, it becomes much cheaper to send them abroad than to educate them at home. For example, for what it costs to run the University College of the West Indies, we could send one and a half times as many students to universities in Great Britain. This argu ment applies to small coun tries like the West Indies or Ghana, but not to large coun tries like India. Professional schools are especially costly to small nations, because they need a minimum com pliment of staff to teach each aspect of the course. For example, Nigeria has been advised that to run a veteri nary school economically re quires an output of about seventy students a year, and she is finding this a stum bling block. The remedy would be for countries in this situation to group together to run professional schools; but this is not always poli tically possible. On the other hand, the provision of professional schools at home has several advantages which may out weigh the higher cost. In so far as the syllabus is based on local materials and on re search into local problems, what the student learns in the home university is more relevant to the job he will have to do. This is particu larly important in the biolo gical professions. The teach ers do not merely teach: if doctors, they look after pa tients, inside and outside the hospital; if engineers, they do consulting work. The teachers play a part in the life of the community, they sit on boards and participate in private and public deci sion-making. If they are of adequate scientific caliber, they also carry on useful re search of a kind worth pay ing for, even if there were no students. A large proportion 40 Panorama of students who do go abroad do not return home, and the cost of educating them, there fore, is lost to their country, except in so far as they make remittances. A good compromise is to give students their first de gree at home and then to send the better ones away for postgraduate training in large, well-staffed and wellequipped institutes. As we have seen, however, the poor countries need a few of their own such institutes to do fundamental research into the problems of their regions. Where such institutes exist, a student can do effective postgraduate work there be fore he goes abroad.—Ameri can Journal. UNCHASTE The NP is the old, divorced wife of the electorate — divorced for her infidelities. The LP is the brandnew current, and legal wife whom the electorate married, thinking it was pure and beautiful. The husband-electorate won’t be any angrier to discover new evidence of infidelity of his old, divorced wife. But what flaming rage he will go into to discover that his pure and beautiful new wife has had some unchaste experiences before — and after the wedding. — Napoleon G. Rama in the Free Press. July 41