prospects

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C o n t e n t s fcí\\atiofi e > ^ Vol. XII, N o . i, 1982 /V«P> \ - \

L;/UNESCO'"' viEWPOiNTS/coivr^orE^^iE^p / cDi y,

V T h e modification of intelligence J W Líos Vinillos Nff4to Innovative learning, micro-electronics and intuition J'awei IF. Botk' Personality development and the pedagogical organization of pupils' activities Joachim Lompscher 29

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Whither education?

Present trends in education Torsten Husén 45 W h a t resources for education? Jean-Claude Eicher 57 Problems facing the developing countries: an Eastern European view Oleg K. Dreier 69 Thoughts on the democratization of education in Europe Ingrid Eide 79 Coming changes in science and the curricula Mircea Malitza 89 Education and the mass media: where they differ, where they converge Michel Souchon 101

TRENDS AND CASES

Technical education in Mexico: a preliminary appraisal Víctor L. Urquidi 115

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T h e modification of intelligence

José Luis Pinillos

Throughout his eventful history, m a n has dreamed of almost every­thing imaginable. H e has longed to fly, to sail underwater, to be eternally young, to change stones into gold, to become invisible—the list is endless. S o m e of these dreams have been realized and others not; but few areas have remained untouched by man's ceaseless imaginings. Paradoxically, one of the things that has fascinated m a n least has been the improvement of his o w n intelligence. Self-satisfaction is no doubt fairly universal.

This is not to say, of course, that the idea of making m e n more intelligent has not tempted more than one educationist or thinker: the names of Maria Montessori, Decroly and Huxley are by no means the only ones that come to mind in this connection. It is simply that there has been almost no serious attempt m a d e in this sphere and, even today, most people still find the idea difficult to grasp.

Such resistance has m a n y causes: scientific, ideological and plain everyday experience. A n old saying current in Spain expressively sums up the feeling c o m m o n to m a n y teachers whose educational endeavours have foundered on the ineptitude of pupils singularly impervious to all knowledge: Quod natura non dot, Salmantica non praestat (what nature doesn't give [the University of] Salamanca doesn't supply). It is, moreover, easier to attribute educational failure to one's pupils than it is to admit one's o w n shortcomings. Again, it is c o m m o n knowledge that heredity and genetic factors can serve as handy ideological cards in the maintenance of the status quo. Finally, there are substantial scientific reasons for mistrusting m a n y of the statements m a d e regarding the modification of intelligence. It is a field in which areas of obscurity and science fiction abound. It is not surprising then that the whole subject is riddled with ambiguities and gives rise to the most diverse opinions. It might be asked, further­more, what government would be interested in a nation of excep­tionally gifted citizens?

José Luis Pinillos (Spain). Professor of Psychology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Was a member of a Unesco mission responsible for drawing up a report on the development of human intelligence.

Prospects, Vol. XII, N o . i, 1982

José Luis Pimllos

In short, for the public at large, the notion that intelligence can be taught is simply incomprehensible. M a n y scientists also consider it misconceived. Nevertheless, the thesis that intelligence can be improved through psycho-educational techniques is winning increasing support and is becoming firmly established in circles that cannot always be legitimately accused of irresponsibility or quackery.

Books are currently appearing with such titles as Teaching Thinking, Intelligence can be Taught and Up the IQ, and the critics have not always been hostile to them. Scientific projects on the stimulation of the development of intelligence in children are being carried out, and critical reviews—not always unfavourable—are being undertaken of the work done in this field, which is less restricted than is often thought. Competent psychologists are maintaining that the n e w cognitivist approaches and the psychology of learning are more compatible with the idea of reshaping the intelligence than conventional psychometric theories. T h u s , in contrast to Jensen and Eysenck, w h o subscribe to the view that intelligence is heritable, Sternberg and Feuerstein favour the environmentalist theory. Pol­itically and socially, the idea seems to be taking firm root in Latin America, where Venezuela, for example, has set up a Ministry for the Development of Intelligence, a m o v e that is apparently evoking a response in other countries such as Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil.

There are, then, facts and opinions to suit all tastes. Should one nevertheless attempt to arrive at a clear statement of position on such a confused and m u c h debated issue? T h e attempt is worth the effort, whatever the conclusion reached.

T h e origin of the problem

Social and political factors, which Jensen has dubbed the 'drive for equality', in the late 1950s revived the thesis that an appropriate form of education could improve not only a pupil's knowledge and under­standing but also his abilities and general intelligence.

Research carried out in the early part of this century by psychol­ogists such as Wooley, Klineberg, Wheeler and others had shown that one of the effects of educational progress was to increase the intelligence quotient (IQ) of schoolchildren. T h e technical short­comings of this pioneering research, combined with the popularity of psychometry and factor analysis of aptitudes, were unfavourable to this line of approach, which was finally shelved in the course of the Second World W a r .

T h e modification of intelligence

T h e n e w climate of the post-war period saw a change of emphasis in this respect. In the United K i n g d o m , for example, the labour movement came out strongly against the use of intelligence tests to classify and select pupils at the age of 11 (the examination k n o w n as the 'eleven plus'). It was shown that familiarity with the tests and, in particular, various degrees of coaching could influence performance in the examination and lead to increases of between five and ten I Q points, which, though not spectacular, were sufficient to cause serious errors in pupil selection. Moreover, it was observed—a fact subsequently verified repeatedly—that a large proportion of pupils, nearly 50 per cent, showed significant variations in I Q over a period of time. A s a result, those selected on the basis of a good test score were liable to deteriorate, while the failures might improve. Finally, it was found that the tests used to measure intelligence were not culture-free and that they in fact favoured subjects from the well-to-do classes. In other words, the tests did not operate fairly. T h e result of all this was to provoke a turnabout in public opinion, the abolition of the selection examination and a growing suspicion of intelligence tests.

Events in the United States followed a somewhat similar pattern with regard to the development of environmentalist pressures, but they were also influenced by very specific racial factors and by the active pragmatism characteristic of the N e w World. T h e result was major programmes of compensatory education such as 'Head Start' in the 1960s and, more recently, ' H o m e Start'. It was thought that the early economic and socio-cultural deprivation experienced by children from such disadvantaged minorities as the blacks and Puerto Ricans was responsible for an initial educational and intellectual deficit which grew over the years into a serious educational and intellectual handicap and could even lead to permanent psychological regression. It was also thought that a few strategic programmes of pre-school (or in any event, early) assistance focused on the key aspects of child development—for example, nutrition, percep­tual/motor functions, language, etc.—would suffice to offset the initial socio-cultural handicap at the root of the educational and intellectual backwardness of children from disadvantaged minorities.

After the initial b o o m came disillusionment, criticism and a series of unfavourable reports, with the result that the whole venture came to be discredited. Results, certainly, did not come up to expectations, and there were those w h o openly accused the administration of having used compensatory education as a ploy to mask the real problems of American society and to avoid tackling the genuine reform of the education system. B y the mid-1970s, the so-called myth of compensa­tory education had lost its initial attraction, and programmes such as

José Luis Pinillos

the one carried out by D e Coster in Ghent gave way to more compre­hensive psycho-educational approaches. T h e point of this reference to Europe, where compensatory education never aroused very m u c h enthusiasm, is to show that the North American model of intellectual development at the basis of compensatory education lost ground not only in the United States but also in European countries such as Belgium, the Federal Republic of Germany, Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands where it had initially evoked some response.

So it was that, when Professor Francisco Rivero of Venezuela and I visited a number of centres operating in this field in Paris, M o s c o w , Bonn , Aachen, Ghent, Geneva and London, compensatory education seemed a closed subject, at least in the sense in which it was under­stood in the 1960s. T h e only exception was in London, where Professor Hindley of the Institute of Education and some of his colleagues could point to a glimmer of hope. In his view, and in that of Professor Halsey, the reappraisals then taking place of the results of compensatory education showed a less negative picture. S o m e of the studies carried out in Aachen and Ghent likewise justified a somewhat less pessimistic view of the potential of intellectual training.

W e decided, then, to look at the subject again from this more hopeful standpoint, leaving aside any secondary aspects and those less compatible with a strictly scientific approach.

T h e basic issue

In very general terms, the question of whether intelligence can be modified goes back to the old arguments between nativists and empiricists. T h e positions adopted nowadays are m u c h less hard and fast, since at the present stage in the development of genetics no responsible person would dare to maintain either that intelligence is wholly predetermined by heredity or that heredity plays no part in the determination of intelligence. T h e question, of course, cannot be posed in terms of either inheritance or environment: it is rather a question of the degree to which they interact and the form in which they do so. H o w m u c h of one and h o w m u c h of the other is involved in their indubitable interaction? W h a t is the nature of the interaction between them? This is the essential problem that continues to be discussed without m u c h prospect of reaching agreement.

M a n y geneticists dismiss the quantitative approach as meaningless. Nevertheless, psychological studies carried out with twins and other blood relations strongly suggest the need for quantification of the problem. S o m e rate the heritability coefficient no higher than 0.5.

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Others would put it as high as 0.9. T h e most c o m m o \ estímate is between 0.75 and 0.8, which implies that approximately'^ulp^îtEsTv'l»^/

of the variation measured by intelligence tests is hereditary irTorigmr'' According to this point of view, the chief proponents of which are Jensen in the United States and Eysenck in the United K i n g d o m , the marked differences in I Q observed in black and white children are due basically to genetic factors and only secondarily to the educational and socio-economic context. Moreover, the fact that physiological measurements of intelligence by reference to the ampli­tude of evoked potentials (Hendrickson) or inspection time (Brand) show high correlations—of the order of 0.8—with the scores achieved in psychometric tests of intelligence lends additional weight to the studies on the heritability of intelligence.

T h e reliability coefficients of intelligence tests—generally higher than 0.9—and the stabilization or crystallization of I Q in 80 per cent of children around the age of eight, according to Bloom, point, in principle, in the same direction.

All this, in short, would seem to support the determinist thesis, that is, the existence of a cerebral structure genetically predetermined by heredity: intelligence A , so termed by the psycho-physiologist H e b b , or genotypical intelligence which interacts with the environ­ment to produce intelligence B , or phenotypical intelligence, currently measured by the I Q tests. Given the preponderance of genetic over environmental factors (in the ratio 8:2), the conclusion of this whole line of thinking is clearly favourable to nativism. T h e content of intelligence, it would seem, naturally derives from the subject's socio-cultural environment and experience, but the ability to assim­ilate and manipulate it intelligently is 80 per cent dependent on the inherited genotypical structure.

Intelligence, in short, would seem to be a biologically predeter­mined disposition on which educational practice can impinge only to the extent of facilitating, or possibly inhibiting, its development within limits or up to a ceiling previously set by heredity. It follows that to talk of teaching intelligence is, in their view, ultimately no more than a manner of speaking.

Such, in very schematic terms, is the position of conventional psychometry with regard to the psychology of intelligence. Intelli­gence is an essentially genotypical disposition that stabilizes around 8 years of age and which, w h e n reliably measured by aptitude tests, can serve as a long-term indicator of the intellectual performance of individuals in a great variety of fields. T h e best measurement of this innate capacity is I Q or, to put it another w a y , the cg' factor: the basis of the general disposition to establish relationships and solve problems of a very diverse nature. T h e contrast between the generality

José Luis Pinillos

of the cg' factor and the specificity of habits is said to constitute decisive proof that the psychology of intelligence cannot be reduced to the psychology of learning. Intelligence, it follows, cannot be taught, since it is in fact the essential prerequisite for understanding what is to be learnt.

Without prejudice to the scientific value of such arguments, it must quickly be said that environmentalism also has a strong case to put forward, though it naturally points in the opposite direction. It would of course be unthinkable not to give that case a hearing before deciding one w a y or the other.

T o begin with, w e are told, the very notions of capacity and dispo­sition that underlie the psychometric theories of intelligence are of doubtful utility and, in any case, difficult to apply in practice, just like the old concept of faculty which they basically resemble so closely.

Moreover, it is by no means easy to show that ability and per­formance are independent entities. In the view of the environ­mentalists, the very idea of constructing culture-free tests is misconceived, since every intelligence test, in its conception and application, presupposes a particular type of culture. There would be a good case for looking at the possibility of culture-fair tests if it were not for the fact that the stratification inherent in any class society implies a bias that favours the upper strata and works against the lower strata. Even this is not possible, then, or at least not in the world in which w e live. This explains w h y the m e a n I Q of under­privileged racial minorities is lower than that of the population at large, and, in particular, of its upper strata.

Admittedly, this argument does not explain satisfactorily w h y some individuals from the lower classes turn out to be exceptionally brilliant, nor w h y some individuals from the upper classes are so dull or duller than those from the underprivileged sections of society. It does not explain either w h y individual differences in aptitude apparently persist in countries with a unified education system and where class differences are m u c h less marked than in the West . It does, however, point to the very real difficulty of constructing intelligence tests wholly free of cultural bias, and to the difficulty of drawing a hard-and-fast distinction between innate ability and acquired knowledge.

T h e objections levelled against the concept of genotypical intelli­gence are also worth considering. T o begin with, the environ­mentalists take it for granted that the h u m a n brain is identical for all races and does not exhibit variations that m a k e it easier for some than for others to learn. Secondly, and this is a very practical objection, they point out that the values for the coefficients of heritability of intelligence refer to groups of subjects but cannot be

T h e modification of intelligence

used to estimate the genotypical intelligence of a given individual. W h e n applied to a particular individual, the errors of calculation are so great—it would appear that the margin of indeterminacy in such estimates is of the order of thirty to forty I Q points—that the con­struct of genotypical intelligence has, for all practical purposes, no validity for individual measurement.

In addition to the socio-cultural bias of intelligence tests and their uselessness for the purpose of precisely estimating the genotypical intelligence of individuals, mention must also be m a d e of the fallacy implicit in identifying the reliability of the instrument of measure­ment with the stability of what is measured. T h e high level of reliability of intelligence tests, which is sometimes above the 0.9 already mentioned, should by no means be taken to imply that the I Q of the subjects tested does not show fluctuations. Indeed, as m a n y long-term studies of intellectual development have shown, some 50 per cent of those tested show significant variations between the age of 8 and the end of adolescence, 'significant' here meaning variations of up to twenty I Q points (Hindley) and, in some cases, up to fifty points (Honzick). A s a considerable proportion of individuals exhibit such fluctuations and as it is not possible to predict precisely which subjects will vary, the psychometric claim that phenotypical intelligence, intelligence B, stabilizes in 80 per cent of cases around the age of 8 would seem to be somewhat exaggerated.

T h e foregoing arguments link up with Cattell's distinction between fluid and crystallized intelligence; but here again the operational distinctions would seem to be less clear than might be wished. Close monitoring of individual cases shows, in the end, that performance in the tests and, consequently, a subject's I Q scores fluctuates considerably in a large segment of the population, at least from childhood to the end of adolescence. W h i c h is tantamount to saying that the supposed stability of I Q as measured by intelligence tests is, at least for a sizeable proportion of those tested, a statistical artefact rather than a genuine reality.

Another argument that ties in with the previous one derives from Feuerstein's experiments on so-called 'learning potential'. A s a result of experiments carried out in Israel with the children of n e w i m m i ­grants, Feuerstein suspected that the inferior performance of these children in psychometric intelligence tests might be due in a majority of cases to the socio-cultural handicap produced by their sudden change of environment, possibly combined with their poor social background.

Working on this supposition, Feuerstein adopted a n e w strategy for the measurement of intelligence, involving the following basic steps: (a) conventional application of tests; (b) application of a training

José Luis Pinillos

programme designed to offset as far as possible the socio-cultural handicaps affecting these children; and (c) a re-measurement of intel­ligence by conventional methods, using tests similar to the initial ones. After discounting the gains attributable to development occur­ring during the months covered by the project, the differences between the first and second I Q measurements, where there were positive differences, would give an approximate idea of the learning potential of the children. O r , in other words, they would highlight the effect of the socio-cultural bias of certain tests, that is, the unfairness of certain intelligence tests which demanded knowledge that the i m m i ­grant children did not possess.

Lastly, inasmuch as it is based on a purely quantitative analysis of the final answers to the problems set in the tests and does not take into account the variety of cognitive processes that m a y be employed in arriving at those answers, the psychometric theory of intelligence has tended to reify and hypostatize mental abilities, reducing them to a n u m b e r of fixed elements without regard to the true nature of the information-gathering process and of the problem-solving operations in which intelligence consists. This school of thought, then, sees intelligence as a broadly integrated system of cognitive strategies operating within a given culture and acquired through the education process rather than as a disposition or a set of aptitudes. Understood as such, intelligence is not only teachable but can indeed be acquired only through a learning process that is essentially indeterminate.

T o attempt to solve a problem as complex as the one w e have just described by purely theoretical means would, of course, be naïve. Both sides can adduce a large number of arguments, for the most part well founded: the problem is that the arguments are mutually incom­patible. Conventional psychometric theory conceives intelligence as a disposition that is four-fifths genetically determined, a view which, besides leaving a narrow margin of variation for possible improve­ments in intelligence, denies, as w e have said, the central premise of cognitive training programmes, which are based on the acquisition of strategies without reference to a hereditarily predetermined 'ceiling'. At the theoretical level, then, the two approaches are sharply divergent, hard to reconcile and even more difficult to verify. Indeed, it is not easy to arrive at any very convincing conclusions on the basis of what has been said so far.

A less ambitious but safer approach does however remain open to us: that of referring to training experiments specifically and directly geared to the improvement of I Q . A n analysis, however brief, of what has in fact been achieved through such programmes m a y at least give us some positive idea of what can be achieved in this uncertain field at the present time.

T h e modification of intelligence

T h e facts

Programmes for the development of intelligence usually consist in training young children'—sometimes those of school age and some­times those of pre-school age—to perform and ultimately master a set of tasks supposedly of importance from the intellectual point of view, that is, associated with the establishment of relationships, reasoning, problem-solving and other processes that seem to play a part in what w e call thought. In fact, the groups of tasks selected for this kind of learning process are usually three in number: perceptual motor, linguistic and formal-logic tasks. Naturally an attempt is m a d e to combine this training with some kind of play activity to sustain the motivation of the pupils, and, though this is not so easy, that of the teachers themselves. T h e tasks involved are, of course, very simple ones, which are gradually related to other tasks until they constitute small-scale strategies applicable to a variety of situations, that is to say, capable of general application.

As a result of previous measurements, the I Q of the subjects participating in the programmes and of the control groups is already known. B y carrying out further intelligence tests, it is thus possible to estimate at the end of the experiment the net gain attributable to the training. Normally, assessment of the possible effects of the training is carried out both at the end of the programme and several months afterwards. W h e r e the programmes are extended in duration, it is usual to carry out one or more intermediary measurements and to prolong the monitoring over a period of years. In this way, it is possible to compare the intellectual development of children w h o have taken part in the programme with that of children from the control group.

Frequently, the group selected for training is characterized by some kind of intellectual deficiency presumed to derive from a deprived socio-cultural and family background. T h e reason for this bias in the selection of the sample is that it would seem easier in principle to improve the intelligence of normal children whose backwardness is due to the educational shortcomings of their social environment than to raise the I Q level of children suffering from some mental defect, or to boost the I Q of children w h o have already achieved the average level, typically representative of the h o m e and educational background of the well-to-do classes. In point of fact, the most spectacular results have been achieved with childre whosen inadequate family background has prevented them from realizing their potential, whereas to improve the I Q of those w h o have been educated in an optimum environment—that is to say, one difficult to

José Luis Pinillos

improve upon at the present time—requires greater effort and has so far achieved little if anything in the way of results.

Naturally, the key to success lies in the thoroughness with which programmes are designed and carried out. A recent review of the impact of compensatory education in the 1960s, carried out by Professor Darlington and a group of assistants, seems to have estab­lished that programmes based on a sound experimental model and carried out with the proper safeguards had a greater long-term impact than hitherto supposed. Their effect was not only to reduce the educational backwardness of the children involved as compared with those not involved but also to produce significant gains in I Q , some­times maintained for up to two or three years. Darlington's very reasonable conclusion is that, if programmes of one year's duration have produced improvements in I Q lasting two or three years, pro­grammes extending throughout the school career could produce m u c h more lasting and probably permanent improvements.

T h e question, however, is very complex. In his monograph on the training of intelligence in children, Professor K . J. Klauer of the University of Aachen has drawn attention to a number of points that need to be taken into account in assessing the problem.

In the first place, the effects to which w e refer are not the result of trivial transfer due merely to familiarity with the tests, nor are they attributable simply to coaching. Both these processes are super­ficial and produce temporary effects that have very little general application. T h e increases in I Q vary between five and ten points, are lost within a year and are very specific, that is, apply only to those tests on which the practice has been carried out and not to other tests or tasks. O n the other hand, gains due to genuine training through systematic programmes are greater, often more lasting and, above all, more readily applicable to tests and tasks that are quite unlike the ones used in the training itself. In some cases, as in a recent programme in Milwaukee, the improvements in I Q have exceeded thirty points and there is evidence that these effects can be maintained for up to three years, although there is no doubt that they often disappear within a year (usually during the s u m m e r holidays).

It should also be borne in mind that the effects do not always take the form w e have just described. For, in addition to the general or overall effect on I Q itself, specific effects m a y be observed on one or more particular abilities, for example, spatial, perceptual, verbal, etc., in other words, effects which modify the pattern of the subject's abilities without necessarily producing a significant modification of general intelligence. T h e programmes m a y also modify the factorial structure of abilities without affecting the level or pattern of ability. Finally, there m a y be paradoxical or cross-effects, whereby training

T h e modification of intelligence

in a perceptual motor task produces an impact, for example, on verbal ability, or vice versa, leaving intact the ability that it was originally intended to influence. Reference should also be m a d e to the existence of modifying variables such as the age, sex, previous intellectual level of the participants, family and educational background, and a whole host of spurious variables that are difficult to control and that affect the success of programmes in ways that have still to be determined satisfactorily.

In view of this situation, it is not surprising that programmes are not always successful. At a rough estimate, a third of the programmes produce significant improvements in I Q , and a larger proportion, some 40 to 50 per cent, produce partial results of doubtful significance.

Taken as a whole, such results provide convincing proof that training programmes can exercise some causal influence on I Q scores or, to put it another way, strongly suggest the existence of a func­tional relationship between training in certain tasks and the intellec­tual operations involved in solving I Q test items. This, indeed, is no m e a n finding. This important achievement, however, must be seen in the context of the equally serious limitations and areas of ignorance which must be borne in mind w h e n attempting to arrive at any kind of conclusion.

Conclusions

First of all, in view of what has been said, it would be unwise to come to any unduly firm conclusions. It seems to have been proved, and this is, after all, the most important thing, that improvements in I Q are possible: they can be achieved, but not always in the desired manner, and not permanently. T h e limitations are no less real than the achievement and it is important that both aspects should be borne in mind. For, while it would be highly irresponsible—or worse—to affirm the validity of an approach that is still by no means infallible, it would be a serious error, in view of all that is at stake, to ignore something that is already more than a promise. If there is a reasonable possibility—and there is—of including in normal intellectual life children w h o are otherwise liable to be left outside, that possibility should be explored to the full. T o neglect it because of partisan preju­dice or rivalry is ethically unacceptable. This is not to say, of course, that one should naively embark on a quest for the philosopher's stone or blithely squander resources that could be employed more profitably elsewhere.

It remains true that what has been demonstrated is nothing less

José Luis Pimllos

than the possibility of modifying experimentally one aspect of h u m a n behaviour, the intellectual aspect, which was supposed to be beyond the control of science or at least of psychology. Just as, in the psy­chology of the personality, situationalism and the modification of behaviour have w o n an important victory over the theory of fixed traits (genio y figura hasta la sepultura, as the old Spanish proverb has it), in the same way the barrier of the unmodifiability of the intel­ligence has also, albeit modestly, been breached. This is a very significant achievement, which places the psychology of intelli­gence in a n e w situation, adding the possibility of control to the more restricted functions of prediction and measurement.

T h e possibility of controlling the h u m a n intelligence is undoubt­edly limited at the present time and will perhaps remain so; it is also fraught with risks. But there is also no doubt that prospects of a major n e w venture have been opened up , one which will involve not only enhancing the old familiar I Q (which w e are in danger of making into a fetish) but also teaching cognitive strategies that will enable individuals to make better use of the I Q they possess. A n d this clearly means the possibility of more intelligent behaviour without detriment to the fetish itself.

This is not, however, the place to pursue such ideas. T h e object of this paper was simply to ascertain whether the modification of h u m a n intelligence was anything more than a vague promise and whether perhaps the first faltering steps in this direction were in fact n o w being taken. T h e answer to this question is cyes\ It follows, in m y view, that it would be a pity not to assist this process. T h e road ahead is a long one. •

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B R U N E R , J. The Relevance of Education. N e w York, Norton, 1971. C A T T E L L , R . B . Theory of Fluid and Crystallized Intelligence. Journal of Educational Psycho­

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G I N S B U R G H , H . The Myth of the Deprived Child. Englewood Cliffs, N.J . , 1972.

H A L S E Y , A . H . Education Can Compensate. New Society (London), 24 January 1980.

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in Intelligence. Personality and Individual Differences, Vol. 1,1980, pp. 3-33.

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6 Months and 17 Years in a British Longitudinal Sample. Journal of Child Psychology and

Psychiatry, Vol. 19, 1978, pp. 329-50.

HoNZiK, P. A . , et al. The Stability of Mental Tests Performance Between T w o and Eighteen

Years. Journal of Experimental Education, Vol. 17, 1948, pp. 309-24.

JENSEN, A . R . Bias in Mental Testing. London, Methuen, 1980.

K L A U E R , K . J. Intelligenztraining im Kindesalter. Weinheim/Basel, Beltz Verlag, 1975.

K L A U E R , K . J. Kognitive Forderung. In: R . Dolíase (ed.), Handbuch der Früh- und Vorschulför-

derung. Düsseldorf, Schwann, 1978.

K L I N E B E R G , O . A Study of Psychological Differences between Racial and National Groups

in Europe. Archives of Psychology, N o . 132, 1931.

OSTERRIETH, P . , et al. Improving Education for Disadvantaged Children. London, Pergamon

Press, in co-operation with the van Leer Foundation, 1977.

PiNlLLOS, J. L . Le développement de l'intelligence—un espoir ou une réalité? Paris, Unesco, 1980,

SINCLAIR, H . , et al. Le handicap socio-culturel en question. Paris, Éditions E.S.F. , 1978.

S T E R N B E R G , R . J. Component Processes in Analogical Reasoning. Psychological Review.

Vol. 84, 1978, pp. 353-78.

W H E E L E R , L . R . A Comparative Study of Intelligence of East Tennessee Mountain Children.

Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 33,1942, pp. 321-34.

W I M B L E Y , A . ; S H A W , L . Intelligence Can be Taught. N e w York, Dutton, 1976.

W00LEY, H . T . ; FISCHER, C . R . Mental and Physical Measurements of Working Children.

Psychological Monographs, Vol. 18, 1914.

Innovative learning, micro - electronics

and intuition James W . Botkin

Three types of learning

There is little doubt that the 1980s will be a decade of learning. T h e question is what type of learning the 1980s will bring. In No Limits to Learning: A Report to The Club of Rome,1 three different types of learning are described: (a) maintenance learning, which is the learning of fixed rules for recurring situations; (b) innovative learning, which is the capacity to act together in new, possibly unprecedented situations; and (c) learning by shock, which results from the impact of external events, crisis, or catastrophe.

Actually, there m a y be a fourth type of learning that is gaining ground—fundamentalism. Not to be confused with legitimate needs for stressing the basics in schools or with justifiable reassertions of formerly repressed cultural and historical values, fundamentalism can be seen as the learning of unalterable rules for all situations, whether recurring, n e w , or unprecedented. T o the extent that fundamentalism is an overly simplistic reaction to undigested complexity, it m a y lead us to learning by shock even more quickly than is the case with maintenance learning.

T h e contemporary world is marked by rapidly rising complexity, which at present outstrips our ability to cope with it. Under these circumstances, educators both in and outside the formal education system have a responsibility to review the type, character, and directions of the learning they stimulate or impart. In the recent Club of R o m e report, the development of innovative learning is proposed. This can be seen as a way of avoiding or at least mitigating the

James W . Botkin (United States of America). Associate in Education at the Harvard

Graduate School of Education. Author of numerous articles on the management of higher

education and on computer systems, he co-authored the report to the Club of Rome entitled

N o Limits to Learning.

Prospects, Vol. XII, N o . I, 1982

James W. Botkin

negative effects of learning by shock, which under present volatile global conditions carries unacceptably high costs and risks. It is also proposed as an alternative or at least a counterweight to maintenance learning, which has not been able sufficiently to develop the whole range of h u m a n potential latent in all m e n , w o m e n , and children in all cultures.

M a n y professional educators and others have been discussing what innovative learning is and whether or h o w it can be encouraged in a variety of settings. O n e thing that it is not: innovative learning is not a blueprint that can be applied uniformly to any culture or environ­ment. It needs constant reinterpretation in the local cultures and to the particular circumstances under consideration. In this brief article, I would like to elaborate on some aspects of innovative learning, as well as on its chief features, anticipation and participation. T o do so, I will try to link these concepts to two selected issues that are emerging or already under debate in professional education circles in m a n y countries. These issues are: (a) educational technology, a tool for innovative or maintenance learning? (b) the future of rationality: its relation to innovative learning.

Educational technology

A contemporary development which requires foresight and atten­tion by the international educational community concerns the rapid advance of educational technology. T h e spectacular rise of microprocessors and video discs has stimulated the development of inexpensive computers, of new linkages between television and micro­computers, of n e w h u m a n interfaces, and the prospect of new societal and educational arrangements. These n e w technologies have kindled renewed interest in their possible application to education.

In contrast to the premature wave of enthusiasm for C A I (computer-assisted instruction) which was evident in some countries in the late 1960s, the new micro-based technologies have several advantages. They are inexpensive, they can be programmed without technical expertise, they can be networked and they can handle visual imagery as well as text. Further, it is not unreasonable to anticipate the appearance of n e w computers with small batteries such as are used in transistor radios. This relatively simple development would have special significance for m a n y developing countries. It would allow microcomputers to be used in places that do not yet have access to publicly supplied electricity. This would be one in a series of steps that would open the technological possibility of the use of educational

Innovative learning, micro-electronics and intuition 2

technology in any country, in remote rural areas as well as in urban agglomerations. Whether such a technological possibility is culturally or socially desirable is another matter. T h e point here is that micro­computers m a y become as widespread as transistor radios.

A history of the technology would show the early 1980s to be a watershed period between two eras: an older one characterized by 'data processing' on large centralized computers and a newer one based on user-created computing on decentralized microcomputers. In North America, h o m e of the computer and microprocessor, the periods are referred to as a computer and data-resource era (1950-80) and from 1980 onward as a 'structural change era'.

Not only the technologies are new, but countries n e w to the computing world are taking an interest in them. At a recent meeting in Mexico on 'Informatics, Development and Peace', people from developing as well as developed countries met to discuss opportunities and problems posed by the use of information technologies in the Third World. O n e ongoing discussion group scheduled as part of these deliberations is intended to examine the relationship between these technologies and education. It was felt that informatics and its widespread possibility of application offers a powerful tool for opening up new possibilities for cultural and educational development. Wisely used, it can contribute greatly to the solution of critical problems, including those of poverty, hunger, disease and ignorance.2

O f course, high technology societies like the United States, France, Japan and others continue their interest in using microcomputers for educational purposes. In France, there has been a programme to install 10,000 microprocessors in French secondary schools by 1985.3

In the United States, there have been m a n y experiments, among them the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium, which gives Minnesota's more than a million students access to about 1,000 educational programs on as m a n y microcomputers in Minnesota schools.4 Japan has likewise experimented widely with computers in the schools.

Surrounding the use of microcomputers in education are m a n y questions that have yet to be adequately tackled. First among these, already alluded to above, is whether the technologically possible penetration of microcomputers is culturally and socially desirable. This question is especially acute for m a n y developing countries which m a y already be using or adopting copies of Western school systems and where use of the products of technology is alienating to the traditional culture. This important question needs to be looked at more seriously and with more sophistication than has heretofore been the case. T h e pressures for worldwide access to and distribution of the n e w technology is rapidly growing. These pressures come not

James W. Botkin

only from the information-technology companies in North America, Western Europe and Japan—at present competing with one another for global markets—but also from the international scientific, engin­eering and intellectual community from m a n y parts of the world. It is as astonishing to American educators as it is to others that fully one-third of the doctoral degrees in computer sciences in American universities are granted to foreign students, the majority of these being from developing countries.

Another way to raise the question of technology and culture is to assume, for the purposes of discussion only, that microprocessors will indeed become as pervasive as transistor radios, and to ask h o w best they could be used in culturally appropriate and socially just ways. In terms of what w e discussed above, will microprocessors in schools become tools for maintenance or for innovative learning?

O n the one hand, there are definite tendencies towards using tech­nology to reinforce maintenance learning. N e w technologies are often introduced by replicating on a machine what had hitherto been done by teachers or administrators, usually in an effort to cut rapidly rising costs of schooling. Such procedures, where they have been tried, have tended not only to support maintenance learning but to reinforce it in ways that were difficult to rectify. For example, after data-processing computers have been in an organization for longer periods of time, they tend to routinize and maintain old working methods unless specific measures are taken to update them.

O n the other hand, simulations, models and forecasting can readily be done with the n e w technologies. These hold out promising pros­pects for encouraging anticipatory learning. S o m e educators have had direct experience of such models, and m a n y have at least heard of the big world models that were the focus of debates about limits to growth. Models are, of course, only as good as the modellers w h o write them, and they tend to incorporate their o w n values into the structure and 'optimizing variables' (goals) of the model. T h e Latin American model created by A . Herrera and his co-workers strikingly points out this fact when compared with the M I T models.5 T h e widespread debate and continued educational study which these models generated about the future of humanity were invaluable. Despite their crudeness and complexity, which the limitations of the data-processing computers available at the time imposed upon them, the models evidenced considerable pedagogical usefulness in raising inquiry into the future.

N o n e the less, m a n y forward-looking teachers and other educators remain sceptical about technology for teaching for another reason: the apparent impossibility for computers or microcomputers to be used for group work or participatory learning.

Innovative learning, micro-electronics and intuition

Participatory learning involves an ability to work co-operatively in groups. Yet the use of data-processing computers has tended to inhibit group interaction in at least three ways. O n e derives from an overemphasis on individualization, whereby an image has been created of students working singly, in isolation, at a carousel or even at h o m e . A second limitation comes from the tendency to concentrate large computers in centralized data-processing centres. Mediated by technical experts or computer operators, these tend to inhibit group participation. A third problem concerns the specialization and c o m ­plexity of computer software which often obscures the assumptions and freezes the values built into programs. T h e net result is that while group dialogue on results might be enhanced, group understanding on h o w results were produced is rendered unnecessarily difficult.

It remains an open question as to whether n e w microcomputers with networking capability can overcome these shortcomings and be used in more creative ways that promote greater participation. Several specific questions need to be investigated in this regard. A critical one concerns the control of programs. A s Seymour Papert and others demonstrate, the most innovative learning takes place w h e n students themselves create the software rather than relying on pre­packaged programs from hardware manufacturers or from software specialists.6 This issue takes on particular importance at the inter­national level. As developing countries increase their experimentation with computers in education, will they tend to use software developed abroad, or will they initiate ways to have users themselves create the end-product programs? Further, will these user-created pro­grams incorporate characteristics compatible with and supportive of indigenous culture, or is the nature of even the n e w technology such that it has embedded within it unalterable values of high-technology societies?

International experimentation and some cross-cultural research teams could m a k e a great contribution by gathering information on the extent to which microcomputers in education can be used to enhance participation in culturally diverse settings. This is an area about which little is k n o w n to date. Instead of waiting until unguided experience obliges us to call for regulating the all but inevitable extension of informatics, the appropriate organizations should initiate action n o w to help establish and support a variety of experiments in the spirit of international co-operation.

James W. Bothin

T h e future of rationality: its relation to innovative learning

Another topic of increasing interest to the international educational community concerns the debates about rational versus intuitive thinking, and the implications of these debates for educational policy.7 T h e following discussion explores whether and h o w intuitive thinking m a y relate to innovative learning.

In his book. Mankind and Mother Earth, Arnold Toynbee describes h o w Queen Victoria's D iamond Jubilee in 1897 recalled to his mind the view of history predominant at a time w h e n British civilization was at its height. O f greatest interest to him was what was excluded from that history.

The picture presented in 1897 had excluded from history the history of Japan before 1868, of China before 1839, of India before 1746, of Russia before 1694. It had excluded the whole of history of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam, though in 1897 a s n o w > these had been three of the four religions that had the largest number of adherents. The picture presented in 1897 had also excluded three out of the four main branches of Christianity itself.

The Jews had been excluded as from the year A.D. 70, the date of the temporary destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and the Greeks had been excluded from the year A.D. 451, the date in which the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon had been drafted by Christian Greek theologians.

Indeed, at the year A.D. 476, the chart that was in vogue in 1897 ignored the whole of the civilized world of that date, from Greece to China and from China to Meso-America and Peru. By 1973 it had become manifest that none of the enormous mass of jettisoned history could be written off any longer as being irrelevant.8

Just as the Victorian view of history omitted m u c h , so does the contemporary view of the h u m a n mind seem narrow and incomplete. F r o m the historical study of the h u m a n mind and its associated fields of epistemology, psychology, learning and education, the picture that has emerged is one of'Rational M a n ' . (Empiricism, logical positivism, behaviourism, reductionism, economics and others going back to the beliefs of Locke, Hobbes , A d a m Smith, and Descartes have provided the key elements for the 'chart that is in vogue n o w ' . ) This view of humans as rational beings can be called the 'Cartesian chart'.

T h e Industrial Revolution has provided a succession of different 'models of the mind ' to reinforce the Cartesian chart. These models have been traced by m a n y writers such as J. Bronowski and C . Hampton-Turner. They recount popular models in the eighteenth century that picture the brain first as a mechanical clock, which in

Innovative learning, micro-electronics and intuition

the late nineteenth century becomes a telephone switchboard, while yet again in the mid-twentieth century the brain is likened to a computer. W h a t these and other electro-mechanical models leave out, their critics claim, is everything from intuition to creativity, from emotions to affect, from spirituality to values, and in addition, art, music, sculpture, sport and a host of other a-rational capabilities. Neglect of these capacities seems especially evident in cultures where scientific and technological thought has been predominant.

Yet the role of science and technology in the fabric of the Cartesian chart is ambiguous. O n the one hand, to the extent that science is conceived as a programme of carefully controlled experimentation and a process of logical deductive reasoning, it would seem to reinforce this view. O n the other hand, as T h o m a s K u h n so elegantly points out, this process is characteristic mainly of 'normal science', while paradigm shifts follow another 'logic'.9 Jan Bronowski makes the same point in Science and Human Values when he says: 'There exists a single creative activity which is displayed alike in the arts and sciences. W h a t makes each h u m a n . . . is the stamp of the creative mind'.10

F r o m another perspective, research that began in California suggests that the brain has two hemispheres, a left and a right, a rational and an intuitive. T h e work of people like Roger Sperry, Robert Ornstein and others; books by Merle Wittrock or Betty Edwards' best-selling Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain;11 or programmes like that in guided imagery of B . Galyaen in Los Angeles are part of this approach. Others, unfortunately in m y opinion, have taken left-right hemisphericity to logical extremes, claiming as for example M . Kinsbourne does that the right brain is the seat of depression and the left of happiness, or asserting that left-brain thinking is the source of male domination over females (as some feminists like Gina do). Still another approach is the triune brain theory of Paul MacLean , which points to a primitive pre-programmed brain (aggression, for example), a mammalian one programmed at birth (mother-child bonding), and a programmable neocortex.

It seems obvious that, like the history chart in vogue at the time of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, the Cartesian chart of thought in 1980 has jettisoned a large segment of h u m a n mental activity. W h a t is not so obvious, however, is exactly what has been omitted. Inquiries have started with work by Bateson, Jaynes, Gardner; the biological school of Lorenz, the evolutionism of Leakey, the socio-biology of E . O . Wilson—the list could be lengthened and made equally intriguing.12 Compared with what w e know in other fields, relatively little is known about the h u m a n mind.

Schools—or at least those based on Western models—are said to

James W. Botkin

be operating ioo per cent on the Cartesian chart, and this is said by m a n y to be dysfunctional. In countries with a long history of ways of thought or oral traditions that celebrate the mystical and encourage imagery, the dysfunctionality m a y be doubled. Yet in both North and South, educational policy m a y be missing more than the debates on intuition have recognized up to n o w . Imagery and intuition m a y play important roles in innovative learning, to the extent that they encourage techniques and attitudes appropriate for anticipatory learning.

Anticipatory learning, or learning from and about the future, can be accomplished in a variety of ways. O n e of these has already been mentioned above: the use of microcomputers for modelling, simu­lation and forecasting. But forecasting cannot be directly equated with anticipation. Indeed, m a n y computer forecasts are no more than extrapolations into the future of outmoded past trends. Something more is needed to achieve anticipatory learning in the sense described in the Club of R o m e report. That 'something more ' concerns values.

All learning involves values. W h a t distinguishes innovative from other types of learning is the constant quest to re-examine values, retaining those of lasting significance, rejecting others that m a y be outmoded. Such weighing of values is, or ought to be, an intrinsic part of any exercise that examines the future. A n d a pedagogical technique that puts values in the forefront of future projects is intuitive thinking.

Creative problem-solving and guided imagery are two techniques which rely on intuition and which have been used successfully to encourage anticipatory learning. W o r k by E . Paul Torrance at the University of Georgia is one example.13 T w o unusual programmes were developed by E . P . Torrance and others to encourage children (starting from ages 2-3) and adults to think creatively about the future. These are the 'future problem-solving sociodrama' and the 'future problem-solving bowl'. Breakthroughs are achieved in both techniques when participants are able to use 'states of consciousness other than the ordinary, fully rational states', i.e. emotional factors are equally important to intellectual ones in imaging the future. B y 1978, the Future Problem Solving Bowl had expanded from the initial twenty-three high schools in north-eastern Georgia to over 300 schools and 6,000 students. M a n y other efforts and organizations could be cited, among them the World Future Studies Federation (Stockholm) and Futuribles (Paris), which have developed projects that through art and painting, for example, have sought to stimulate intuitive thinking about the future.

Efforts such as these can and should be integrated into the formal education systems by creative teachers. Such anticipatory learning

Innovative learning, micro-electronics and intuition

can be carried out for virtually any age-group. Those with a special propensity in this direction are adults w h o are exploring future career or life paths. Imagining their o w n desirable futures is excellent experience in an adult education setting for anticipation used in a wider societal sense.

T h e factors that lead some people towards creative, holistic forms of anticipation are not well researched and are as yet inadequately understood by the mainstream of teachers and administrators. O f special interest are cultural factors in developing and developed countries: according to the discussion above, one would expect to find a greater tendency towards anticipation in cultures more oriented towards intuitive thinking. At a time when m a n y societies and their educational policy-makers are increasingly concerned both about the quality and direction of education in their countries, it would be useful to organize some cross-cultural research teams to examine what could be done to encourage anticipatory learning and to restore methods of education that foster it. •

Notes 1. J. Botkin, M . Elmandjra and M . Malitza, No Limits to Learning: Bridging the Human Gap,

AlReport to the Club of Rome, Oxford, Pergamon Press, 1979. (French edition, On ne

finit pas d'apprendre, Paris, Pergamon Press France, 1980.)

2. Declaration of Mexico on Informatics, Development and Peace, Intergovernmental Bureau

for Informatics, 22-23 June 1981.

3. J. Hebestreit/Ten Thousand Microcomputers in French Secondary Schools', in J. Botkin,

J. Keen, J. McClellan and H . Robinette (eds.), ICIS Guide to Educational Technology,

N e w York, International Center for Integrative Studies, 1980.

4. Botkin et al., ICIS Guide..., op. cit.

5. A . Herrera, H . D . Scolnik et al., Catastrophe or a New Society? A Latin American World

Model, Ottawa, I D R C , 1976.

6. S. Papert, Mindstorms: Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas, N e w York, Basic Books,

1980.

7. See J. Botkin, J. Keen, J. McClellan and H . Robinette, Towards More Effective Teaching

and Learning: What Can Research in the Brain Sciences Contribute?, N e w York, Inter­

national Center for Integrative Studies, 1980.

8. A . Toynbee, Mankind and Mother Earth: A Narrative History of the World, Oxford,

Oxford University Press, 1976.

9. T . Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago, University of Chicago Press,

1962.

10. J. Bronowski, Science and Human Values, N e w York, Harper & R o w , Perennial Library,

1956,1972.

11. B . Edwards, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, Los Angeles, J. P. Tarcher, 1979.

12. G . Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind, N e w York, Ballantine Books, 1972. J. Jaynes,

The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Boston, Houghton

Mifflin, 1976. H . Gardner, The Shattered Mind, N e w York, Knopf, 1975. K . Lorenz,

Behind the Mirror: A Search for a Natural History of Human Knowledge, London,

Methuen, 1977. R . Leakey and R . Lewin, Origins, N e w York, Dutton, 1977. E . O . Wilson,

Sociobiology, Belknap Press, Harvard University Press, 1975.

13. E . P. Torrance, 'Creativity and Futurism in Education: Retooling', Education, Vol. 100,

Summer 1980.

Personality development and the pedagogical

organization of pupils' activities Joachim Lompscher

It is an established fact that both the content and course of personality development greatly depend on activity, that a personality will develop through activity, through active confrontation with the environment, with the given conditions of life. A n all-round per­sonality development presupposes various activities that establish relations with reality, which provide opportunities of acquiring h u m a n culture (in the widest sense of the word) in one's individual life, and which provide appropriate stimulation (Leontyev, 1975). At the same time, the process of personality development creates the subjective conditions for n e w kinds of activity or for their further development, which in turn enhances and accelerates the personality development.

K i n d s of activity a n d their interrelations in the process of personality development

Personality development at pre-school age takes place predominantly during play. B y playful confrontation with its environment and by playfully imitating what it sees, hears and experiences, a child acquires knowledge of reality and develops its intellectual and physical abilities. It forms certain attitudes to other people, to the

Joachim Lompscher (German Democratic Republic). Professor at the Institute of Psychopedagogy at the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences. Author and co-author of several works on the psychology of learning.

Prospects, Vol. XII, N o . I, 1982

Joachim Lompscher

products created by man ' s activity, and to itself, and behaviour patterns and character traits become more pronounced (Elkonin, I979j Otto et al., 1979).

At the same time, this process of development gives rise to the subjective conditions for at least another two kinds of activity: the preparedness and also, to an increasing extent, the ability to acquire knowledge of the environment by a purposeful activity (learning), and on the other hand certain preliminary forms of work, i.e. the child takes on little tasks which contribute, though to a rather moderate degree, to an orderly life with others in the family and in the kindergarten.

A s soon as a child begins school, the activity of learning becomes the dominating activity; in other words, it becomes the activity that determines the child's position in society for a whole develop­mental phase. This activity develops very intensely and provides therefore the decisive impulses and conditions for personality devel­opment. B y a systematic introduction to the fundamental spheres of h u m a n knowledge and skills, i.e. science, technology, production, culture and ideology, pupils acquire increasingly differentiated and integrated systems of knowledge. Becoming accustomed to abstract thinking and the comprehension of general connections and sym­bols, etc., promote the development of intellectual abilities, which in their turn represent a significant subjective condition for the acqui­sition and application of scientific knowledge. Children's relations with other people and with themselves, with the objects and phenomena of their environment and with their o w n activities, assume, due to the activity of learning, completely n e w aspects and dimensions, which tend to make their emotional life m u c h richer and more differentiated, and speed up character formation. T h e activity of learning involves difficulties, requires different kinds of effort, and has m a n y possibilities for an intense development of qualities of will. Actually, every aspect of personality development is, indeed, promoted by the specific demands and conditions of learning. Schools have in this connection the important task of developing both the ability and the preparedness to continue inde­pendent learning during the whole of life (Lompscher et al., 1977; L ö w e , 1970; Clauss et al., 1976).

T h e fact that every child has the duty to learn, and that this learning is organized and institutionalized, means that the child is faced also with the phenomenon of spare time. Spare time is used for different kinds of activity, which comprise, under present social conditions, such fields as culture and aesthetics, sport, technology and construction, etc. In the beginning these leisure-time activities have the character of play, but in the course of time specific per-

Personality development and the pedagogical organization of pupils' activities

formances are demanded. At the same time they serve as compen­sation and recreation as well as the satisfaction of individual needs and interests. T h e way in which a young person uses his leisure time is a vivid expression of his level of development as a personality, on the one hand, and a factor of his future development, which should not be underrated, on the other. Under conditions of activity which are not so m u c h determined by compulsion, control and rendering an account as the activity of learning at school, it is in particular the following qualities that are developed: a feeling for the value of time; independence in the selection and organization of individual and collective activities; special interests and incli­nations; a thirst for knowledge and wider horizons; power of judge­ment and self-assurance; perseverance in the pursuit of the goals pupils have set themselves. A pre-condition, however, is that pupils be given adequate stimulation and that their guidance be tactful and indirect. It is imperative to ensure a well-balanced relationship between guidance and stimulation, between purposefulness and diversification, between engagement and non-engagement. It is in particular schools that bear responsibility for the development of leisure-time activities; they have to furnish manifold ideas on h o w to make good use of leisure time, and they can apply what has been learned during leisure-time activities, as well as abilities and interests for the purpose of making lessons more diversified.

Moreover, it becomes obvious that the action pattern is gradually being developed in the process of personality development, and that certain differences between individuals become more marked, subject to what activities are exercised by the individual and what importance is attached to them within the individual action pattern, and to a certain extent to demands m a d e on the pupil, and to the level of such activities.

T h e activity of school-age learning is enriched by other kinds of activity, for instance social and political activity, and work. This does not m e a n that n e w kinds of activity would be adopted spontaneously and then become independent. It is in the process of active confron­tation with the environment that n e w kinds of activity are initiated through various stimulations and demands, with pedagogical guid­ance playing the decisive role. In this process, the various kinds of activity do not develop in isolation, but influence each other.

W o r k is not only an essential goal of personality development (ability to take an active and responsible share in the creation of material and ideal values of society) but also one of its fundamental pre-conditions. Under socialism young people are expected not only to be informed about work and to watch others working, not only to acquire the intellectual and physical requirements for work and

Joachim Lompscher

to grasp its importance for the individual and for society, but actively to take part in work themselves according to their conditions and possibilities. A s members of the family group they assume part of the household work; as members of the school or class collective they carry out maintenance work, embellish their schools and keep their classrooms tidy, or they do such work in their residential areas; polytechnical instruction familiarizes them with productive work. In accordance with educational principles, young people are called on to carry out productive and socially useful work, which affords them an insight into n e w spheres of life and gives them the oppor­tunity to test their strength and to experience the feeling of being an active and useful m e m b e r of society, a producer and co-owner of the means of production. T h e knowledge of the law-governed pro­cesses in nature and society is becoming more concrete and dis­criminating due to the correlation between learning and work, and the sense of learning is better understood. M a n y n e w ideas are furnished for acquiring more (and more thorough) knowledge. Close contacts with working people result in important n e w educational potential.

It is significant for the pedagogical guidance of personality develop­ment that the potential of different kinds of activity should be recognized and the wealth of opportunities for activity, which are available for children and young people, be used for promoting and guiding their personality development. T h e boundaries between the individual kinds of activity are fluid. It is exactly during childhood and adolescence that the various activities permeate each other, with the activity of learning holding a central position and determining more or less intensely all the other activities. This is w h y work as well as social and political activities and also the various leisure-time activities are m u c h characterized by the fact that they themselves have to be learned (which applies also to learning) and that they develop in close correlation with the activity of learning. Experiences and contents of these other activities add, in their turn, to the activity of learning.

T h e organization of activities

T h e fundamental condition for a development-promoting organ­ization of activities is the guarantee of independent activities for children and young people according to their level of develop­ment. M a n ' s psychic qualities are formed during the individual's path through life; they do not develop as powers which are, in principle, embodied in a hereditary programme, or as a process

Personality development and the pedagogical organization of pupils' activities

of spontaneous interaction with the environment. According to Marxist psychology, psychic development is based on the acquisition of the 'distinguishing qualities of m a n ' , such as speech, knowledge of nature and society, moral and aesthetic norms and values, culture, etc., which have been developed by society and objectified in the products of h u m a n labour. In this sense the essence of m a n lies not in each single individual but in society, and the individual develops as m u c h into a h u m a n personality as he acquires these distinguishing qualities. This is only possible under society's guid­ance and influence, particularly in the fields of education and upbringing. However, such a position far from disparages or even denies the role of individuality, of individual peculiarities and dif­ferences. O n the contrary, it is only from this angle that individuality can be purposefully developed and brought to full efficiency. Indi­viduality does not develop by itself, so to speak, and the educator does not stand aside, with a passive and wait-and-see attitude, letting chance play its part. T h e development from individual to individuality is dependent on the acquisition of the experiences, cultural and other values, etc., which already exist in society; this requires purposeful and tactful stimulation and guidance.

But this acquisition is not a process of passive absorption but a process in which the individual is actively confronted with his environment, exercises an influence on it with some goal in mind, and co-operates in various ways with other individuals. T h e k n o w ­ledge, abilities and attitudes acquired by them in the course of development are used in this process and turned into intentional or unintentional results of activity. T h e degree of independent activity essentially determines what psychic components of the actual activity will m a k e themselves felt in the development of personality traits and h o w and to what extent they will do so. Intellectual abilities, for instance, can develop only as m u c h as certain operations of thinking (analysis, comparison, abstraction, etc.) and strategies used for the analysis of problems, the making of hypotheses, processes of search, etc., are aroused and carried out and, after m u c h practice, gradually generalized and consolidated in the intellectual confron­tation with various requirements. T h e same applies, in principle, to the development of stable attitudes and motives, traits of will, conceptual systems and the like. N o psychic quality of the personality will develop otherwise than by the generalization and consolidation of initial unstable psychic contents, processes and conditions which occur under concrete conditions of activity.

Personalities w h o think and act in an independent and responsible manner and w h o are self-assured and accustomed to taking the initiative will develop on the basis of such activities which call for

Joachim Lompscher

the full use of available powers and which afford opportunities to go beyond what is already being mastered, to try out new ways and means, to search for n e w solutions.

T o demand the guarantee of a high degree of independent activity does not imply the denial of purposeful and systematic pedagogical guidance or an overemphasis on spontaneity; just the opposite, it stresses the need to make high demands on the quality of pedagogical guidance. T h e dialectic of guidance and independent activity is founded on the very nature of the process of development, a nature which Wygotski (1956) vividly described by the examples of the 'zone of the actual performance' and the 'zone of the next develop­ment' . T h e zone of the actual performance covers all that the child has already acquired in its previous development and all that the child masters. This level opens up new possibilities for higher per­formances which the child cannot yet carry out independently but for which it has the necessary qualifications due to its development. In the beginning such performances are carried out with guidance, with assistance, after demonstration, by way of imitation, etc. These possibilities which go beyond the zone of the actual performance, but are rooted in it, constitute the zone of the next development. Every existing level of personality development is marked by these two zones. T h e task of pedagogical guidance consists in disclosing the potentials contained in a zone of the actual performance, and organ­izing and guiding the activity in such a way that the zone of the next development will become a zone of the actual performance which, in its turn, opens up new possibilities, i.e. a new zone of the next development.

B y this process children and young people are continuously qualified to carry out new actions and to adopt new behaviour patterns in an increasingly independent manner. This means that high demands undergo a permanent process of modification. In other words, a demand which in the beginning was related to the zone of the next development or even went beyond it, i.e. which was a high demand (or even an excessive demand), becomes in the process of development a low demand: the possibility of carrying out higher-level performances becomes a reality, a real actual performance. O n the one hand, the logic of the development process calls for high demands which first can be met only with assistance, according to a model, or with stimulations, under a more or less detailed guidance and control. O n the other hand, continuously rising demands must be made on the personality which go beyond what has already been learned and acquired. This calls for a differentiated knowledge of the subjective qualifications which are necessary for meeting the particular demands or which children and young people already

Personality development and the pedagogical organization of pupils' activities

possess and which differ in a very pronounced way from person to person. Moreover, a rather differentiated knowledge of the objective demand pattern connected with the relevant sphere of activity, with the subject-matter taught, with the tasks of learning, is required in order to vary and increase demands systematically (not accidentally or one-sidedly). W e analysed such demands in connection with the experimental transformation of instruction in different subjects, and based our studies on the following aspects: At what level of cognition should the intellectual performance be

carried out? (Practical-concrete action, direct or indirect d e m o n ­stration, linguistic-conceptual cognition.)

W h a t objects of cognition is the intellectual activity directed towards? (Things, properties, relations; concrete, schematic, symbolic rep­resentations of various degrees of generality.)

W h a t kinds of connections are at the centre of attention? (Spatial, temporal, causal, structural, genetic, quantitative and others of various degrees of complexity.)

W h a t is the proportion of important to unimportant features and conditions? (Only important ones; important and some unim­portant ones; not all important ones; important and predominantly unimportant ones.)

W h a t is the number of components with which intellectual oper­ations have to be carried out? (Relative definition, related to a given standard and to comparable objects.)

W h a t intellectual operations are required for meeting the demand, and in what combination? (Comprehension of the relations between part and whole or between thing and property; differentiation and generalization; arrangement, abstraction, classification, generaliz­ation, concretization, etc.)

This approach not only serves the elaboration of differentiated variation lines for the systematic increase in demands during instruc­tion but is also an important prerequisite for assessing in a dif­ferentiated manner the level of development reached at a given time (Lompscher et al., 1975, 1976 ; Gullasch, 1971 ; Pippig, 1971).

O n e of the 'secrets' of successful teachers and educators is the following: on the one hand they make great and increasingly rising demands on children and, on the other hand, they systematically train the actions needed to meet the demands. In this connection m u c h importance is attributed to the creation of adequate, if possible of generalized guidelines for orientation. Galperin and other psychol­ogists (Anon., 1967, 1972; Galperin, 1967, 1979; Talysina, 1979; Pippig, 1971; Ohl, 1973; Lompscher et al., 1978; Kossakowski and Ettrich, 1973, and others) were able to prove by various studies that the quality and efficiency of activity depend considerably on the

Joachim Lompscher

extent to which the individual knows what goals he should or will pursue, what features of the subject and what conditions of the activity are important for attaining a goal, what means and methods are efficient and adequate under the given circumstances and with regard to the goal. T h e creation of a guideline for orientation, which is appropriate in this sense, does not mean , however, that teachers and educators do everything in advance and that the pupil's only task is to imitate. O n the contrary, it is necessary to help the pupil determine and find the goals, ways and means of his activity as independently as possible. This is best done by giving pupils above all general orientations or rules for defining their goals themselves, for analysing the conditions and for deciding on the relevant ways and means.

At the Institute of Pedagogical Psychology of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the G e r m a n Democratic Republic, for instance, w e managed within a short period of time to increase considerably the efficiency of the learning activity of pupils whose achievements were not satisfactory. T o this end, w e had elaborated, together with these pupils, general instructions on h o w to work with written texts for instruction and h o w to memorize systematically what they had been taught. W e applied this method to different fields of instruction (Lompscher et al., 1978). A n analysis of the way in which the pupils used to learn revealed that they tended to memorize quite mechanically and that they remembered nonsensical syllables better than meaningful material which had been classified for the purpose of memorization or in which a structural principle had to be abstracted. Five meetings of twenty minutes each were sufficient to elaborate a guideline for orientation to be used as a basis for the method of memorization with different demand patterns of the material taught. This guideline was used for different tasks. Already this short training, which served the reorientation of pupils as well as the acquisition of rational general methods in a partial sphere of learning, had the effect that the pupils remembered what they had been taught just as well as did the (non-trained) pupils with good achievements. Pupils of a matched group were trained to carry out intellectual operations that were, in principle, the same. They showed in this respect distinct advances of learning but with regard to the demands m a d e on their m e m o r y they relapsed into the habit of mechanically memorizing. It seems that it is not enough to train the intellectual operations; it is also imperative to make pupils realize that intellectual operations are also means of memorization. Other­wise it will be impossible to bring about real changes in memorization.

If the guideline for orientation covers only the characteristic features of very special situations and circumstances, or of compara-

Personality development and the pedagogical organization of pupils' activities

tively narrow categories of demand, then it is possible to use and vary in a corresponding form the action which has been trained on the basis of the guideline. At the same time it is necessary to provide and train a great number of such special actions, for all conceivable situations and conditions; this m a y be quite appropriate and necessary in a particular case but would amount, if applied as a general strategy, to a high expenditure of learning and a low degree of efficiency. T o enable children and young people to orient themselves by characteristic features, connections, methods of a higher degree of generality and, consequently, larger spheres of validity means also that every pupil has to analyse—on the basis of general features and aspects of orientation—in the concrete particular individual case what the specificity of the situation and circumstances is, so that the action can be carried out adequately and efficiently. W h a t other far-reaching consequences and potentials can be derived from the correlation between the general and the particular, between the abstract and the concrete, for a systematic training of a highly efficient learning activity, for the development of theoretical thinking, cognitive interests and other important personality traits of the pupils, has been demonstrated by D a w y d o w (1977) in his studies.

O n the basis of the fundamental positions of the Marxist theory of cognition and of Marxist psychology, a strategy of teaching was developed and, in the course of m a n y years of experiments at schools, tried out and improved. In a somewhat shorter form this strategy m a y be designated as the 'advance from the abstract to the concrete'. O n this basis it is possible to organize teaching from the very first year at school systematically and according to scientific principles, which has been proved by relevant research. Such scientifically founded teaching leads to achievements in learning, which in the past were considered impossible, and also to changes, in some cases even fundamental changes, in age-specific peculiarities. However , this requires not only the consistent orientation toward a high degree of generality of the concepts, rules and procedures which have to be acquired, but also a significant change in the organization of learning itself. T h e creation of problem situations, the training of practical and concrete activities which are adequate to the subject matter, the systematic making of abstractions and of their analyses with the help of schemata, symbols and other means of modelling, as well as the gradual enrichment of the abstract with the concrete and the analysis of the concrete with the help and in the scope of the abstract (development of conceptual macrostructures and their dif­ferentiation, as well as the process of giving these macrostructures a content)—all this is of great significance.

Our team carried out teaching experiments in connection with

Joachim Lompscher

pupils' introduction to physical geography, physics, aspects of a foreign language and of their o w n language, which fully corrob­orated the above statements. At present w e are testing such an approach simultaneously in several subjects and over a longer period in order to exploit fully the potentials of this strategy of teaching for the cognitive and motivational development of children.

Great potentials for the development of the activity, awareness and independence of thinking and learning are contained also in the solving of problems, because the contradictoriness of the situation stimulates the intensive examination of the subject or event, which results in the reproduction, change and further acquisition of k n o w ­ledge under n e w conditions, and in the development of cognitive strategies and motives (Jantos, 1978; Lompscher et al., 1977).

Another important prerequisite for the promotion of develop­ment consists in an adequate motivation. If an educator seriously keeps to the thesis that the children and young people whose education and upbringing have been entrusted to him are not only objects of educational influences but also subjects of their o w n activities, then he will always take pains to provide con­ditions in which pupils will of their o w n accord endeavour to engage in activities, or carry them out in the manner required for their further personality development. It is not enough, for instance, simply to make great and increasing demands; it is necessary to do this in such a way that children and young people will accept these demands and make them their o w n . They have to be stimulated to make demands themselves, and to set themselves goals and work intensively for their realization.

In this respect the 'secret' of successful educators and teachers obviously lies in the fact that they have formed a clear idea of pupils' motives and attitudes, experiences and aptitudes, and that they take measures, on the basis of such knowledge, either to encourage or to overcome them. There are cases in which it is inappropriate to set the relevant goal directly. Sometimes the explanation or gradual creation of objective situations which involve certain demands seems to take a circuitous route; but in the final analysis it proves to be the shorter way, which allows for or gives rise to the concrete experiences and attitudes of young people and which helps them realize the necessity of demands and act accordingly out of understanding for them.

T o motivate the activities of pupils efficiently presupposes close contacts with children and young people as well as empathy. T h e more progress that is made in the sphere of personality development, the more the correlation between education and self-education, between determination and self-determination (also with regard to

Personality development and the pedagogical organization of pupils' activities

the setting of goals and the choice of adequate ways and means), between direct and indirect learning, will come to the fore, which makes demands on teachers and educators to approach young people in a discriminating and tactful manner.

N o w , motivation which induces someone to act is, of course, not only a matter of form but primarily a matter of content. However important, for instance, the intensity of the aspiration to be suc­cessful in work m a y be, the decisive factor in the final analysis is always the direction, the quality, the content of this aspiration. In this context the correlation between cognitive needs, the experience of perspectives and the sense of social and political responsibility play a special role. Finally, w e have to point out in this connection the fundamental role of the experience of success.

H u m a n action is, as everyone knows, always directed towards some goal. This is w h y the attainment of such a goal, the confirmation of the Tightness of expectations and hypotheses, the process of becoming aware of one's o w n abilities, the appreciation of one's o w n achievements by others, in particular by those w h o enjoy respect and confidence, have usually an activating effect. This applies to all age-groups and strata of society but particularly to young people w h o want to test their strength, w h o strive for higher achievements, new knowledge, etc., and w h o want to stand the test. B y gradually increasing the demands and providing the necessary guidance and motivation for the action in question, the educator deliberately ensures a steady and successful advance, helps the child or adolescent to realize his success, shows his appreciation in an adequate manner, thereby providing further impulses for meeting new and greater demands in a friendly atmosphere.

All instructions, stimulation, explanations, motivations, etc., that are intended to make children and young people engage in devel­opment-promoting activities are given by actual people (teachers and educators, parents, classmates, etc.). Their effect depends last but not least on the qualities of the person concerned and on the attitudes of children and young people to him. This is the reason w h y h u m a n relations represent a fundamental aspect of the organization of development-promoting activities (Kessel et al., 1975; Heilhecker, 1976, etc.). Whether and h o w the demands and explanations are accepted depends to a great extent on whether and h o w the person from w h o m these demands and explanations come is accepted and in what kind of human-relations atmosphere they have effect. A s a matter of fact, this is an extremely complicated and many-sided network of relations and effects. T h e aspect of social interaction, of the content and form of concrete h u m a n relations plays a fundamental role in the planning, organization and evaluation of educational

Joachim Lompscher

measures. T h e relations and norms of socialist humanism—mutual help and assistance, confidence and co-operation, respect and great demands, criticism pertaining to the matter on hand, and personal commitment to the interests of society—have proved in this context extraordinarily stimulating for the activities of children and young people. A n advanced collective with a distinct opinion identical in principle with the views held by our society, and with an internal structure of mutually responsible superordination and subordination has proved time and again to be an important factor contributing to the activation and further development of each m e m b e r of the collective. This applies just as m u c h to adults as to children and young people.

In connection with the above analysis of the learning activity of pupils with low achievement (Lompscher et al., 1978), the conditions under which learning attitudes will change have also been studied. T h e fact that m a n y (though not all) pupils with low attainments develop more or less negative attitudes to learning, school and teachers explains itself by their failures in learning (sometimes over several years) and by social and other consequences resulting there­from. O u r analysis indicated, however, that the intensity of such negative attitudes to learning among our pupils is, as a rule, not extreme. A moderate negative attitude to learning follows from the fact that these pupils evaluate their learning-success efforts usually higher than their teachers and classmates do, so that there is no reason w h y they should develop absolutely negative attitudes to learning. This was the starting point for our efforts to bring about change. A n d w e really did succeed in definitely changing the attitudes of such pupils in the course of eight meetings, which were held in the form of group-work, with each group consisting of four pupils. T h e most important conditions for these changes in attitude were the following ones: a close social contact between 'teacher' and pupils and within the group itself; change in the social status of those w h o were, as a rule, marginal pupils (at least with respect to learning) by making them responsible for group meetings (special guidance and advice were given); organization of a demanding, systematic and suc­cessful learning activity (by differentiated programming, guidance and development of the necessary learning activities) and recognition of the successes achieved in learning, and making pupils aware of their successes. In the context of all these efforts w e also applied a variable: the experimental groups were again subdivided; at the beginning of the meetings one subgroup was given the necessary information on the goal pertaining to the matter in hand, while the other one was given in addition information on the 'sense', i.e. in accordance with their level of development the pupils were

Personality development and the pedagogical organization of pupils' activities 41

informed on the personal significance of the subject-matter for future learning in this subject and in others, out of school and later in pro­fessional life. T h e awareness of the sense of learning proved to be an important factor contributing to a further intensification and increased efficiency in these pupils.

O f course, all the conditions described above are just part of the complicated and many-sided structure of conditions which charac­terizes the pedagogical guidance and organization of children's activi­ties. Scientific studies and practical experiences gathered at schools indicate, however, their fundamental significance w h e n it comes to achieving a high degree of activity and awareness, independence and creativity in children and young people. •

References A N O N , I 967. Probleme der Lerntheorie [Problems of the Theory of Learning]. Volk und Wissen

Volkseigener Verlag, Berlin. A N O N . 1972. Probleme der Ausbildung geistiger Handlungen [Problems of the Development of

Intellectual Actions]. Berlin, Volk und Wissen Volkseigener Verlag. C L A U S S , G . ; G U T H K E , J. ; L O H S E , H . I976. Lernpsychologische Hinweise zur Unterrichtsgestaltung

[The Psychology of Learning and the Organization of School Lessons—Relevant Advice].

Berlin, Volk und Wissen Volkseigener Verlag. D A W Y D O W , W . W . 1977. Arten der Verallgemeinerung im" Unterricht [Kinds of Generalization

during Lessons]. Berlin, Volk und Wissen Volkseigener Verlag. E L K O N I N , D . B . 1979. Psychologie des Spiels [The Psychology of Playing]. Berlin, Volk und

Wissen Volkseigener Verlag. G A L P E R I N , P . J. 1967. Die Psychologie des Denkens und die Lehre von der etappenweisen

Ausbildung geistiger Handlungen [The Psychology of Thinking and the Theory of the Step-by-step Development of Intellectual Actions]. Untersuchungen des Denkens in der

sowjetischen Psychologie [Studies on Thinking in Soviet Psychology]. Berlin, Volk und

Wissen Volkseigener Verlag. . 1979. Zu Grundfragen der Psychologie [On Basic Issues of Psychology]. Berlin, Volk

und Wissen Volkseigener Verlag. G U I X A S C H , R . 1971. Denkpsychologische Analysen mathematischer Fähigkeiten [Analyses of

Mathematical Aptitudes under the Aspect of the Psychology of Thinking]. Berlin, Volk

und Wissen Volkseigener Verlag. H E I L H E C K E R , P. (ed.)- 1976. Zur Entwicklung sozialer Beziehungen bei jüngeren Schulkindern

[On the Development of Social Relations in Schoolchildren of the Lower Grades]. Berlin,

Volk und Wissen Volkseigener Verlag. J A N T O S , W . (ed.). 1978. Entwicklung des schöpferischen Denkens und problemhafter Unterricht

[The Development of Creative Thinking and Instruction Centred on Problems]. Berlin,

Volk und Wissen Volkseigener Verlag. K E S S E L , W . ; K N A U E R , K . ; S C H R Ö D E R , H . (eds.). 1975. Sozialpsychologische Probleme der

Schulklasse [Socio-psychological Problems Encountered in the Class]. Berlin, Volk und

Wissen Volkseigener Verlag. KOSSAKOWSKI, A . J E T T R I C H , K . U . 1973. Psychologische Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung der

eigenständigen Handlungsregulation [Psychological Investigations into the Development of

an Independent Regulation of Actions]. Berlin, Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften. L E O N T Y E V , A . N . 1975. Probleme der Entwicklung des Psychischen [Problems of the Develop­

ment of the Psychic]. Berlin, Volk und Wissen Volkseigener Verlag.

42 Joachim Lompscher

LOMPSCHERj J., et al. 1975. Theoretische und experimentelle Untersuchungen zur Entwicklung

geistiger Fähigkeiten [Theoretical and Experimental Investigations into the Development of Intellectual Aptitudes]. Berlin, Volk und Wissen Volkseigener Verlag.

. 1976. Verlaufsqualitäten der geistigen Tätigkeit [Qualities of the Course of Intellectual Activity]. Berlinj Volk und Wissen Volkseigener Verlag.

. 1978. Psychische Besonderheiten leistungsschwacher Schüler und Bedingungen ihrer Veränderung [Psychic Peculiarities of Pupils with L o w Attainments and Conditions for Changing T h e m ] . Berlin, Volk und Wissen Volkseigener Verlag.

(eds.). 1977. Zur Psychologie der Lerntätigkeit [The Psychology of Learning]. Berlin, Volk und Wissen Volkseigener Verlag.

L Ö W E , H . 1970. Einführung in die Lernpsychologie des Erwachsenenalters [Introduction to Learning Psychology at Adult Age]. Berlin, Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften.

O H L , W . 1973. Aneignungsprozess—Wissenserwerb—Fähigkeitsentwicklung [The Process of Acquisition—The Acquisition of Knowledge—The Development of Aptitudes]. Berlin, Volk und Wissen Volkseigener Verlag.

O T T O , K . J S O T A M A A , J.; S A L O V A A R A , J.; S C H M I D T , K . (eds.). 1979. Spielzeug—zum Spielen

[Toys—Meant for Playing]. Berlin, Verlag des Ministerrates der D D R . PlPPIG, G . 1971. Zur Entwicklung mathematischer Fähigkeiten [On the Development of

Mathematical Abilities]. Berlin, Volk und Wissen Volkseigener Verlag. T A L Y S I N A , N . P. 1979. Upravlenie processom usvoenija znannij. M o s c o w . W Y G O T S K I , L . S. 1956. Izbrannye psichologiceskie issledoVanija. M o s c o w .

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education? 1

Present trends in education

Torsten Husén

Introductory caveats

Attempts to envisage future trends in the edu­cational system easily lead to speculations and sweeping generalizations or—even worse—ir­responsible exercises in guessing. Attempts to identify present trends are difficult enough, because the observer is himself part of the complex and gigantic process of change and does not enjoy the aloofness that would permit more accurate observations of the single trees and help him from being lost in the forest. N e w paradigms of cognition are inconspicuously emerging which constitute n e w ways of per­ceiving guided by n e w values. O n e example would be sufficient to illustrate m y point. In 1967 some 150 leading educators from all over the world convened in Williamsburg, Virginia, in order to discuss the 'world crisis in education'. T h e main working paper prepared by Philip C o o m b s was subsequently published under that title together with the main con­clusions and recommendations from the confer­ence (Coombs, 1968). T h e main theme in the crisis diagnosis was the imbalance between demand and supply in education. Another theme was the lack of relevant curricula. O n e year later student unrest broke out at univer-

Torsten Husén (Sweden). Director of the Institute of International Education, University of Stockholm. Has conducted extensive research on problems related to edu­cational reform. Chairman (1970-80) of the governing board of the International Institute for Educational Planning (Paris). Chairman (1962-78) of the Inter­national Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). Author of many books on education.

sities all over the world. T h e main issues as perceived by the students were such things as lack of participation and the tendency to cor­rupt genuine educational values. These other issues were hardly discussed in Williamsburg, although the writing on the wall was already visible.

In entering upon the hazardous attempt to identify salient trends in education today, I shall limit myself to such trends which by all tokens will prevail in the immediate future, that is to say, in the next ten to twenty years. T h e problem then is on what grounds certain trends are judged as 'salient' and are likely to dominate the immediate future.

Another restriction has to do with the dis­tinction between developed and developing countries, or rather, between highly industrial­ized countries on the threshold of the post-industrial service society and countries which in the foreseeable future are going to be dependent upon an agricultural economy. This distinction should, however, not be pushed too far, because, as I shall argue, both types of countries have problems with their formal system of edu­cation, which show a great deal of similarity. T h e differences between them are very m u c h ones of degree.

I shall limit myself to the formal system of education, that is to say, the system of insti­tutionalized schooling where children and young people are brought together for several years in an institution called a school in order to be given systematic instruction according to a plan called a curriculum. (In m y book The School in Question (Husén, 1979), I have discussed some criteria that can go into a definition of a school. Nine such criteria are discussed: (a) it is an

Prospects, Vol. XII, N o . i, 1982

46 Torsten Husén

institution with full-time attendance; (b) certain age specifications for school entry and school leaving are laid down; (c) the model of instruc­tion is the 'frontal' one; (d) the curriculum is graded; (e) the size of the basic unit, the local school building or compound of buildings, has grown with urbanization and consolidation of school districts; (f) the size of the system has grown since more children belong to it for an extended number of years; (g) the objectives of the school have been widened from the limited one of imparting cognitive skills and c o m ­petencies to the ones which constitute social education; (h) the growth has called for better co-ordination which has led to the growth of the administrative machinery and by the intro­duction of various specialized services; (i) super­vision tends progressively to become tighter and operations more uniform under more cen­tralized regulations. These criteria apply to schools in the northern hemisphere as they are n o w . But in several countries, well into the twentieth century, primary schooling was not full-time but part-time, the age of school entry was kept very flexible and the curriculum was not graded. M y point here is that the model of formal schooling which has been borrowed from Europe and North America is the more recent one that emerged in the urban areas where it was convenient to let the children go to school full-time and where their presence was not needed at home.)

A common denominator

A problem that dominated the Williamsburg conference and that continues to loom large and is shared by most countries in the world, both rich and poor, both developed and developing, is the soaring, so-called social demand for formal education, the enormous pressure for more and more formal education. I have re­ferred to this phenomenon as the 'revolution of rising expectations'. But there is an important difference between industrialized and non-industrialized countries with regard to h o w this demand has developed over time. T h e enrol­

ment statistics studied longitudinally are, in­deed, revealing.

In Europe, enrolment in secondary and ter­tiary education in terms of relative participation of the relevant age cohorts rose very slowly from the turn of the century up to about 1950. Sweden can serve as an example. Around 1900 only some 2 per cent of the relevant age-group took the matriculation examination at the end of academic secondary school required to qualify for university entrance. That figure had by 1940 risen to about 4 per cent. T h e increase had been linear without any particular growth spurts. T h e social composition of the enrolment in advanced education reflected a highly ascriptive society. There was some social mobility which resulted in a small proportion of students (as a rule boys), whose parents were either farmers or manual workers, gaming access to the aca­demic secondary school. But the general attitude was that further-going was something more appropriate for young people coming from the upper classes. Dahrendorf (1965) in the late 1950s conducted a study of enrolment and social background at universities in the Federal R e ­public of Germany. Schematically expressed, he found that about 50 per cent of university students came from homes of professionals and/or civil servants w h o represented about 1 per cent of the working population, whereas only 1 per cent of students came from working-class homes that represented about 50 per cent of the work-force. A similar picture, though not as extreme, was found in several surveys conducted in the 1940s and early 1950s in Sweden (Husén, 1948, 1975).

T h e exponential growth of secondary and tertiary enrolment started in Europe in the early 1950s and reached its peak during the 'golden years' of the 1960s when there was m u c h talk about an 'enrolment explosion'. During the period 1950-80 the Gross National Product in Europe and North America grew threefold.

Most L D C s have shown another pattern of growth in their formal system of education. In the first place, they have not gone through a long period of slow, linear growth in their

Present trends in education 47

secondary and tertiary education. Sub-Saharan Africa provides a good illustration. W h e n the Ministers of Education met in Addis Ababa in i960 certain targets were set for the expansion of formal education with top priority given to primary education. At the next two meetings in Nairobi and Lagos, respectively, it was found that the target set for primary schooling had consistently been under-achieved, whereas sec­ondary and tertiary targets had been highly over-achieved. In several instances secondary education, behind which there was strong pol­itical pressure, had in terms of relative partici­pation by the mid-1970s reached the level of industrial Western Europe in 1945. Thus , many Third World countries have in a way jumped over the period of slow and steady growth that was so characteristic of m a n y of the industrial countries in the northern hemisphere over a period of almost a century. I shall not try here to conduct any analysis in depth of w h y there has been such a striking difference between North and South. I think there are several determinants behind it. In the first place, edu­cation has been 'sold', not least by the aid agencies, to the Third World as the main instrument in bringing about development and economic take-off. Secondly, education earlier became a responsibility of the state in the de­veloping countries, where the costs for further-going schooling to a large extent were carried by public funds. In Western Europe and to a large extent in North America education beyond the mandatory level had to be paid for by the parents, which, of course, m a d e enrolment socially biased and put further education beyond the reach of the majority. There is no doubt that the political pressure which in developing countries brought about an enrolment explosion at the secondary and tertiary levels even before primary schooling had become universal will prevail in the next couple of decades. T h e financial implications of such developments are far-reaching, since a student in further edu­cation costs the public purse ten times as m u c h , or more, than a student in primary education.

A review of the trends of the late 1960s

and how they turned out

In 1968/701 conducted a futuristic study under the auspices of the Research and Development Division of the Swedish National Board of E d u ­cation (Husén, 1971a). T h e ensuing report (Husén, 1971e) identified a dozen salient fea­tures of the educational system which would help to broaden the perspective and hopefully yield a tentative answer to the question as to where school as an institution was heading.

T h e outcome of the attempts I m a d e in the late 1960s to identify salient trends, in the first place in the educational systems of highly in­dustrialized countries, in what follows will be confronted with what has occurred on the edu­cational scene since then and what appear to be the overriding tendencies today. Such an exer­cise should, however, not be regarded as an attempt to 'validate' the 1970 notions, but rather to give a picture of what kind of unfore­seen changes have occurred and whether and to what extent these changes are due to para­digmatic changes. I shall in turn comment on the points I m a d e a decade ago and then, in the perspective of what has happened since, point at the main unidentified changes.

T h e most conspicuous tendency a decade ago was the quantitative trends which at that time were characterized by the term 'educational explosion': more young people were staying longer at school. But it was also pointed out that the school system, particularly in the in­dustrialized countries, had begun to absorb an increasing number of adults. Education tended to become part of the everyday life of most individuals, that is to say, it became lifelong. B y the late 1960s very few people, if any, envisaged the two phenomena which in the 1970s had strong repercussions on enrolment in the industrialized countries, namely the economic slowdown, best characterized by the word 'stag­flation', and the sudden demographic changes with drastically diminished birth rates.

48 Torsten Husén

T h e Pill took educational planners by sur­prise. In some industrialized countries the age-groups born in the late 1960s and early 1970s have decreased by up to 40-50 per cent. This is going to have dramatic effects on the enrolment in secondary and tertiary education. A slow­d o w n , or even a reduction, in absolute numbers can easily occur in spite of an undiminished or even increased participation rate. During the golden 1960s n e w faculty was recruited whole­sale, not always with due consideration to quality. This means that institutions of higher learning stuck with a rather young faculty are going to have difficulties in assigning already tenured staff to meaningful tasks. Turnover due to retirement will be low, particularly since there is in some countries a tendency to raise the retirement age. In the United States the Carnegie Council on Higher Education esti­mated that the replacement need of faculty in tertiary institutions would be zero by 1985 (Carnegie Council, 1979). In the United King­d o m a large number of teacher-training colleges have been either closed or converted into in­stitutions preparing for other professions than teaching.

T h e enormous expansion of adult education in the 1970s in Europe and North America was hardly envisaged a decade ago, although the idea of lifelong or recurrent education began to be launched, not least by Organizations such as Unesco and O E C D . In Sweden by 1980 the number of part-time adult students in secondary education exceeded that of young people up to the age of 18, in spite of the fact that secondary education for the young was practically uni­versal. Quite a few of these adults belonged to the generations that had only had six or seven years of primary school and wanted to upgrade their formal education by attending afternoon or evening classes on a part-time basis. In 1977, w h e n the n e w University Education Act went into effect, about 60 per cent of those w h o enrolled at the University of Stockholm were 25 years old or over. Thus , students of 'normal' undergraduate age were in the minority.

In the early 1960s economists began to argue that education (and research) were major deter­minants of economic growth. In order to maintain its competitive power on the inter­national market, it paid a country to invest heavily in education. Education began increas­ingly to be conceived as a career-determining factor. Not only did education help an individual to cope with a more and more complex society, it also provided him with the skills and c o m ­petencies that would make him more employable in a rapidly changing society where career changes were necessitated by changes in the structure of the economy. T h e G e r m a n so­ciologist Schelsky is quoted as saying that educated talent is modern society's substitute for distinction by family n a m e and inherited wealth; in other words, one could trace a clear tendency towards meritocracy. I have repeatedly pointed out that in spite of the broadening of opportunities for further education and the manifold increase of places available in insti­tutions of further education, competition, parti­cularly for university entrance, has increased. This has tended to have strong repercussions on the lower levels of the system with what the Germans refer to as Leistungsdruck (achievement pressure) already at the beginning of primary education.

Since then, the meritocratic tendency has tended to become even stronger, because the employment system tends more and more to use the amount of formal education as the first criterion of selection. This means that in order to secure a good place in the line of job-seekers one has to climb as high up on the educational ladder as possible. In order to secure a favour­able position there, one has to scramble for marks and achieve good examination results. This has strong repercussions on the teaching and learning that goes on in the classroom. Students tend to learn for external rewards. Under such circumstances quite a lot of super­ficial ritualism is fostered to the detriment of the pursuit of genuine educational values.

In other contexts (Husén, 1974,1979) I have tried to analyse more closely the meritocratic syndrome and h o w it besets highly technological

Present trends in education 49

and growth-oriented industrial societies. I con­tend that meritocracy is the price w e would have to pay for economic growth and an in­creased material standard of living. Under such auspices career-orientation and excessive prag­matism tend to take precedence over learning for personal fulfilment and lead to the neglect of the intangible benefits that accrue to the indi­vidual w h o enjoys studying, for instance, history or literature.

T h e meritocratic tendency that was mounting during the 1960s as part of the revolution of rising expectations has since then become stronger and could be envisaged in the coming decades to lead to an even more intense compe­tition in the educational system as a surplus of young people with advanced education enter a world of work which suffers from a slowdown in economic growth.

Research and development has over a few decades developed into a 'knowledge industry' which has tended to put out an exponentially growing amount of information emanating from rapidly specialized scientific disciplines. Given the fact that the number of scientific publi­cations over the last three decades has doubled every five to seven years, the term 'knowledge explosion' is, indeed, justified. In the 1960s the investments in both fundamental and applied research in some countries doubled every five years.

This development has led to certain misgiv­ings in the average person w h o has difficulties in interpreting what the researchers are doing and w h o increasingly has the uncanny feeling of being in the hands of specialists and technocrats. T h e impact of applied science on the environ­ment and life in the future society has led to a mounting concern, stronger n o w than at the end of the 1960s. W e have seen a growing tendency among young people to shun away from studies in science and technology which are treated with suspicion (Comber and Keeves, 1973).

Young people through their teens increasingly stay on at school, not just as a result of pro­longed mandatory schooling, but of prolonged,

voluntary further education as well. This has brought problems of secondary education into focus in countries with universal schooling at that level. In some countries secondary edu­cation is regarded as an educational 'disaster area' (Husen, 1979). Young people at school today are spoon-fed hour after hour, day after day, at an age w h e n their parents or grand­parents were out in working life learning adult roles. I pointed out (Husén, 1971a) that the issue that educators were faced with could be s u m m e d up in two words: participation and relevance. O n e could not expect young people to acquire more responsibility and social m a ­turity than the school gave them an opportunity to learn.

Since the 1960s the problem of providing adequate secondary education has in m a n y industrial countries, particularly in m a n y big-city school systems, become aggravated. In­creased truancy is an indicator that youngsters have begun to 'vote with their feet'. Disciplinary problems are commonplace. Those early non-achievers at school w h o fail to acquire an appropriate level of basic skills, in particular the ability to read, tend to give up. If they are promoted to higher grades, they leave school with highly unsatisfactory equipment to cope with the complexities of modern society. T h e emerging 'educational underclass' in quite a few industrial countries tends to become an increasing problem.

T h e added number of years young people spend at school has tended to widen the scope of duties that school is expected to perform. School is not any longer a place where only certain cognitive competencies are acquired. T h e duties have been extended to encompass social and custodial ones. It seemed a decade ago as if the school would have to assume an increasing number of tasks that thus far had been per­formed by the family. T h e school as an insti­tution was expected to assume the role of personality developer. In agrarian society the family, being a unity of production and con­sumption, was the obvious place for upbringing. In the industrial countries the last few decades

50 Torsten Husén

have tended to deprive the family of its in­stitutional importance and have enhanced the school's temporal influence, but they have also added n e w sources of influence and persuasion, namely the mass media. T h e media have con­siderably widened young people's horizon of experience, which is no longer limited to the h o m e or the village but takes in the whole world through the television screen. This makes today's youth m u c h more globally minded than previous generations. It has repeatedly been pointed out that in some regions of the world young people watch television at least as m a n y hours as they are exposed to classroom teaching.

T h e changes that have occurred in the role of the family as compared to that of the school are, of course, closely related to basic changes in the economy. In the United K i n g d o m during the nineteenth century the emergence of institution­alized schooling was related to the effects of industrialization on the family. Until the 1830s, w h e n child labour in mines and factories was commonplace, there was little pressure for any schooling covering the age from 7 to 12 or 13. Instead various philanthropic organizations took the initiative to establish so-called infant schools which catered to children from 3 or 4 up to 7 years of age. Such institutions took care of the children at least part of the time w h e n their parents worked long hours. But when child labour was legally prohibited the need to find some kind of institutional care for children of 7 to 12 became acute and led some decades later to legislation which provided for universal primary education.

T h e next major change in the educative role of the family in the industrialized world oc­curred rather recently. T h e most striking feature of this change has been the massive influx of w o m e n into the labour market. In conjunction with this the birth rate has gone d o w n and day­care facilities have been considerably expanded. A n increased divorce rate and the number of children born out of wedlock have resulted in a m u c h higher proportion of single-parent families than some ten to twenty years ago. T h e care-taking functions of the family have been further reduced by die progressive establishment of

institutions that take care of the elderly, such as nursing homes. This has further reduced the contacts between generations.

W h a t so far has been said would seem to indicate an overall weakening of the educative role of the family and increased impact of institutional education. A massive research by survey methods, however, tends to show that family background in modern industrial society accounts for a m u c h larger portion of individual differences in school attainments than the fac­tors that constitute the pedagogical milieu ( H M S O , 1967; Coleman et al., 1966; Husén,

1975)-In recent years an increased interest in what

Cremin (1980) has referred to as 'ecology of education' has taken place. Previously the focus was mainly on the individual child, his back­ground and his school attainments. There has n o w been a shift towards the study of the entire constellation of factors that constitute the edu­cative milieu in which die child grows up. O n e such constellation is the family which can be studied as an educative entity (Leichter, 1974).

T h e criticism and disenchantment that have been launched against the school as an insti­tution in several highly industrialized countries in recent years have led to a debate on the proper division of labour between the family and the school. T h e critics have accused the school of usurping duties that essentially should be performed by the family. There are signs of what could be called a renaissance of family life. Shortening of working hours, legislation on paid vacations, and the increased role of the father in child-care at h o m e are some of these signs. Still, however, the proper division of functions be­tween school and family will remain a major issue in the 1980s.

Well until the 1950s institutional schooling was limited to a narrow age-range which as a rule covered the ages of 6-7 to 13-14, i.e. the c o m ­pulsory school-attendance span. It was based upon the principle that by going to school the individual would learn what he as an adult 'needs to know'. T h e school was supposed by and large to provide him with the fare of know-

Present trends in education 51

ledge and skills that would nourish him for the rest of his life. In a rapidly changing and highly technological society anybody with specialist knowledge rapidly becomes obsolete. T h e indi­vidual has to keep on learning in order to cope with the changes brought about by the k n o w ­ledge industry and its applications in technology. This means that certain basic skills, which constitute the competence to absorb n e w k n o w ­ledge, have become essential to the learning that has to go on throughout life. Such skills that are applicable within a wide range of largely un­foreseen situations become strategic. A m o n g these competences the most important one is, of course, the ability to learn on one's o w n .

By the end of the 1960s high hopes were held for what the new educational technology, not least educational television, could do in providing an increasing number of individuals with the teaching they needed in order to become edu­cated. These hopes were particularly high a m o n g educational planners working with educational problems in the Third World. T h e bottleneck during the years of enrolment explosion was the supply of adequately trained teaching staff. Increasing unit costs did not give rise to serious concern, as long as the economy was expanding and education was allowed to absorb more of the growing resources than other sectors of society. However, n e w devices, such as pro­g r a m m e d instruction mediated through teaching machines, were often perceived as panaceas that would not only save teaching staff but bring d o w n the costs as well.

In m y 1971 report (Husén, 1971e) I pointed out that the school is not to be regarded as a pedagogical factory and that teachers therefore cannot be replaced by machines. In the few cases where replacement by machines was jus­tified, the pedagogical situation must be re­garded as abnormal!

Since then w e have seen both the rise, and particularly the fall, of educational technology with all its gadgetry. W e have begun to realize that at the core of the educative process going on in school is the interaction between indi­viduals: the teacher and the student. T h e

teacher has the task, in close contact with the student, to plan, implement and check the learning that goes on. T h e teacher's role is to provide the student with adequate learning opportunities, something that requires reason­ably stable personal and emotional relationships between the two partners in order to build up the necessary confidence and motivation and convey to the student the belief that the teacher cares about him.

In the 1960s one could notice that the expansion of the educational system also pertained to its organizational machinery. Administrative units were increased, partly as a result of consoli­dation of municipalities and/or school districts. Bureaucratization followed in the wake of the large administrative units which led to weak­ening of the personal contacts between decision­makers and employees. Another development has been the growth of school plants, par­ticularly at the secondary level. There are certain advantages of economy of size with large school units. Course offerings and programme options can be considerably broadened with access to a diversified teaching staff which has a large student body as a necessary correlate. Various services can be improved by having access to specialists for various services.

T h e typical student at the primary level in some countries goes to a school with an enrol­ment of some 400-500 students as compared with some 30-60 a few decades earlier. T h e growth of school units at the secondary level has been of the same scale.

There is, however, no evidence that large schools equip their students with more cognitive competence than small schools. T h e price paid for size is paid in the field of social education. T h e bigger the school, the more it suffers from impersonal formality. W h e n the informal face-to-face social control that can be exercised in the small school breaks d o w n , then all kinds of formal controls, which require an elaborate sys­tem of formal rules backed up by increasing administrative machinery, have to be substi­tuted. Students in the large, consolidated, cen­trally located schools have to be transported long

52 Torsten Husén

distances. T h e social climate easily becomes influenced by lack of stable relationships be­tween the students and the school staff. Truancy, vandalism, and harassment thrive in a social climate where direct social control is replaced by a system of formal regulations which can be violated by students without having to suffer the embarrassment and shame which is inevitable in a small setting.

T h e issue of school size has been taken up because it is indicative of the necessity to re­think the ecology of formal schooling that can be noticed in m a n y quarters at present. Given the role of the electronic media and given the highly technological, complex and meritocratic society in which young people in the indus­trialized world, and to an increasing extent those in the developing world, are growing up, one has begun to realize the necessity to think about the optimal institutional conditions for the education of young people.

Not least the events of 1968 around the world were reason enough to raise the problem of the 'generation gap'. Young people began to ques­tion the values that had guided their elders in the growth-oriented society. They questioned the validity of the so-called protestant work ethic with all its drudgery. They began to ask whether the price paid in terms of pollution and exploitation of natural resources was worth the increased standard of living. M a n y of these 'forerunners' challenged the very intentions of the adult generation which they considered to be imbued with hypocrisy (Keniston, 1971).

According to surveys conducted at regular intervals (Yankelovich, 1972, 1974) the gener­ation gap seems to have been exaggerated under the impressions of the atmosphere of revolt in the late 1960s. T h e variation in values among young people turned out to be wider than that between themselves and their elders. But in the industrial world the 'forerunners' of the 1960s seem to have been joined by followers in putting more emphasis on expressive values of self-realization than instrumental ones of career-orientation (Husén, 1979).

A stocktaking

W h a t , then, can be said in 1981 about the 'salient trends' or tendencies identified more than a decade earlier? T o what extent can I subscribe to them today? T h e modifications I have found to be justified have been m a d e in connection with each point separately.

B y and large, the tendencies dominating the educational scene a decade ago have prevailed, but there are three overriding and fundamental modifications that cut across them all. In spite of the events of the late 1960s at m a n y univer­sities and in spite of the misgivings about the development of education aired by young people, it was in 1970 still assumed that the educational system would continue to grow with unshaken political support under the aus­pices of a growing economy. It was further assumed, in spite of the realization of problems that resulted in some talk about 'the crisis in the classroom', that the almost euphoric m o o d that attached high hopes about what education could do in reforming society and improving the life-chances of the individual would prevail over the decades to come. In short: the futuristic perspective under which the current trends were observed was a growth-oriented, optimistic one.

W h a t has happened to force us to change the paradigm by means of which education is studied? T h e auspices under which education n o w operates in m a n y countries are largely as follows.

First, there has been a slow-down in economic growth close to one of steady state. T h e educational system in the northern industrial countries was allowed to grow twice as rapidly as the economy at large, and almost doubled its share of the G N P during the 'golden years' of the 1960s. It has n o w been forced to suffer cutbacks and to face what Boulding (1975) refers to as 'a management of decline'. T h e stagnation is hard to take for people w h o over m a n y years have been used to uninterrupted growth and w h o have been forming their expectations and conducting their planning within such a frame of mind.

Present trends in education 53

T h e educational euphoria of the 1960s has turned into criticisms and misgivings about what the formal system of education achieves and, not least, about the ways in which it is operated. T h e educational establishment in some countries is so demoralized by this criti­cism that it even has taken proposals about 'de-schooling' seriously (Illich, 1970). Until the late 1960s, the school as an institution was by and large a sacred cow, above criticism and attack. However, voices that began to talk about 'institutional malaise' became louder in the 1970s. T h e school became vulnerable to attacks from both left and right. It was accused of discriminating against certain groups and of actively trying to preserve inequalities in so­ciety. T h e standards of competence achieved were said to be going d o w n . Mounting truancy and vandalism were pointed out.

T h e enrolment explosion, due to the de­creased birth rate noticeable in the late 1960s, has resulted in a decrease in enrolment, which n o w begins to affect secondary and tertiary institutions. This means that quite a few indus­trialized countries will have to face a surplus of trained teachers, something of great significance for Third World countries which, for the fore­seeable future, are not going to be affected by the same trends.

T h e rising costs in an era of economic con­straints gave rise to concerns. T h e unit costs, that is to say, the costs per student per year in real terms, tended to go up rapidly in most countries, which was partly due to the fact that teachers' salaries tend to go u p more rapidly than the cost-of-living index. But the main reason for the rising unit costs was that the school could hardly be subjected to any rational cost-efficiency assessment in the same way as the manufacturing industry, which in most cases had its efficiency measured by market mechanisms.

Promotion of students from one grade to another has in quite a few countries tended to become automatic, which often is convenient for the teacher w h o can send the student to somebody else by promoting him. T h e result is that an increasing number of students after

nine or more years of schooling go out without being able to read and write even at the low-grade level. In some metropolitan school sys­tems one begins to get what I above referred to as a n e w 'educational underclass' consisting of students w h o , right from the beginning of their schooling, lag behind and successively are fall­ing more and more behind.

It has begun to be seen that education is not the great equalizer that some nineteenth-century liberals hoped it would be. It is an instrument by means of which distinctions are instilled and which tends to reproduce, at least partially, existing differences. It has begun to be realized that education, by making the poor more c o m ­petent, does not automatically remove poverty. O n the contrary, as pointed out above, in a competitive and meritocratic society it is cre­ating a n e w underclass of children from under­privileged backgrounds. Its alleged contributions to economic growth have been challenged. T h e high correlation between the amount of formal education and economic success both at the individual and aggregate level has been dis­puted. A problem of 'over-education', with a particular reference to the surplus of univer­sity graduates, has emerged in some countries (Freeman, 1976).

In m a n y countries education no longer enjoys the solid political backing that it had up to the early 1970s. It has tended to slip d o w n the political priority scale.

It was pointed out at the beginning of this article that m a n y of the problems education has to face in today's world constitute a c o m m o n denominator between industrial and non-industrial countries. But it was also pointed out that the enrolment trend in the Third World has not followed the pattern of the affluent countries in the northern hemisphere. T h e misgivings that have been aired are also partly different. Perhaps the most pressing prob­lem in Third World systems of education is the one of reconciling quantity with quality. Because of strong political pressure for ex­panding enrolment above primary level, there is a temptation to buy quantity at the cost of quality, something which is evident from the

54 Torsten Husén

attempts that have been m a d e to evaluate national systems in terms of student competence (Comber and Keeves, 1973). Another overriding problem in Third World countries is the one of achieving more relevance in the content of curriculum. Partly, this goes back to the colonial heritage w h e n certain types of schooling were imported and w h e n curricula and examinations were set by the colonial power. But the lack of relevancy with regard to both the indigenous culture and economy also depends partly on the high expectations of what education would bring in subsequent benefits in terms of status and income. This has led to a situation in which each stage in the educational system tends to be seen as preparatory for the next stage. T h e lower stages have no clear competence profiles of their o w n and are seen only as being stepping stones to the top stages. A third overriding problem which m a n y Third World countries would have to come to grips with is the high costs caused not only by the number of students, given the shape of the population pyramid, but also by the high level of wastage in terms of repetition and drop-outs.

Prospects

Over the next couple of decades, when the formal educational system can be expected to operate under the auspices of austerity caused by a reduced margin for expansion and lower political priority than earlier, a more realistic frame of mind would be called for with regard to expectations about what education can achieve. T o paraphrase a well-known statement: it can­not be expected to do everything for all the people all the time. A spirit of entitlement vis-à-vis education has prevailed in the rich countries where, not least, the state has been looked upon as the great benefactor w h o should carry all the costs. M o r e realism is also called for in looking at education as an equalizer of life-chances and in expecting it to be a panacea for problems essentially social and economic by nature.

M o r e specifically, a reappraisal would have

to take place in, a m o n g others, the following respects: A more equitable balance between primary

education on the one hand and secondary/ tertiary on the other would have to be estab­lished. This applies particularly to the Third World where education absorbs by far a larger proportion of public funds than in the rich countries.

Greater flexibility in school attendance with regard both to age of entry and number of days per year of attendance. Part-time at­tendance with higher-quality teaching would have to be considered.

T h e role of the teacher in the learning process will be subject to more careful consideration. Given the high proportion of staff costs and the shortage of well-qualified teachers, econ­omizing with the teacher's time can consider­ably reduce the unit cost.

T o say that education in m a n y countries today is in trouble is to point out what is only too obvious. T h e problems that beset education and will call for thorough reappraisals in both industrialized and non-industrialized countries are partly elicited by the troubles that beset the world economy and have brought the expansion in m a n y places to a halt and forced educators to rethink what they can do within the framework of existing'resources. But the problems are to a large extent also institutional, and emanate from the way the school operates in the society of today.

S o m e people have raised the crucial issue whether things are worse n o w in education than before and asked to what extent it is justified to talk about a 'crisis'. It is, of course, a matter of taste at what point of trouble one would find it appropriate to talk about crisis. Formal education is, in the majority of countries, a huge state-run machine that engulfs more and more individuals for more and more years of their life. It is beset with inner conflicts as are other institutions in society. These conflicts will have to be resolved if the school as an insti­tution is not to fall apart in the sense that edu­cation is sought under other auspices than public institutions.

Present trends in education 55

There are goal conflicts which are most noticeable w h e n political rhetoric is confronted with everyday reality. T h e official educational policy in most countries is that the school should contribute to increased equality in life-chances. T h e reality revealed by objective participation studies is that considerable gaps remain between rural and urban areas, and between social strata (Husén, 1975). This applies to countries with highly different social and economic systems. T h e school serves, as I pointed out earlier, to impart distinctions and to sort people for their positions in life. Those w h o , to quote George Orwell, from the outset are 'more equal than others' tend to succeed better. T h e conflicts between the pursuit of genuine educational goals, such as developing an aesthetic taste and appreciation of literature, c o m e into conflict with the pragmatic goals that thrive in a career-oriented competitive atmosphere where cre­dentials are the most important goal. T h e quest for equality comes into conflict with qual­ity, w h e n the first has to be bought at the cost of the second in, for instance, admitting people to the university. There are conflicts between various interested parties w h e n it comes to the governance of the system and to making decisions about the day-to-day oper­ation of the school. Administrators clash in their interest with parents and students, students with teachers, and administrators with teachers. Such conflicts easily become acute in large school systems with a highly specialized staff and where the direct access on the part of the 'clients'—the students and their parents— to teachers, school administrators, and other of­ficials is formalized and remote. •

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Qualification and Development. L o n d o n , Allen &

Unwin.

F A U R E , Edgar, et al. 1972. Learning to Be: The World of

Education Today and Tomorrow. London/Paris, Harrap/

Unesco.

F R E E M A N , Richard B . 1976. The Over-educated American.

N e w York, Academic Press.

H A L S E Y , A . H . (ed.). 1961. Ability and Educational Oppor­

tunity. Paris, O E C D .

H I L L , John P . ; M Ö N C K S , Franz J. (eds.). 1977. Adolescence

and Youth in Prospect. Guildford,IPC Science and Tech­

nology Press.

H M S O . 1967. Children and their Primary Schools (Plowden Report). Vol. II: Research and Surveys. L o n d o n , Her

Majesty's Stationery Office.

H U S É N , Torsten. 1948. Begàvning och miljö [Ability and

Environment]. Stockholm, Almqvist & Wiksell.

. 1971a. Present Trends and Future Developments in

Education: A European Perspective. Toronto, T h e Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. (Occasional

Papers N o . 8.)

56 Torsten Husén

H D S É N , Torsten. 19716. Uibildning âr 2000. [Education

in the Year 2000]. Stockholm, Bonniers. (Translated

into English, Polish, Arabic, Hindi and Russian.)

. 1974a. The Learning Society. London, Methuen.

. 19746. Talent, Equality and Meritocracy. The Hague,

Martinus Nijhoff.

. 1975. Social Influences on Educational Attainment.

Paris, O E C D . (Also in French and German.)

• 1979- The School in Question: A Comparative Study of the School and its Future in Western Societies. London and N e w York, Oxford University Press. (Translated into German, Spanish, Italian, Danish, Polish and

Swedish.)

. 1980. Egalitarian Policies in Swedish Education: Rhetoric and Reality. Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken

Quarterly Review, N o . 3/4, pp. 56-62.

ILLICH, Ivan. 1970. Deschooling Society. N e w York,

Harper & R o w .

J O H A N S S O N , Egil. 1977. The History of Literacy in Sweden in Comparison with some other Countries. U m e â , University

of Umel , Department of Education. (Report N o . 12.)

K E N I S T O N , Kenneth. 1971. Youth and Dissent. N e w York,

Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich.

LEICHTER, Hope Jensen (ed.). 1974. The Family as Edu­

cator. N e w York, Teachers College Press, Columbia

University.

S I L B E R M A N , Charles E . 1970. Crisis in the Classroom: The

Remaking of American Education. N e w York, Random

House.

T E I C H L E R , Ulrich. 1976. Das Dilemma der modernen

Bildungsgesellschaft. [The Dilemma in the Modern

Learning Society]. Stuttgart, Klett.

Y A N K E L O V I C H , Daniel. 1972. The Changing Values on

Campus: Political and Personal Attitudes on Campus. N e w York, Washington Square Press.

. 1974. The New Morality. N e w York, McGraw-Hill.

Y O U N G , Michael. 1958. The Rise of the Meritocracy. London, Penguin.

W h a t resources for education?

Jean-Claude Eicher

T h e 1960s were a decade of exponential growth of educational provision and school expenditures boosted by an almost euphoric belief in education. T h e 1970s have, under the influences of inflation and zero growth, witnessed a 'headlong retreat' from commitments to education. . . . Education has for some time been in a state of crisis of finance, confi­dence and raison d'être.

These observations, with which Torsten Husén opens the preface to his recent work The School in Question, admirably s u m up the radical re­versal in the situation of the school in the course of the last twenty years. It is not our purpose here to inquire into the causes of this edu­cational crisis, and even less to make any value judgement regarding the educational policies pursued in the different M e m b e r States of Unesco.

O u r aim is solely to provide information that is as reliable and generally valid as possible concerning the evolution of the material, financial and h u m a n resources that have been m a d e available to educational institutions in the past two decades, and to draw conclusions from these data in order to highlight m e d i u m -term trends.

However, it is clear from the resolutions of Unesco's last M e d i u m - T e r m Plan and the state­ments m a d e by its Director-General that the need for education remains a basic need. Yet,

Jean-Claude Eicher (France). Professor of Economics at the University of Dijon and Director of the Institute for Research on the Economics of Education (IREDU). Has written widely on economics. Co-author of Écono­mique de l'éducation and L'économie des nouveaux moyens d'enseignement (Volumes I, II and III).

it is a long way from being satisfied in a world in which hundreds of millions of children do not attend school or drop out before they have learnt to read and write. T h e mobilization of m a x i m u m resources to this end is therefore an essential priority.

Despite our concern not to pass judgement on existing education systems, w e shall be compelled to relate future needs—as measured in terms of the number of people (children and adults) to be educated—to available resources. W e shall therefore have to look beyond the present way in which education is organized, and consider whether another form of organ­ization might not enable other resources, both financial and h u m a n , which it has not until n o w been possible to envisage, to be identified and enlisted.

This study will therefore comprise three parts.

T h e first will present statistical data on the evolution of resources devoted to education since i960, and attempt to define general trends according to groups of countries.

T h e second will be based on observed trends, on population forecasts and on the present attitudes of governments towards the education system, with a view to elucidating probable developments and highlighting the potential obstacles to a rapid expansion of education within present-day structures.

T h e third part will seek to show what at present unused resources might be mobilized in the future, and in what circumstances.

Prospects, Vol. XII, N o . I, 1982

58 Jean-Claude Eicher

Trends in the allocation of resources to education

since i960

T h e difficulties of such a review are well known. F e w countries possess long and reliable series of data on financial resources; where they do exist, such data concern only public expenditure on education, and frequently only that of the central government or the Ministry of E d u ­cation. Fluctuations in price levels make c o m ­parison difficult over any given period of time, while currency-conversion problems make it still more difficult to compare one country or region with another.

M a n p o w e r resources are frequently better k n o w n , but the data are equally difficult to interpret on account of the absence of uniform­ity of training levels, and because of the dif­ferences in the status enjoyed by different categories of personnel.

Lastly, material resources have not generally all been catalogued at the national level, and must be extrapolated from sample surveys.

Even our knowledge of school enrolments, for which as a rule w e possess precise figures, in fact proves to be somewhat uncertain as soon as w e wish to ascertain h o w m a n y students are enrolled in a particular course of studies, and even more uncertain in the case of a particular grade.

However, despite such shortcomings, the available data do give an insight into the major trends; and it is these alone that interest us in the present study.*

W e shall first present data concerning the evolution of public expenditure on education throughout the world and by major region, relating them to certain economic and financial variables, before providing more detailed in­formation on various specific factors.

* A detailed account of the difficulties of measurement and comparison, and of the limits to the reliability of the data collected by Unesco, can be found in Eicher and Orivel (1979).

THE EVOLUTION OF PUBLIC EXPENDITURE ON EDUCATION

THROUGHOUT THE W O R L D SINCE i960

T h e first thing to be noted in regard to the hundred or so countries for which continuous series of checked data are availablef is that the s u m total of public expenditure on education rose from $115,350.4 million (in constant dol­lars) in i960 to $365,671.7 million in 1976, representing an increase by a factor of 3.17 in real terms.

This growth is even more spectacular if compared to that of the gross national product ( G N P ) since, measured as a percentage thereof, public expenditure on education (PEE) rose from 3.7 in i960 to 5.7 in 1976.

However, the rate at which this growth oc­curred tended to decline significantly over the same period, the m e a n annual rate of increase in such public expenditure reaching 10.9 per cent between i960 and 1965, but declining to 6.4 per cent between 1965 and 1970, levelling off at 6.6 per cent between 1970 and 1974 o m v

to fall to 3.3 per cent between 1974 and 1976. This drop in the growth rate is confirmed and m a d e explicit in the measurement of the elas­ticity coefficient of public expenditure on edu­cation in relation to the G N P , since the latter stood at over 2.1 between i960 and 1965 (which means that P E E was increasing more than twice as rapidly as the G N P ) , but dropped to 1.36 between 1965 and 1970, then to 1.27 between 1970 and 1974, rising again slightly to 1.38 between 1974 and 1976.

However, this average conceals major dis-

t T h e closer w e come to the present, the greater the number of countries that provide data to Unesco each year, and the greater the reliability of such data, which are thoroughly checked by the Division of Statistics. W e shall therefore base our article solely on these figures, which are the most uniform available. For the procedures used to convert data quoted in current national currency units into constant United States dollars, the reader is invited to consult the report by Eicher and Orivel (1979) referred to above.

W h a t resources for education? 59

T A B L E I. Evolution of the elasticity coefficient of P E E in relation to G N P by major regions, 1960-76

Region

Worldwide

Developed countries Developing countries

Developing countries less O P E C m e m b e r countries

Africa North America Latin America

Asia Europe (including U S S R ) European countries with centrally

planned economies

Source: Eicher and Orivel (1979), p. 42.

1960-65

2.10

2.06

2.16

— 2.30

2.45

2.57

1-45 2.06

1-73

1965-70

r.36

1-33 1.66

— 1.60

2.26

1.11

1.14

0.93

1.92

1970-74

1.27

1.41

0.92

0.97

1.49

0.87

1.22

1.34

1.63

1.51

1974-76

1.38

1.28

2-45

1-35 2.81

—1.62

0.60

2.12

2.11

0.84

parities between regions, as is indicated in Table 1.

At the start of the 1960s there was consider­able uniformity. In all countries, P E E increased considerably more rapidly than the G N P . Sub­sequently, the disparities increased, although the slowing d o w n in relation to the initial period was universal until 1974. Africa remained above the average, Latin America and Asia below. T h e effort of the European countries with centrally planned economies, which had begun earlier, remained high and fairly steady until 1974.

T h e period following the crisis is more diffi­cult to interpret. W h a t is striking, however, is the spectacular slowing d o w n of growth in North America, at a time w h e n Western Europe maintained relatively high elasticity coefficients.

However, the fragmentary data available for 1977 suggests that the curb on P E E is gaining ground throughout Europe.

A s regards the developing countries, the situ­ation in the oil-producing countries is very different from what it is in the other countries. In the former, educational expenditure is in­creasing substantially, at a markedly faster rate even than a rapidly growing G N P . In the others, the situation varies considerably; by and large, however, Latin America has considerably re­duced the priority given to education, a trend which has not been followed elsewhere.

T h e situation in Africa, where the G N P has dropped, is particularly serious. T h e result has been that, despite a considerable effort, expen­diture on education has increased only mini­mally.

FACTORS TO BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT IN INTERPRETING

THE OBSERVED TREND

T h e slowing d o w n in educational expenditure is, therefore, extremely widespread. But to what is it due? T h e economic crisis might be supposed to explain in the main the fact that P E E has for some time increased less rapidly, without the priority given to education being called into question. T h e correlation models provide argu­ments in this direction, showing that the variable which best explains the growth rate of P E E is the growth rate of the G N P over the same period.*

* Correlation models m a k e it possible, on the basis of hypotheses regarding the influences exercised on the observed variable, to determine with precision the specific influence of each of the independent variables, considered simultaneously, and hence to avoid attribu­ting to one variable all or part of the hidden influence of another variable acting in conjunction with it. A model of this kind, including economic, demographic and cultural variables, is presented in the above-mentioned report (Eicher and Orivel, 1979, pp. 55-7).

60 Jean-Claude Eicher

T A B L E 2 . Evolution of net enrolment rates on first-level schooling on a cross-section of developing countries, by region, 1970-78

Countries in which the rate Countries in which the rate reached or exceeded 75% ranged between 30 and 75% Countries in which the rate

in 1970 in 1970 stood at < 30% in 1970

N o . of N o . of N o . of N o . of countries countries countries countries N o . of N o . of having all having made having made having made countries countries but reached little or substantial little having m a d e having m a d e 100% by the no progress progress or no progress substantial little or no end of the (20 points (20 points (less than progress progress

Region period or more) or more) 10 points) (> 15 points) «iopoints)

Africa (28 countries) 2 2 4 7 3 6 Latin America (11 countries) 3 6 — 2 — -Asia (15 countries) 2 4 2 2 1 1

Source: Unesco Statistical Yearbook, 1980, Table 3 .2 .

However, it is clear from a study both of trends by region and by period and of elasticity coefficients that a change of attitude on the part of the public authorities has also occurred. This is particularly apparent in North America, where P E E has been reduced, whereas the G N P has continued to grow in recent times; however, it is also true throughout the developed world, where the P E E component in the G N P has virtually ceased to progress, and even in the Third World, where the P E E growth rates have in general shown a marked decline, albeit somewhat less marked than that of the G N P growth rates.

Does this m e a n that the reduction in the priority accorded to education is due to the fact that needs appear to have been largely satisfied thanks to ten to fifteen years of intensive public action? T h e data concerning enrolment figures, enrolment rates and teaching and supervisory

T r u e , it indicates that the G N P growth rate has a significant and pronounced impact upon that of P E E ; however, this impact is less than proportional, since each additional point of the former increases the latter by 0.78 of a point only. T h e effort to promote enrol­ments in primary schooling (itself bound up with population growth) and the fact of belonging to a par­ticular cultural area, such as French-speaking Africa, also play a major role.

ratios and their recent evolution in the develop­ing countries provide us with an initial insight into the question. W e shall consider here only the level to which it is unanimously agreed that everyone should have access, namely, first-level schooling. If w e group together by major region all Third World countries for which continuous data are available on net enrolment rates (ratio of pupils enrolled in first-level schooling whose age-groups correspond to the duration of pri­mary schooling to the population of the same age-groups)* w e observe the trends shown in Table 2.

* Although m o r e frequently calculated and hence more accessible, the gross enrolment rates (ratio of pupils enrolled to the total school-age population) possess two major shortcomings which m a k e them of little use as indices of school attendance. First, they record all those enrolled, regardless of their age. Hence they take no account of the maintenance in the system of pupils over the normal school age, and m a y as a result exceed ioo per cent w h e n the proportion of repeaters is substantial. Second, they differ from one country to another according to the percentage of repeaters auth­orized. T h u s w e frequently find gross enrolment rates at first level of, or above, 130 per cent, and the ratio between net and gross rates m a y vary from a few to over twenty points, depending on the country. This is the reason w h y w e prefer to present incomplete but more or less representative data concerning net rates.

What resources for education? 6l

T A B L E 3. Evolution of the pupil/teacher ratio in first-level education by region, 1970-77

Region

II

¡S-! ¡ 11

1.S s

a «

•a & 1 - - - - -

Africa (27 countries) Latin America (11 countries) Asia (14 countries)

5 5 17

3 4 4

5 5 4

These results are relatively discouraging, showing as they do that, of the fifty-four countries included in the survey, thirty have failed substantially to increase the proportion of children attending primary school in recent times, and that this failure is recorded both by countries which had already attained a high level of school enrolment and by countries lagging far behind in this respect.

T h e data also confirm the scale of the effort which remains to be m a d e in Asia and above all in Africa, since fifteen of the twenty-eight African countries concerned have not yet suc­ceeded in enrolling 50 per cent of the school-age population in primary education.

C a n it be said, despite all, that the standard of educational services provided to those attending school has improved? B y no means—if w e take as an indicator thereof the teacher/pupil ratio,* as Table 3 shows.

In Latin America, the pupil/teacher ratio has remained relatively stable, no country showing any great variation one way or the other.

In Asia, an examination of individual countries reveals that stability is also the rule;

* The concept of educational quality is not easy to define, and even less easy to measure. However, it may be supposed that, so long as the number of pupils per teacher remains high, as is the case in virtually all Third World countries, any reduction in this number will bring with it an improvement in the conditions under which knowledge is transmitted.

the countries recording significant progress are oil-producing countries or countries which were lagging far behind in 1970, while in the other countries the ratio shows very little alteration.

T h e situation is manifestly more serious in Africa, where in the vast majority of countries the ratio has worsened, in some cases very considerably.

T h u s the picture which emerges from the statistical data appears fairly clear: It shows the enormous educational efforts that

have been m a d e throughout the world over the past twenty years, but also the marked slowing d o w n in the rate of public expen­diture on education since 1970.

It also shows that this slowing d o w n cannot be attributed wholly to the decline in economic growth, which it has frequently preceded, nor to any claim that the most urgent needs have n o w everywhere been satisfied.

Lastly, it shows that the situation varies from one region to the other and, within each re­gion, from one country to another.

T h e variations from one country to another suggest that room for manoeuvre remains, unaf­fected by the economic and demographic con­straints."}"

T h e regional disparities highlight the critical nature of Africa's situation, where, despite above-average public expenditure on education, enrolment rates remain low, and educational standards are frequently inadequate.

A n analysis of likely future trends will m a k e it possible to determine more clearly the scale of the problems and constraints.

Medium-term trends and problems

Analysis of the m a n y forward-planning studies on education inclines us to exercise considerable caution before embarking upon so perilous an

t Detailed analysis of individual situations is not poss­ible within the scope of this article. For a tentative interpretation of the disparities observed, the report by Eicher and Orivel (1979), referred to above, may be consulted.

62 Jean-Claude Eicher

exercise. These studies, which were mostly carried out during the period w h e n expenditure on education was growing extremely rapidly and w h e n there was still little indication of any reversal of the trend, anticipated such high levels for the end of the century that their chief interesis in fact to show quite clearly that such exponential growth could not possibly continue for so long.*

Rather than attempt to fit data whose re­liability in regard to specific details is limited into a simple graph, w e shall adopt the method advocated by R . Orivel in a report to the sem­inar on ' T h e Future of Education and the E d u ­cation of the Future' organized in October 1978 by the International Institute for Educational Planning. Like that author, w e shall use projec­tions of school enrolments and forecasts of costs per pupil in order to m a k e an approximate evaluation of the effort that will be required of the different countries if they are to achieve such a growth rate.

First, however, w e shall attempt to show w h y this method is both the least hazardous and the best suited to providing an evaluation of the cost of what is generally regarded as the minimal educational action to be taken in the m e d i u m term.

T H E CONSERVATIVE N A T U R E

OF T H E ESTIMATES

T h e estimates which w e present are based on the one hand on the latest projections of school enrolments undertaken by Unesco in 1977 and, on the other, on a hypothetical evolution of edu­cational costs by level in relation to the G N P .

* Reference m a y be m a d e in particular to the reports prepared for the Europe 2000 plan, published in 1974, which anticipated for example that the Federal Republic of Germany would spend between 2.5 and 4.8 per cent of its G N P on higher education in 1980, whereas actual expenditure in fact amounted to ap­proximately 0.55 per cent. In the case of Norway, the comparison yields an anticipated expenditure of 2.3 to 3.7 per cent and an actual expenditure of 0.85 per cent. T h e evaluations published more recently by O E C D (1978) are less out of line with actual trends, but nevertheless reflect a considerable overestimate.

T A B L E 4. Evolution of the gross enrolment rate in first-level education in the Third World between 1970 and 2000

Area 1970

Developing countries as a whole Africa Latin America Asia

70.8

59-3 102.4

66.4

92.9

95-4 130.6

81.4

Projections of enrolments

T h e projections were m a d e after the ambitious objectives defined earlier had been compared with the actual—and considerably slower—evol­ution of enrolment rates. They are thus based essentially on observation of what it was pos­sible to achieve during the preceding period, and on the hypothesis that a higher growth rate will probably not be attained in the future.f

T h u s , if w e consider the developing countries, w e observe that the gross enrolment rate in first-level schooling should not exceed 92.9 per cent for these countries as a whole by the year 2000. This means that they will still fall considerably short of the target of universal primary edu­cation.

A comparison of the major regions reveals considerable disparities and, above all, differing rates of growth (see Table 4).

T h u s Latin America, which was already close to achieving universal schooling in 1970, will have fully attained it before 2000. B y contrast, Asia is progressing very slowly, so m u c h so indeed that it will have been largely outstripped by Africa by the end of the century; both continents will however fall well short of uni­versal literacy teaching for children. If w e consider, in addition, that gross enrolment rates

f M o r e precisely, a logistical function extrapolating the trend recorded between i960 and 1974 was used in the case of first-level schooling. In the case of secondary education, coefficients of the transition between the first and second levels were calculated and extrapolated by means of the same logistical function, and the numbers of school-age children were calculated by projecting primary school-age cohorts. In the case of higher education, transitional coefficients were con­sidered adequate.

What resources

will reach only 38.6 per cent for all developing countries, whereas they already stood at 62.8 per cent in 1970 for the developed countries, and will reach only 29.3 per cent in Africa, w e are bound to conclude that these figures fall sub­stantially short of the desired objectives. For while there has been a general flagging in the growth of public expenditure on education over the past fifteen years, and while the priority accorded to education appears to have declined in all countries—as evidenced by the evolution of elasticity coefficients—it is nevertheless es­sential to stress the differences of attitude in the developed and the developing countries. C o n ­sidered in themselves, the data on expenditure reveal that the cut-back in public expenditure on education is considerably less substantial in the developing countries.

In the vast majority of Third World countries, elasticity coefficients are still well above one: in other words, the percentage of the G N P allo­cated to education continues to increase. In Africa, public expenditure on education is even observed to have increased since the crisis in almost all the non-oil-producing countries and in particular in the most disadvantaged, where the G N P has actually fallen, in some cases quite significantly. T h e conviction that education is an absolute individual right as well as a pre­condition of economic and social growth has not been called into question in the developing countries, despite the considerably more pessi­mistic attitude regarding the economic impact of education that is emerging among a majority of economists, and despite the sociologists' con­clusions that education has little or no effect upon social mobility.

W h a t has, however, been called into question is the ability of education systems as they existed, that is, modelled upon those of the affluent countries and frequently inherited from the former colonial power, to promote develop­ment and to provide h u m a n capital suited to the country's needs. Hence the transition, as ob­served in speeches and resolutions, from the concern with the quantitative development of education to the theme of reform.

B y contrast, the priority and indeed crucial

for education? 63

nature of literacy teaching has been constantly reaffirmed, more vigorously than ever, indeed, during the recent General Conferences of Unesco. T h e Belgrade session held in the autumn of 1980 once again showed this clearly, by endorsing as one of its central concerns and priority objectives the promotion of universal literacy, that is, literacy for girls and adults as well as for boys.

Assumptions concerning costs

Costs per pupil have increased considerably in recent years at all levels of education. This increase is due to two factors: the first is the rising costs of producing educational services of a consistent standard; the second, the improve­ment in the quality of such services.

A s w e saw in the first part, however, certain indicators point to a levelling off and even in some cases to a decline in quality. Bearing in mind also the observations concerning the slowing d o w n in economic growth, the assump­tion that the standard of educational services will remain constant in the coming years m a y be regarded as not unreasonable.

O n the other hand, production costs are bound to increase not only as a result of price rises but also in real terms, since salaries ac­count for the greater part of such costs and since it m a y be supposed that the living standard of teachers will rise, as it generally has done in the past, more or less in step with the G N P .

Thus the assumption of a rate of increase of the cost per pupil equal to that of the per capita G N P m a y be regarded as a realistic, albeit not very dynamic one, in the sense that it pre­supposes that most countries will be led to abandon all plans to improve the operation of schooling and the standard of school building.

W H A T CAN BE LEARNT FROM SIMULATION

If the cost per pupil were the same at all levels, and/or if projections showed the same relative increase in enrolments at each level, w e should simply have to apply the coefficient of the in-

64 Jean-Claude Eicher

crease in enrolment rates to the percentage of the G N P spent on education for the latest year for which figures are available in order to obtain the same percentage at the end of the period.

However, these hypotheses have not been confirmed. T h e cost per pupil rises appreciably with the level of education, and relatively greater increases in enrolments are forecast at the sec­ondary, and above all at the higher, levels. It is therefore necessary to convert enrolment figures at the higher levels into first-level enrolments, since, in terms of costs, a secondary-level enrol­ment is equivalent to enrolling x number of pupils at the primary level (x > i), while enrol­ment of a student in higher education is equiv­alent to enrolling y number of pupils (y >x).

This simulation yields for the developing countries the results shown in Table 5.

It will be observed that the hypothetical enrolment rate has increased by 130 per cent between 1975 and 2000 for Africa, by 66 per cent for Latin America and by 38 per cent for Asia.

It is therefore fair to say that, should these hypotheses be confirmed, the percentage of the G N P earmarked for public expenditure on education would evolve between 1975 and 2000

as follows. Africa, 4.8 to 10.56; Latin America, 3.3 to 5.48; Asia, 3.8 to 5.24.

Here again, the situation of Africa gives cause for concern. In order to attain objectives which m a y once again appear modest in relation to the legitimate ambitions of the different states, this region would in fact have to allocate nearly 11 per cent of its G N P to public expen­diture on education.

T h e magnitude of this percentage, the fact that no country has at present achieved it, and that there appears to be a ceiling around 8 per cent, compounded with the urgency of other collective needs, all m a k e it unrealistic to sup­pose that the objective can be attained if n e w resources are not m a d e available and if the edu­cation system is not radically overhauled in order to increase its efficiency.

T h e situation of Asia and Latin America would seem more propitious, inasmuch as the objectives would be attained with expenditures not exceeding 5.5 per cent of the G N P . H o w ­ever, aside from the fact that this percentage is already very high, progress would not be spec­tacular in Asia since Unesco's projections have been based on the prevailing trend over the previous period, which was particularly sluggish

T A B L E 5. Evolution of enrolments and enrolment rates by level and by region

in the Third World, 1975-2000

N o . of first-level pupils

(thousands)

N o . of second-level pupils

(thousands)

N o . of third-level students

(thousands)

Actual enrolment rate ( % )

N o . of equivalent first-level pupils

(thousands)1

School-age population (thousands)

Hypothetical enrolment rate (%)

Africa

44243

7 811

865

32.6

103 089

135 715

76.O

1975

Latin

America

57213

12 ISI

3451

54.8

i n 539

104403

106.8

Asia

136 077

47 128

4581

38

262 675

358 097

73-4

Africa

127 483

32884

3 967

48.6

460 188

262 311

175-4

2000

Latin

America

118 449

35 474

13 228

69

304 481

171 665

177-4

Asia

260 145

119 570

13434

44-5

594 129

584 596

101.6

i. This figure is obtained by multiplying secondary and higher level enrolments by a coefficient equal to the ratio of their unit cost to

that of the first-level pupil.

W h a t resources for education? 65

in that region. Only Latin America should be able to attain relatively satisfactory targets at a more or less sustainable cost.

W e shall not linger here over the situation of the developed countries. T o be sure, the slow­d o w n is m u c h more marked here than else­where; so m u c h so, indeed, that total public expenditure on education is tending to level off and even to decline in certain countries. H o w ­ever, the essential literacy requirements have by and large long been satisfied, and all young people spend roughly ten years at school. (It should, however, be noted that this does not, unfortunately, m e a n that all young people re­ceive a complete course of training, culminating in a diploma. For example, in France, 29 per cent of young people were still dropping out in 1980 without any qualifications, while only approximately 20 per cent obtained the upper-secondary diploma.)

It is only in the case of higher education that concern m a y be felt, in view of the fact that public expenditure has for several years been declining in real terms, whereas the demand continues to increase.

Lastly, the demand for adult training is expanding enormously, such training drawing its financing from a variety of sources, of which public funds represent only a very small per­centage.

Thus the future of education is beset by serious problems, particularly in the developing countries. C a n solutions be devised that would help to speed up the growth of educational services?

Prospects for mobilizing n e w resources and for making

more effective use of existing resources

T h e line of argument which w e pursued in the second part of this study was based both on the statistical observations contained in the first part and on certain assumptions.

W e shall deal more particularly here with two of these assumptions: first, the assumption that

fully organized education systems already exist which merely need to be developed, without any extensive transformation of their structures; second, the assumption that the forms of financing and the distribution pattern of financ­ing sources observed in the recent past can and will be continued.

Only if these assumptions are confirmed can it be claimed that it will be extremely difl&cult, particularly in Africa, to attain expansion targets, even targets that, in relation to felt needs, are relatively modest.

However, it is possible—without necessarily taking a stand and putting forward proposals which could reflect only the author's views and consequently be out of place in this study—to show, on the basis of the objectives for which there appears to exist a certain consensus at the national level and a m o n g international insti­tutions concerned with education, that structural reforms are both necessary and urgent.

W e shall be content to show that some of these reforms can serve to improve the use of the resources earmarked for education and to enhance the system's performance.

W e shall consider successively the n e w financial resources that could suitably be en­listed, the possibilities for developing the h u m a n and material resources of education and, finally, the possibilities of and limitations on increasing the efficiency with which such resources are used.

POSSIBILITIES OF INCREASING THE FINANCIAL RESOURCES AVAILABLE TO EDUCATION

These resources m a y be drawn from the fol­lowing sources: central government; regional and local communities; the beneficiaries of edu­cation and/or their families; private patronage; industry; foreign aid. T h e first two sources are public, as is, in the main, the last-mentioned. As w e saw in the first part of this report, these have increased enormously in the past twenty years but are n o w for various reasons tending to increase less rapidly. It would therefore seem

66 Jean-Claude Eicher

idle to expect their share in the total provision of financing to increase, with the possible ex­ception of foreign aid to a very few developing countries.

T h e contribution m a d e by private patronage is marginal, and will of necessity remain so. Financing by the beneficiaries themselves is generally regarded as a form of regression.

At first sight, it m a y indeed seem anti­democratic to ask families to contribute a major share of the financing of a service which is considered to be vital, and which would as a result be provided in accordance with the pref­erences of its potential users, but also and above all in accordance with their resources. This is undoubtedly true in the case both of first-level schooling and of compulsory education in gen­eral, since recourse to a system of enrolment fees would force the poorest families to sacrifice other essential expenses. However, it is not necessarily true of higher education.

Research has in fact shown in this regard: (a) that higher education is considerably more costly per pupil than primary and secondary schooling; (b) that its financing has in most cases been regressive, that is, those families whose children account for only a small pro­portion of higher level students largely finance it through the taxes that they pay.

This phenomenon is not peculiar to the devel­oping countries. It has for example been possible to show that the net cost of higher education is negative for very rich families in France, thanks to the tax relief which they enjoy. However, it is particularly shocking in the poor countries, where the majority of university students are from well-to-do backgrounds, and where higher education is extremely costly for the community. For example, in Africa, its average cost per student in 1974 stood at $2,941, as compared with $50.4 in the case of first-level schooling. In other words, the resources spent on providing one year's higher education for a student whose parents in most cases had the wherewithal to pay for it, at least in part, might have served to send nearly 60 more children to primary school.

In all countries in which higher education is financed mainly by the public authorities, con­

sideration must therefore be given (and a serious start has been m a d e in this direction) to raising enrolment fees appreciably while at the same time transforming the system of aid so as to enable the most deprived groups to receive more substantial grants.

Finally, financing by industry m a y appear logical enough w h e n the aim is to provide initial or continuing vocational training that will be of direct use to employers. However, there is one condition. Monitoring of the content of training must remain in the hands of the community, in order to avoid made-to-measure training schemes which m a y become something of a straitjacket, making subsequent redeploy­ment impossible.

POSSIBILITIES FOR MOBILIZING

N E W H U M A N

AND MATERIAL RESOURCES

At present, educational activities are in the main undertaken by institutions which form part of a structured system, one whose resources in manpower and equipment have to be paid for. However, this virtual monopoly is not a very long-standing one, for the most part dating back no farther than two decades in m a n y of the developing countries formerly colonized.

It is a cumbersome apparatus, which is ex­tremely difficult to adapt to n e w situations and which can mobilize n e w h u m a n and material resources only by means of n e w funds.

However, this type of organization is begin­ning to be called seriously into question: (a) it is extremely ill-suited to undertaking adult-training schemes, which take m a n y forms and are generally of a limited, ad hoc nature; (b) it is regarded by m a n y as being unsuited to devel­oping countries' needs, inasmuch as it serves as the m e d i u m of an urban culture, deeply marked by foreign influences; and (c) full-time professional teachers are extremely costly, since they are of necessity highly trained people w h o must be paid a suitable salary if it is desired that they remain in the profession. (Given the

W h a t resources

present situation of the job market for graduates, particularly in the developing countries, it might be supposed that this problem no longer exists. However, wage-scales were generally established prior to the crisis, and wages are extremely difficult to scale d o w n , particularly w h e n the profession is solidly organized, as is frequently the case.)

T h e conclusion is therefore clear: if n e w h u m a n and material resources are to be enlisted, they must be mobilized outside the established education systems.

However, this is feasible. W e shall consider here only the problem of literacy teaching, as being by far the most urgent and most import­ant. It is one which concerns both children and adults.

In the case of adults, matters are clear. Traditional schools are not suited to the task of teaching them literacy skills, on the one hand because their image of it—as a place to which children are sent, where a language is spoken which they understand improperly or not at all—prevents them from feeling at ease, and, on the other hand, and more important, because adult literacy teaching must be functional, that is, it must not be limited to inculcating in them the basic intellectual skills of reading, writing and arithmetic but must also put them in touch with the needs of everyday life: farm manage­ment, proper use of fertilizers and pesticides, reading of popular works on farming, etc.

These considerable tasks can be ac­complished, in h u m a n and financial terms, only if available local resources are mobilized without direct outlays: community halls, members of the community w h o already possess literacy skills, etc.

Organizing such a programme is a difficult task, there being m a n y obstacles to mobilizing h u m a n and material resources on a continuing basis. There are, however, examples of success­ful literacy campaigns which can be studied and adapted to different situations. Indeed, if the problem is to be solved, this would seem to be the only way to solve it.

In the case of children, the situation is less simple, since the aim must be to provide

for education? 67

them—or at least some of them—with a suf­ficiently solid grounding to enable them to pursue their education at greater length. In all cases, however, initiatives such as that of making available for educational purposes buildings that have been constructed through mutual help schemes at the village level, and the use of the more advanced pupils to supervise and give support to beginners and those lagging behind, can serve to facilitate the development of primary schooling under satisfactory con­ditions. But are there no n e w , more effective teaching methods?

OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVING THE EFFICIENCY

WITH WHICH RESOURCES ARE USED IN EDUCATION

Traditionally, education is a labour-intensive rather than a capital-intensive service, the labour in question being of necessity skilled. Hence it is an activity in which increases in productivity are minimal, and whose cost per unit of pro­duction is high and is tending to rise in step with the rising standard of living of workers.

However, such conditions of production are created by the fact that the message con­taining the information (knowledge, skills, at­titudes, etc.) that it is desired to transmit is mediated by someone—the teacher—who is in direct contact with the 'receivers', i.e. the pupils.

T h e spectacular development of the means of remote transmission of information has thus led educational specialists to consider and explore the practical possibilities of using the media (radio, television, cassettes, computers, etc.) to transmit educational messages and thereby to replace teachers, at least to a limited extent.

It is not our intention here to give a s u m m a r y of all this research. W h a t directly concerns us is to ascertain whether modern means of in­struction can serve to secure a lowering of the cost of providing a particular series of edu­cational services, or an increase in the volume of services provided for a given level of ex­penditure.

68 Jean-Claude Eicher

In rough-and-ready terms, the main con­clusions to be drawn from the present state of research on this question m a y be s u m m e d up as follows. T h e introduction of the media into conventional education systems generally in­creases their cost without decisively affecting their performance. Distance teaching can sub­stantially improve the cost-effectiveness ratio in the use of educational resources on two conditions: first, that the listener/viewer group is highly motivated; and second, that the in­struction provided concerns a specific field and that its content is preferably of a technical nature, of direct interest to the listener/viewer group.

W h a t this means is that the media can enable better use to be m a d e of resources in order to teach basic skills to adults w h o are already suitably motivated, and to provide interested youngsters with technical training in specific fields.

In all other cases, use of the media brings little or no improvement in the cost-effectiveness ratio, even w h e n it is the sole means of providing schooling for groups which had until then been deprived as a result of their physical remoteness from schools or because of transport difficulties.

Lastly, it m a y reasonably be supposed that there are still situations in which costs can be reduced, without any change in the means used to transmit the educational messages, simply through economies of scale. This is particularly true of higher education, for which costly equipment is needed and which therefore entails high fixed outlays which should be spread over a large number of users.

If w e consider the costs per student in Africa, which are four to five times higher on average than in the rest of the developing countries, w e cannot but conclude that African universities are frequently too small and too widely scattered over the continent. However, the economic logic which argues in favour of grouping them together clashes with political imperatives which are no less compelling. A n examination of this situation is, therefore, beyond the scope of this report.

Educational needs remain enormous, and it is doubtful whether, despite the priority accorded to education, ambitious projects to develop existing education systems can, in view of the limited availability of resources, be achieved in present circumstances.

In certain areas of the developing world, it m a y even be doubted whether the rate of progress achieved in the past—nevertheless re­garded as being too slow—can continue to be achieved in the next twenty years.

However, n e w resources can and must be found through an effort to arrive at a n e w definition of the tasks of schooling and a n e w conception of the way in which educational activities should be organized—one that is more closely related to the overall needs of contem­porary societies and of their development. •

Bibliography ASSOCIATION FRANCOPHONE D'ÉDUCATION COMPARÉE.

1980. Les futurs de l'éducation. Paris, A P E C . 115 pp. W O R L D B A N K . 1970. World Development Report. Washing­

ton, D . C . , World Bank. 166 pp.

EICHER, J. C ; HAWKRIDGE, D . ; M A C A N A N Y , E . ; M A -

RIET, F.; O R I V E L , F . (n.d.). Cost Effectiveness of New

Educational Media: Overview and Synthesis (Vol. HI). Paris, Unesco. (In press.)

EICHER, J. C ; M I N G A T , A . 1975. Éducation et égalité en

France. Education, Inequality and Life Chances. Vol. I. Paris, O E C D . 563 pp.

E I C H E R , J. C ; O R I V E L , F. 1979. The Allocation of Re­

sources to Education throughout the World. Paris, Unesco, Current Studies and Research in Statistics.

101 pp. (CSR.E.35.)

E U R O P E A N C U L T U R A L F O U N D A T I O N . 1975. L'Éducation—

a-t-elle un avenir ? Brussels.

HusÉN, T . 1979. The School in Question. Oxford, Oxford

University Press, ix+194 PP-

INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE F O R E D U C A T I O N A L P L A N N I N G .

1980. The Future of Education and the Education of the Future (Final Report and Document of an H E P Sem­

inar). Paris. 369 pp.

M I L L O T , B. ; O R I V E L , F. 1980. L'économie de renseignement supérieur. Paris, Cujas. 400 pp.

O E C D . 1978. Trends in Educational Expenditures in OECD Countries: an Analytical and Methodological Study. Paris, O E C D . 60 pp.

Problems facing the developing countries:

an Eastern European view Oleg K . Dreier

T h e dynamics of modern social progress has considerably influenced the formation of the socio-cultural policy of the developing countries. T h e modernization of contemporary culture is a long-term problem of historic significance. However, modernization does not exclude the preservation of cultural traditions and orig­inality. Moreover, the assertion of national culture is a major element in the developing countries' struggle for independence.

Scientific and technical progress has contrib­uted to the emergence of a n e w concept of cultural progress connected with a combination of endogenous and integrated development. It should be noted that the most widespread form of the modernization of culture in the devel­oping countries is the Westernization of the traditional m o d e of life (striving for greater incomes, unrestricted consumption, an urban way of life, etc.), which leads to profound crises—a crisis of traditional culture under the impact of haphazard modernization, and a crisis of modern culture introduced and rapidly dis­seminated in an unprepared cultural-historical m e d i u m . For if a society as a system is unable

O l e g K . Dreier (USSR). Specialist in African history, which he teaches at the Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow. Has written mainly on educational problems in developing countries. Among his books are Cultural Changes in Developing Countries, Education and Science in Developing Countries and Ecological Problems of Developing Countries (in Russian).

freely and easily to 'digest' too great a portion of modern culture (mode of life), then culture as a system is also unable organically to infiltrate society: some elements become hypertrophically developed, and others minimized.

F r o m the scientific and technological revolution

to the epoch of global problems

B y the middle of the twentieth century, the achievements of science and technology coupled with serious socio-economic changes, especially in the developing countries, gave birth to the thesis that the present should be regarded as the epoch of the scientific and technological revolution. W h a t then is the essence of the scientific and technological revolution (STR)?

Most researchers connected the essence of the S T R with automation; quite a few scien­tists turned their attention in this context to progress in certain fields of modern scientific knowledge (physics, biology, cybernetics), space exploration, etc. It is evident, however, that the orientation to space research, the development of synthetic chemistry, the emergence of lasers or the uses of nuclear energy, while revealing some outward features of the S T R , are not its essence.

At any rate, the search for the essence of the S T R has contributed, a m o n g other things, to the fact that scientists began to pay attention to a definite discrepancy between on the one

Prospects, Vol. XII, N o . i, 1982

70 Oleg K. Dreier

hand revolutionary changes in the technical spheres of modern scientific knowledge, and on the other, the structure of education. Frequent attempts have been m a d e to enlarge courses of studies by including materials emanating from the S T R . This has resulted in a scientific orientation of the structure of education. But overemphasizing the scientific or technical component of the S T R has often led to belittling the significance of its socio-economic aspects and its impact on the world social processes.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s the emerg­ence of the 'global problems' concept contrib­uted to a partial removal of some of the S T R problems from the agenda. In other words, problems related earlier to the S T R began to be examined in a broader context, with signifi­cance n o w being ascribed to their 'global' status.

T h e global problems are those bearing on the interests of all mankind and requiring construc­tive co-operation between all countries for their solution. In listing global problems the fol­lowing ones are n a m e d most frequently: the possibility of a world thermonuclear war and the arms race; the discrepancy between popu­lation growth, especially in the developing countries, and the possibilities of food supply; prospects for the world raw material and energy resources; implementation of the achievements of scientific and technical progress; the degra­dation of the environment; public health and education. Obviously, the global problems are dialectically interconnected (as for instance, an efficient solution to one of the fundamental global problems—that of war and peace—exerts the decisive influence on solving such problems as implementing the achievements of scientific and technical progress or improving the edu­cational system), and also connected with the socio-economic processes of our time that are conditioned by ties between countries with différent social systems. In this context, global problems and their scientific study and prac­tical solution have a major impact on world development.

T h e dynamics of global problems: the status of education

Global problems can be structured. T h e first group includes those connected with the basic socio-economic processes of our time (the prob­lem of war and peace, the problem of economic development, etc.).

T h e second group of global problems in­cludes those connected with the long-term supply of raw materials and other resources to mankind, the rational utilization of nature and the protection of the environment.

T h e third group of global problems includes those establishing the connections of m a n and society with the social processes of modern time (the realization of the achievements of scientific and technical progress, the problem of edu­cation, etc.).

Naturally, the above-mentioned groups of global problems are dialectically interconnected with subproblems in each group (for example, the environment cannot be protected without an efficient system for the rational utilization of nature). O n the other hand, these groups of global problems are closely interconnected. For instance, an effective solution to the educational problem is a function of a whole number of global problems, including those of war and peace, scientific and technical progress, econ­omic development, etc.

T h e problems of education are high in the hierarchy of the global problems of our epoch, and have often been underestimated. W h a t then is the linkage between the global problems of today and the problem of education?

First, education with its essential economic function has a direct impact on production. Moreover, by improving, education becomes economically more efficient. T h e development of education exerts a considerable influence on all aspects of the activity and existence of modern social structures.

Secondly, the development of education is directly connected with the entire system of modern scientific knowledge. T h e higher the scientific potential, the higher the level of edu-

Problems facing the developing countries: an Eastern European view 71

cation. O n the one hand, modern scientific knowledge, by broadening our ideas about the objective picture of the world, enlarges the potential of education; on the other hand, the rising quality of education contributes to raising the level of scientific knowledge.

Thirdly, education possesses important social functions: it contributes to the self-consciousness of the individual, to his adequate evaluation of socio-economic and politico-ideological pro­cesses. T h e improvement of education under progressive social systems facilitates the all-round development of personality and the strengthening of the humanistic essence of m a n .

T h u s , one m a y say without any exaggeration that the improvement of educational processes contributes, if indirectly, to a solution of m a n y a global problem of today. It should also be borne in mind that the problem of education as a global problem is a function of the s u m total of problems of global orientation, dealing, first of all, with socio-economic and politico-ideological matters.

T h e 'cultural gap'

T h e problem of education touches not only on the practical questions of economic develop­ment, but also on problems of a philosophical character. O n e of these problems is that of removing contradictions between 'two' cultures.

W e have in mind the 'gap' that was 'dis­covered' back in the mid-1950s between natural scientific and humanitarian cultures. Partici­pants in the discussion on the subject voiced apprehensions that a continuation of the modern trends of scientific development could lead to a greater antagonism between natural-technical and socio-economic knowledge and would lead to the loss of interconnections a m o n g different spheres of science.

T h e significance of these views still persisted at the turn of the 1980s: the gap between natural scientific and humanitarian cultures is still dis­cussed. However, n e w aspects have n o w emerged and at present the growing tendency towards their synthesis is observed.

Today, scientific knowledge is faced with problems requiring greater integration (while preserving differentiation) in the structure of interconnections a m o n g natural, technical and social sciences. It should be emphasized that the trend towards the integration of knowledge is not an element of only the present stage of scientific development. Marxist works of the nineteenth century and the attempts of representatives of logical positivism in the first half of the twen­tieth century expressed the desire to achieve 'unified science'. But only about 1980, in the process of the emergence and development of global problems, do these trends begin to emerge, particularly under the impact of the present ecological situation.

O n e can hardly n a m e a science which has not been influenced, at least to some degree, by the man-nature problem. T h e 'ecologization' of science, that is, penetration of ecological ideas and concepts, is a major element of the inte­gration process of modern scientific knowledge and of the synthesis of cultures. This process is characteristic not only of the disciplines tra­ditionally connected with the study of natural objects (biology, geography, etc.), but also of sciences that seem far from ecology (math­ematics, physics, etc.). A n ecological approach is increasingly turning into an overall scientific approach.

A tendency is emerging within the framework of traditional natural science (and technical sci­ences) towards the formation of some ecological branches corresponding to concrete natural scientific disciplines (ecophysics, ecochemis-try, etc.). Such a trend also characterizes social sciences: corresponding ecological branches are taking shape within the framework of economics, sociology, legal sciences, etc. Dialectical m a ­terialism makes it possible to bridge the gulf between the natural scientific and social context of the ecological problem, between natural scientific and humanitarian knowledge. A great role in this process is played by education.

Education not only reflects n e w trends in the structure of modern scientific knowledge—for any fruitful field in science should find an adequate expression in a corresponding course

72 Oleg K. '.. Dreier

of studies—but also galvanizes these n e w trends. It is widely believed that the improvement and advancement of education is a major element in preventing and eliminating the gap between cultures, removing discrepancies between indi­vidual fields of modern scientific knowledge or even its allied branches, such as w h e n theor­etical physicists can hardly find a c o m m o n language with research physicists, and both these categories have difficulty in communicating with researchers of elementary particles. It is not accidental that one of the latest papers of the Club of R o m e , devoted to the problems of edu­cation, regards it as a 'bridge' helping overcome contradictions between m a n , society and nature. It is the development of the structure and es­sence of education that can contribute to elim­inating the real contradictions between natural scientific and humanitarian knowledge.

F r o m 'crisis' to revolution in education

In the late 1960s, a representative international conference held in Williamsburg (United States) pointed to the crisis of the world system of education. That crisis is connected, primarily, with the fact that the epoch of global problems poses tasks to education it can hardly solve with its present structure and orientation. O f course, the problems of education are connected with a whole series of questions of a socio-economic and politico-ideological character which aggra­vate the crisis of education. W e shall n o w dwell on some theoretical problems and sources of this crisis.

There is, evidently, a tangible connection between the crisis of education and the struc­tural changes in modern scientific knowledge. O n the one hand, there is the growing trend to differentiation in science: n e w scientific disci­plines c o m e into being faster than they can be assimilated in the structure of education. O n the other hand, the possibilities of integrating science are expanding, demanding intensified links between all fields of modern scientific knowledge, and all spheres of education. In

other words, the modern structure of education is unable to cope with assimilating scientific achievements and synthetic concepts.

Besides, universal admiration of scientific achievements, w h e n the status and prestige of a representative of natural science were extremely high and the development of that science were not put to doubt, has n o w given way in the West to pessimistic interpretations of the pos­sibilities of science to solve the global problems facing mankind. Moreover, the crisis of civiliz­ation is often connected with modern trends in the development of science, especially natural science; it is with the development of science that the energy and ecological crises are con­nected. This results in an outflow of students from natural sciences to humanities. It also intensifies contradictions between natural scien­tific and humanitarian knowledge and the ex­pectations that they be solved through the humanities. O n e of the elements of this process is the increased importance of values, including the result of evaluation, the problem of the scien­tist's responsibility for the consequences of his research, and the structure of natural science and scientific concepts.

Thus , on the one hand, education lags behind science, and on the other, it lacks efficient levers to integrate knowledge, so far. T h e con­tent of the educational process does not corre­spond to the status of knowledge. This process presupposes not the study of individual subjects (although this will remain a basic element), but that of individual problems which group a whole range of subjects around them. W e have in mind the orientation of education to studying subjects, in a generalized context. These trends have certain specific features in the developing countries.

Educational change in developing countries

Studying the systems of education in the de­veloping countries w e should not fail to take into account the demographic situation in Asia and Africa. T h e annual population surplus in

Problems facing the developing countries: an Eastern European view 73

Arab countries during the 1970-75 period was 3.26 per cent, in Asia 2.33 per cent and in Africa 2.78 per cent. According to United Nations estimates, by the year 2000, the popu­lation distribution of 15-year-olds and under will be 44 per cent in Africa, 32 per cent in Asia. Such a great increase in the age-groups to be educated will, most likely, cause serious difficulties in finances and personnel, since the material resources of the developing countries often m a k e it possible only to maintain the existing level of education. T h e proclamation of programmes of family planning in a number of countries has not yielded any tangible results. It becomes increasingly evident that a successful solution of socio-cultural tasks is only possible through progressive and radical socio-economic transformations.

School in the developing countries today is living through noticeable changes. Most important, in our view, are the departure from an early differentiation (right after the pri­mary school) and attempts to create uniform curricula and a uniform type of educational es­tablishment—up to the sixth, eighth and tenth year of education in town and country (Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Algeria, Mali and else­where). Serious changes are m a d e in the cur­ricula—language, history, culture and art courses of the native country and the fundamentals of political knowledge are introduced. N e w text­books have been written in m a n y countries of Asia and Africa. In African states, the aim of elementary, so-called basic, education is clearly formulated: it should reflect the culture, tra­ditions, knowledge and customs of society as a whole, and be affected with an active partici­pation of the entire population.

T h e number of teachers from a m o n g the indigenous population has grown substantially. In African countries the number of primary school teachers reached the figure of 1,353,000 in 1977.1 However, despite the fact that the number of teachers grew at a higher rate than the number of pupils, a shortage of teachers is still felt in all developing countries. A positive fact is that the number of w o m e n teachers has considerably increased: in the primary schools

of African countries w o m e n accounted for 32 per cent of all teachers; the figure for Asia is 37 per cent.

T h e future of the systems of national edu­cation in Asian and African countries undoubt­edly depends on the training and retraining of teachers, with due account of the achievements of the scientific and technological revolution, all the more so since the functions of teachers in Afro-Asian countries are not confined to the edu­cational process as such; they are also entrusted with a responsible task of conducting cultural and educational work a m o n g the adult popu­lation. T h e governments of some countries have been paying more attention to training the national teaching personnel; teachers' salaries are raised and a number of privileges are intro­duced for students of teacher training col­leges—stipends, meals at reduced prices and medical service on favourable terms.

A n analysis of statistical materials shows that the growth rates of the expenditures for education in the developing countries during the 1960-77 period were higher than the rates of increase in the gross national product. This shows the attention paid to the problem of education by the governments of developing countries. It is evident, however, that this situ­ation cannot last long due to the scarcity of resources in the majority of Asian and African countries and the need to raise the efficiency of investments in education. A rise in the effec­tiveness of education will also condition the successful fulfilment of national development plans and the possibility of utilizing the achieve­ments of the S T R in all spheres of industry and agriculture.

T h e drive against illiteracy

T h e problem of illiteracy remains unsolved as yet in the majority of the developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Despite a drop in the percentage of illiterate people in the world (above the age of 15)—from 32.4 per cent in 1970 to 28.9 per cent in 1980—their absolute number increased from 742 million in 1970

74 Oleg K. Dreier

to 814 million in 1980. If the present trend persists during the coming decade, there will be about 950 million illiterates by the beginning of the twenty-first century.2 O r can w e expect that within the next two decades the high rates of political and social change in the developing countries and the application of modern scien­tific and technical methods will bring to life n e w factors capable of accelerating cultural trans­formations? There are grounds to look into the future with optimism.

A s was pointed out at the General Conference of Unesco at its nineteenth session (Nairobi, 1976), the elimination of illiteracy before the end of this century is quite possible, provided one uses the resources at mankind's disposal. It is necessary to take into account the increased awareness of the population of the developing countries and the leading role played by Unesco in organizing and holding national anti-illiteracy campaigns.

In our day, the role of the state in combating illiteracy has greatly increased. Almost all lib­erated countries are n o w organizing nationwide campaigns. T h e drive for the rebirth and ad­vancement of national culture is intertwined with the development of education a m o n g adults, and their participation in political life.

In 1978, India—one of the world's largest countries both as regards the size of its popu­lation and the number of illiterates—adopted a national programme for the liquidation of illit­eracy, which aims to teach 100 million people (aged between 15 and 35) to read and write by 1984.3 T h e programme is being implemented along several lines: evening classes at state schools by a system of functional literacy; teach­ing adults the fundamentals of political and social knowledge, etc. State officials and numer­ous volunteers (from older pupils to retired persons) are to be drawn into this massive work.

Anti-illiteracy campaigns are gaining ground in Algeria, B u r m a , Iraq, Democratic Y e m e n , the Syrian Arab Republic, Somalia, Nicaragua, Angola, the United Republic of Tanzania and Venezuela.

M a s s media—radio, television, the press, cin­ema—are widely used in the drive against

illiteracy. This shows that government leaders in a number of countries realize the importance of education as the essential means of national and cultural consolidation. President Habib Bourguiba of Tunisia has justly remarked that ca well-developed education and living culture, just as economic progress, are elements of the defence of independence'.

T h e wider application of functional literacy programmes presupposes a more rational ex­penditure of limited resources and a rise in the efficiency of investments in education. It is a k n o w n fact that in India, the Syrian Arab R e ­public, Iraq and Brazil, in the regions where large industrial projects are under construction, the percentage of literacy is noticeably higher than in other regions. In Durghapur (India), for instance, 80 per cent of workers and members of their families can read and write. T h e elimin­ation of illiteracy in India would facilitate the removal of tension in intercaste relations, which is very important socially. T h e centres for combating illiteracy are becoming an important link in continuous education, a major cell of propaganda of national culture and national languages.

M o r e attention is being paid to considerably reducing the number of school drop-outs and repeaters. According to Unesco figures, during the 1960-70 period, out of twenty pupils in Africa only ten finished primary school, while in Asia the figure was ten out of thirteen. H o w ­ever, these are average figures. In some countries the situation was far worse.

T h e reasons for the slow progress in the fight against illiteracy lie, a m o n g other things, in the absence of compulsory elementary education, inadequate financing, the lack of necessary personnel and demographic pressure. But the main reason lies in the social contradictions of the liberated countries.

Democratization of education

T h e drive for the democratization of education and the revision of its nature are intertwined with the struggle of Asian and African peoples

Problems facing the developing countries: an Eastern European view 75

against imperialism and neocolonialism, and for radical socio-economic transformations.

Looking at the progress of education in the developing countries during the past decades, one cannot but notice a considerable growth in the network of schools and higher educational es­tablishments and of their student body, measures aimed at eliminating illiteracy among the adult population, the introduction in some countries of educational planning, etc. It should be noted that in countries with progressive regimes the problems of education and the training of per­sonnel are tackled m u c h more effectively. M a n y leaders in the developing countries maintain that the system of education should have pri­ority, inasmuch as a genuine revolution lies in the revolutionary moulding of m a n and in granting to all children the right to an education.

A positive trend in the development of school education in countries of Asia, Africa and the Arab East is the growing number of girls attending school, especially in primary schools. At the same time, the rate of progress is far from ideal. This applies, first of all, to the Arab countries (in i960 girls constituted only 34 per cent of the total number of students, and in 1977 39 per cent). T h e percentage of girls studying at school is m u c h higher in the countries that are effecting radical democratic transformations.

It should be noted that by 1975 education had not yet become compulsory in thirty-one countries, mainly in Asia and Africa. Despite a considerable democratization of the school in the liberated countries, there is still no equality in access to education. In m a n y countries, chil­dren of the nomads, as well as children from poor families or those belonging to national and religious minorities, cannot get even primary education. However, the genuine democratiz­ation of school lies not only in improving access to education, but also in providing universal primary schooling. T h e democratization of edu­cation also presupposes the creation of the socio­economic conditions (stipends, providing text­books and in some cases food) that m a k e it possible for all children of school age to get an education. T h e development of education in rural areas is still an unresolved problem. Even

in countries where the percentage of the chil­dren of school age attending school is compara­tively high, average figures conceal the real gap between town and countryside.

T h e present stage of development of edu­cation in the liberated countries coincides with the complex process of the demarcation of the class forces and the growing class struggle. T h e leading development trend in the modern so­ciety of Asian and African countries lies in turning the struggle for national emancipation into the struggle for the liquidation of all exploi­tation. This is confirmed by the events of the last few years. Positive changes in the socio-cultural sphere are indissolubly linked with the general drive for the democratization of society, for the broadening of national-liberation revol­utions, for scientific and technical progress and improvements in education.

Some trends for the future

Higher education in the liberated countries be­gan to develop only after independence (several universities that had been opened during the colonial period mainly served the needs of the colonial administration). T h e annual growth rate of higher education in Asian and African countries is m u c h greater than that of elemen­tary and secondary education. In Asian countries the growth of higher education in the 1970-77 period amounted to 14.7 per cent, whereas for primary education the figure was 3.1 per cent, and for secondary 5.1 per cent. A similar situ­ation was observed in Africa, where the annual growth of higher education came to 12.6 per cent, primary 6.3 per cent, and secondary 4.4 per cent. T h e rapid growth of higher education has not always been accompanied by the creation of the necessary material conditions, a development which gave rise to unemployment a m o n g people with a higher education. This problem is connected with both the general economic situation of the liberated countries and the lack of adequate planning. As a result, m a n y countries have to restrict enrolment in schools of higher learning.

76 Oles K. Dreier

W e consider it expedient to study the pro­posal advanced by the noted African scholar, Joseph Ki-Zerbo, on creating in West Africa ' c o m m o n markets' of specialists for moving per­sonnel from one country to another. A n analysis of the distribution of students by departments shows that the share of students at the engin­eering, agricultural and natural science depart­ments is lower that that at the humanities facul­ties, which is true of a majority of countries in Asia and Africa (except Iran, Zambia, Kenya and Sierra Leone), and constitutes less than a third of the total number of students. There is apparently a widespread idea that developed during the colonial period about the prestige enjoyed by white-collar professions (which is confirmed by the high salaries earned by clerks). Evidently, to change this situation requires active government intervention.

Today the liberated countries face the acute problem of regional integration both in the field of the training of middle-level personnel and in that of science, industry and the infrastruc­ture. This involves great political and economic difficulties. However, one thing is certain, namely that m a n y countries need a pooling of efforts in order to carry out the principal econ­omic tasks.

A major problem facing the developing countries in the field of school education for the coming decade is to create a combination of school subjects that will give the necessary practical training to those w h o will not continue their education. T h e experience of the socialist countries in combining studies with work is attracting more interest.

T h e campaign for eliminating illiteracy a m o n g w o m e n is to proceed more rapidly. It should be noted that w o m e n themselves are more energetically demanding the development of female education and want to play an im­portant part in the social life of their respective countries. T h e 'Decade of W o m e n ' (1975-85) has played its role in granting w o m e n the place they deserve in the social hierarchy of modern society. T h e questionnaire of the special issue of the magazine Unesco Courier—'Invisible W o m a n ' — h a s published the remarkable words

of a w o m a n from an Indian tribe: 'I a m all for a better education of w o m e n than m e n . W o m e n give birth to and rear children, consequently w o m e n create the future. A n d can there be a radiant future if w o m e n are illiterate?'

T h e emergence of n e w forms of teaching to complement formal studies will be a major event for m a n y liberated countries. These forms will include rural centres for adolescents, short-term courses of occupational training and special 'educational programmes' regularly broadcast on radio and television. M o r e subjects meant to prepare people for practical activity will be incorporated into the curricula, networks of technical education centres will be expanded, and more specialists will be trained to tackle important global problems such as the ecologi­cal crisis.

A n important trend is the emergence of a special field—that of environmental prob­lems—in the structure of modern education. T h e ecological problem, as a global one, needs a special section of the education cycle which can provide a problem approach to the study of the relationships between m a n and nature.

Education and social progress

T h e improvement of the system and structure of education is one of the elements of moulding a harmoniously developed personality, and a major component of social progress. Social development has an impact on achieving educational plans in different socio-economic systems.

Contradictions in the system of education in advanced capitalist countries have been caused by the economic, political, ideological, ecologi­cal and other difficulties experienced by West­ern civilization. M a n y of these contradictions and difficulties are also characteristic of Afro-Asian and Latin American countries, especially those inheriting Western development prin­ciples, Western culture, etc.

T h e epoch of global problems also engenders quite a few difficulties in the educational sys­tems of the U S S R and the socialist community

Problems facing the developing countries: an Eastern European view 77

countries. M a n y of them are of an objective character, determined by the rapid develop­ment of science and the differentiation and integration of modern scientific knowledge. T h e structure and system of education should be adapted to n e w trends connected with scientific and technical progress.

Marxists, therefore, deem it more correct to speak not about a 'crisis' but about a revolution in education, taking this process in a broad context; the point is to improve not only the system of education as such, but to change social conditions. Marxists constantly e m p h a ­size that an adequate application of man's inner forces is only possible in social conditions which contribute to a manifestation of man's indi­viduality.

T h e close connection between economic devel­opment and the educational level of the popu­lation, on the one hand, and an enormous discrepancy between the financial and organiz­ational possibilities of the developing countries and their requirements in the field of education, on the other, m a k e the problem of cultural transformation insoluble unless there are pro­found socio-economic changes.

T h e general democratic shifts going on in the developing states are m a n y and varied, deter­mined by a variety of reforms and methods of implementation. T h e search for and choice of the way of national renaissance take place amidst a difficult struggle against the forces of external and internal reaction.

T h e U S S R and other socialist states give m u c h assistance to the liberated countries in Asia and Africa in developing education. This includes the construction and equipping of n e w educational institutions, the training of per­sonnel for industrial projects, and the granting of scholarships to study in socialist countries.

In his report to the Twenty-fifth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ( C P S U ) , L . I. Brezhnev pointed to the principal changes taking place in m a n y liberated countries, connected with the shifting of emphasis in indus­trial development to the public sector, the liquidation of feudal landlordism, the national­

ization of foreign enterprises, the establishment of an efficient sovereignty of the young states over their natural resources and the formation of their o w n national personnel.

T h e U S S R and the socialist community countries take an active part in helping the de­veloping states in the field of education. It was pointed out at the Twenty-sixth Congress of the C P S U that 'our country, as far as possible, is rendering assistance to m a n y liberated states in training their personnel—engineers, tech­nicians, skilled workers, doctors, teachers'.

A study of the relationship of cultural policy to education shows that, despite considerable difficulties and contradictions, the developing countries, on the eve of the twenty-first century, are on the right road towards solving the prob­lem of education. •

Notes 1. Statistical Yearbook, p. 85, Paris, Unesco, 1980. 2. Literacy 1972—1976, p. 14, Paris, Unesco, 1980. 3. National Adult Education Programme, p. I, N e w Delhi,

Ministry of Education and Social Welfare, 1979.

Thoughts on the democratization of education in Europe

Ingrid Eide

Democratization and education

'Democratic' is one of those terms by which modern society likes to be characterized. It signals that within national borders a m e m b e r ­ship is defined, certain rights are extended, participation is demanded, and it is granted that the individual thereby will have some im­pact on his o w n life and on society around him.

Democracy is considered an achievement by society, and to produce it, a systematic effort is required. Once established, it is not automati­cally reproduced: to maintain a democracy a never-ending process of democratization must be organized. For a variety of reasons education has become a significant element in this process. T h e state of affairs in education is a target for democratic action, a mechanism by which democracy is achieved, and a criterion by which it is judged.

Democratization of education can perhaps be described as having a horizontal and a vertical dimension. Along the horizontal plane w e would classify all efforts to secure access to edu­cational institutions for increasing numbers of individuals for an increasing number of years

Ingrid Eide (Norway). Sociologist at the University of Oslo. Her research and publications have been on the sociology of education, international relations, peace research and research policy. Former Deputy Minister of Education and Member of Parliament. Participant in O E C D evaluations of educational policy andplanning.

and purposes. Along the vertical plane a dif­ferent set of phenomena would be considered: h o w educational institutions actually interact with other aspects of life, learning and pro­duction, and more particularly, h o w educational institutions themselves operate. Throughout the twentieth century democratic states have con­centrated on opening up and expanding edu­cational institutions so as to provide access for all.

Along with this process individuals and so­ciety have increased their dependence on the educational system, mainly, but not only, for learning purposes. T h e result of this opening up and expansion of education, identified here as horizontal democratization, is that about a quarter of the population in our societies is engaged in the educational sector. T h e signifi­cance of a sector of this magnitude is evident. Questions abound concerning, on the one hand, the functions, cost and contributions of edu­cational institutions, and, on the other, their compatibility with prevalent goals in society. In modern democracies some of these functions will be intended and even planned, costs will be publicly maintained, contributions or results empirically checked, and goals, w h e n conflict­ing, will be politically debated. These activities imply a deeper concern for what was referred to as vertical democratization of education.

O n e basic assumption of this article is that during the next two decades more attention ought to, and will be, devoted to vertical rather than horizontal democratization of education.

Prospects, Vol. XII, N o . I, 1982

8o Ingrid Eide

T h e challenge will be to act along either di­mension in ways that also promote progress along the other.

All democracies can set u p lists of rights enjoyed by their members . T h e right to edu­cation is everywhere on that list. A n d so fun­damental is this right, both from the point of view of the individual and of society, that the right to receive an education is at the same time a duty to accept it: education up to a certain level is compulsory. Everywhere the number of obligatory years of schooling has expanded from being just the amount of time required to develop certain basic skills to a fixed mini­m u m number of years during which most individuals are supposed to have acquired the set of skills necessary for a sufficiently active, loyal and happy life as a m e m b e r of that particular society. T h e increasing amount of knowledge available, of communication and par­ticipation, and the increasing complexity of society produces a corresponding demand for and on education: it must expand its content, adjust to and prepare for constant change and n e w expansions. A n d at the same time it must confirm its responsibility to teach successfully that which was and is considered fundamental, whether referred to as the three R s or a set of moral values.

There are clear parallels between democratic government as a manifestation of democratic ideals and education as a democratized sector. In political democratization, suffrage was insti­tutionalized, and gradually expanded until, in the first half of the twentieth century, it had become universal. T h e fact that this process was gradual highlighted mechanisms by means of which suffrage was, formally and informally, restricted. Age , sex, property, ability to pay taxes, fixed habitation, health and literacy are classes of criteria that have been applied in order to determine whether an individual could be granted the right to vote. Citizenship or membership was and is a pre-condition for suffrage, whatever other criteria an individual satisfies.

Universal education like universal suffrage has become one of the hallmarks of democracy.

But education, unlike suffrage, has divisions that are compulsory and others that are open. T h e latter depends on a decision by the indi­vidual to seek admission, and an evaluation of criteria of admission that the individual appli­cant has to meet. A n d in this process selection takes place limiting or reducing actual ad­mission by the very same standards previously used to limit suffrage. In short, a young male, born of economically successful parents w h o themselves have an above-average education, centrally located, will accumulate the highest number of years of education, and in general succeed in educational institutions. A young female, whose parents are neither well educated nor particularly successful economically, located in what the centre defines as the periphery, will find herself at the other extreme in terms of educational accumulation and success.

These patterns are being systematically fought against by all the means available to modern democracy: law, finance and information.

Mechanisms of democratizating education

T h e right to education should be both equal and equalizing. Making education compulsory was one way of securing this, but it is hard to believe that it was ever considered as sufficiently successful in this respect. Throughout the his­tory of education there has been a constant search for n e w methods and n e w strategies whereby individual and collective achievements could be improved. Most probably it is the very fact that education was m a d e compulsory that also triggered this need for innovation: it was and is impossible to overlook or escape from failure. Non-learning is registered, mis­behaviour observed, absence is noted—and all must be redressed.

Beyond the compulsory level, democratiz­ation of education has been launched on the assumption that individuals will grasp edu­cational opportunities if they are offered on realistic conditions, that is, if formal and infor­mal barriers surrounding educational insti-

Thoughts on the democratization of education in Europe 81

tutions are adequately removed or overcome. But n e w sets of incentives and disincentives seem to operate in the modern world leading to n e w questions on h o w far and in what sense democratization of education will be successful beyond the compulsory level, where individual choice enters the stage and determines the success and failure of educational policies.

Compulsory education has ensured that no­body is left completely behind in this process of equalization. But beyond the compulsory level, differentiation begins once more, and it is a well-established fact that educational institutions provide the rationale for a n e w differentiation, n e w inequalities, which are more compatible with modern economies than with the ideals of modern democracies. S o m e democracies have been particularly active in their attempts to counteract this trend, and although they have never entirely succeeded, correlations between family background and educational career are being reduced, according to the most recent statistics. It has taken longer than expected; moreover, educational statistics are difficult to come by and to interpret. Variables are few, the time lag considerable and adequate analysis is rare. Conceptual disagreement and confusion do nothing to simplify the issue.

Groups w h o previously were almost outcasts of the educational system—the handicapped, migrants and minorities—are admitted to and, in varying degrees, truly integrated in it. W h e n failure rather than success results, the reaction is no longer automatically to carry on the same as before, but increasingly n e w ways are sought, ways that perhaps bypass the dominant culture in an effort to establish meaningful c o m m u n i ­cation across a cultural gap. This m a y imply that education uses a n e w language: a dialect or a minority language. It m a y imply that non-handicapped, rather than the handicapped, need to adjust in a class where a handicapped child is admitted. It m a y m e a n that buildings have to be physically altered in order to accommodate n e w groups. It m a y m e a n that holidays have to be reconsidered to comply with the religious rituals of minorities. Content is changed to enable it to be more compatible.

T h e challenge to educational institutions is already both formidable and fundamental. T h e situation can be somewhat simplistically de­scribed as a transition from an educational system committed to creating a sufficient degree of homogeneity and conformity before special­ization and differentiation was permitted and confirmed to an educational system that more actively tolerates and even encourages cultural pluralism. Issues characteristic of educational policy debates in the United States in the 1950s—and settled by a Supreme Court de­cision in 1954—have reappeared in Europe: integration, segregation and equality. Here, these issues are not yet settled, and as issues they are intertwined with other concerns: the relationship between majority and minority culture, the need for conformity and the fear of domination.

In order to achieve the ideal of democra­tizing education, m a n y structures have been devised: universal, compulsory and free edu­cation; geographically accessible educational institutions; one, and only one, school for all children of school age within a given district; cross-district intake of students to reduce social segregation in the school-age population; c o m ­prehensive schools; postponement of differen­tiation; changed criteria of admission; elimin­ation of blind alleys in the system of educational institutions permitting individualized combi­nations and increased mobility within and between educational institutions; adult edu­cation; active encouragement of specific groups to continue school beyond the compulsory level; subsidies and scholarships; individual­ized educational programmes; changes in teach­ing methods, content, materials and organiz­ation; external and internal democratic control; developing educational institutions to meet de­m a n d ; expanding educational institutions to accommodate all applicants.

T h e structures can be meaningfully placed along a dimension going from modest to more extreme. W h a t is defined as more or less modest or extreme, however, will probably depend more on popular acceptance and other circum­stances in the community or nation concerned

82 Ingrid Eide

than on the characteristics of the structure per se.

T h e structures can also be placed into two categories, representing steps referred to as horizontal and vertical democratization respect­ively. T h e latter category of structure—or of steps taken—has sometimes been required because the horizontal m o v e was considered insufficient to obtain the desired degree of democratization. This should remind future educational reformers that combinations of structures rather than 'one step at a time' strategies are normally required in this field. Democratization of education is neither easy nor automatically arrived at. T h e financial cost is formidable, representing a great problem to potentially stagnant economies; in fact, financial constraints will probably in the years to come seriously challenge the ability to maintain and the will to expand democratization of education in Europe. Less costly structures would find m a n y buyers on the political market.

Most structures can be identified as major reforms in the history of education in Europe, and remind one of the political struggle ac­companying m a n y of them. S o m e fundamental questions tend to circulate in these debates over educational reforms and democratization: is the reform democratic because of its intentions and consequences, in its degree of acceptance by the general public, in its acceptance by m e m ­bers of educational communities or by those outside supposed to benefit from the reform? O r is it democratic because of the innovative work behind it, and the decision-making struc­ture that brought it to the fore? However these questions are raised, they are not irrelevant, and will not disappear from the forum of education before the year 2000.

That formally equal access to education is not enough to ensure real access is a fact that has been understood for some time. A n d the differential use of available resources indicates h o w difficult it is, even in educational insti­tutions, to break the impact of socio-economic background and sex roles. Increasingly, positive discrimination, including regulation of intake, seems to have gained acceptance, but at the

same time it has caused widespread discussion of fundamental issues.

Recently, the insistence that sex segregation in educational institutions is necessary in order to secure freedom of educational choice and development for w o m e n has again come to the fore. This idea will hardly obtain sufficient support for a number of reasons; first, it is not only w o m e n w h o are victims of traditional sex stereotyping, and while segre­gation is intended to provide a basis for more equality it m a y actually strengthen present sex roles, particularly for m e n ; secondly, what­ever freedom and independence w o m e n obtain in isolation, relatively speaking, will tend to be broken d o w n w h e n the artificial segregation is ended; finally, the idea will be seen as reactionary.

Most probably, w o m e n will in the years to come be more actively encouraged than before to develop their talents independently of the traditional division of labour between the sexes. Not to explore and exploit this reservoir will be considered wasteful by a society increasingly dependent on specialized knowledge and re­search. A m o n g w o m e n , n e w cleavages will be created, contrary to the ideals of equality pro­claimed by modern feminism.

W o m e n face special problems. Increasing with their level of education, sex roles within and outside the school community influence w o m e n ' s choice and achievement.

Concern for the demographic balance of so­ciety, however, will increase the tolerance for interrupted educational careers due to m a ­ternity, child-rearing and family roles in general. Leaves of absence and facilitated re-entry will be institutionalized in ways that represent a fundamental challenge to, if not a fundamental break with, traditional division of labour be­tween the sexes in family life and in education, and relative to the labour market.

In general, the numbers of w o m e n w h o ob­tain an education and hold positions in fields previously totally dominated by m e n will in­crease. This m a y provide examples to encourage other w o m e n to break d o w n similar barriers. Democratization, in the sense of a more equal

Thoughts on the democratization of education in Europe 83

intake, m a y result, even if it is not the driving force or the dominant motive.

For the labour force, and particularly indus­trial labour, present-day changes in society seem no less fundamental than they are for the majority of w o m e n . Methods of learning have changed alongside changes in technology, pro­duction, organization and ideology. Democratic society has taken over the basic responsibility for the entire range of occupational training, but nowhere as yet is there a fully developed set of institutional solutions to carry out this task. T h e solutions sought will probably involve n e w combinations of formal and informal, individual and group training, and use both schools and work-places as arenas. But until solutions are found, there remain large groups of young people trapped in a situation of uncertainty, competing for still scarce opportunities to ob­tain an education and learn an occupation, either at school or at work. They are threatened with unemployment and the stigma of being social outcasts.

So far democratization of education has not been successfully extended to all youth and a major effort is needed. Current technological and economic changes do not simplify this task. It is frequently argued that democratization of education means mass education, and that mass education threatens academic standards if it is not accompanied by some kind of segregation within or between schools.

Schools and authorities have argued that academic standards are not the only measures to be used w h e n evaluating the educational system. Equally important is the ability to func­tion adequately in society, m a d e u p of people w h o are different in m a n y ways. By integrating all individuals into one school, whether elemen­tary or comprehensive secondary schools, social learning would improve. But it has also been argued that academic standards are not, or need not be, threatened. Schools have been given more resources to cope with the situation of a more varied student population, and still maintain academic standards. Longer hours, better trained teachers, teaching assistants, smaller classes, teaching equipment, individu­

alized teaching materials, grouping, individual­ization: a whole range of initiatives have been suggested and launched so as to allow schools to apply the resources necessary to make inte­gration policies succeed. Great care has to be taken that these resources are not in fact applied in ways that could open up a back door for segregation. Group teaching easily develops into a within-class segregation if groups are formed on the basis of educational achievement or if students with handicaps are consistently given separate attention.

According to sceptics, the integrated class­room slows d o w n academic progress, but on the other side stands the argument that a suc­cessfully integrated classroom provides a more productive learning atmosphere. With students from different backgrounds, with different abili­ties and potentials and varying ambitions—and some have special handicaps—teaching and learning have to be more varied, taking into account the wider range of experiences and challenges represented in the class or school. Students m a y actually learn to solve different kinds of problems involved in the learning process of fellow students. If students are al­lowed to help each other and to co-operate, academic achievement m a y gain m o m e n t u m by being socially supported in the students' culture.

T h e entire question of academic standards is difficult to settle. W h a t is the content of academic achievement? In what form will it manifest itself? D o w e have reliable, c o m ­parative statistics? H o w do w e evaluate the distribution of achievement or academic stan­dards reached by the population? A n d with the recent changes in information flows and the use of time in modern society, what actually is the role of the school in determining academic standards?

Mass education has increasingly come to characterize all levels of the educational system. For higher education this experience has been almost revolutionary. Although expansion was planned, it appeared overwhelming w h e n it came. T h e n e w situation demanded drastic changes so that in m a n y places it was virtually

84 Ingrid Eide

impossible both to maintain all activities hith­erto engaged in, and adjust physically, organ­izationally and educationally. Universities were openly politicized by these adjustments, and time and energy were obviously diverted from more traditional academic pursuits. University government in most places was democratized in the process. Probably the years to come will prove that the freer, less formal atmosphere created will also be more innovative and con­ducive to academic achievement, particularly the research aspect of it.

O n e by-product that these changes brought about is an increased interest in the sociology of education, and in the study of education in general. W h e n economic constraints prevent the launching of new, courageous reforms, and perhaps threaten those in operation, one can expect a call for research to evaluate reforms, suggest improved use of resources, or ration­alize withdrawal. If democratization is to con­tinue, it probably will need both advocacy and innovation, particularly innovation within the institutions concerned and a m o n g their m e m ­bers. Education more than any other area ap­pears to be a victim of self-fulfilling prophecies. O n e wonders whether the n e w generations of teachers and learners, parents and pupils, par­ticipants and researchers, politicians and b u ­reaucrats believe in and work for democra­tization of education.

Equality and the contexts of learning

T h e very concept of equality in education has undergone a series of changes. T h e classical question is of course: w h o are the equals, w h o do they include? Equality has never, in actual fact, included everybody: some have been judged as unable to learn or able to learn only under very specialized conditions. Hence a certain amount of segregation according to ability has been applied. Segregation has also been practised as a result of historical tradition and class interests: where private or separate schools existed, they were frequently main­

tained and modified only by efforts to m a k e them somewhat less exclusive: scholarships or free transport facilitated the entry of members from other social classes. In most democracies, a variety of separate, private or semi-private schools exist parallel to the normal school sys­tem designed to serve everybody.

T h e equals are, in principle, composed of all members of society in a certain age-group. T h e most recent and very dramatic change taking place is that age is played d o w n : everybody, irrespective of age, is encouraged to seek more education, and the combined slogan and field of adult education has been administrated and met with imagination. T w o clear trends can be seen.

First, school age as a concept is being revised. Society takes care of younger children in school­like institutions, sometimes called pre-school or kindergartens. Society likewise encourages children to spend more time at school than the m i n i m u m required by the law, and adults, what­ever their age and previous school experience, are encouraged to re-engage in educational pursuits, and n e w contexts for learning are created to this end. While the inclusion of n e w age-groups can be seen as movement along the horizontal dimension of democratization, it has clear effects on the vertical dimension as well.

Secondly, with n e w intake very m u c h younger or very m u c h older than those previously en­countered at school, there is of necessity a search for n e w approaches to education to take into account the points of view of the small child and the adult. In both cases established teaching methods, selection of content and other aspects of learning and schooling have to be revalued and revised.

Already n e w learning contexts are being created or rediscovered, with the traditional school, though dominant, as only one of m a n y possible forms. In the history of education in Europe over the years, clear demarcations were established between the various areas of h u m a n activity: h o m e , school, work and other specific roles. T h e fact that learning takes place in all areas, and that they are actually interdependent and interact, has been frequently overlooked. With an increase of the very young and adults

Thoughts on the democratization of education in Europe 85

entering education, it seems that both the de­marcation lines between, and the divisions of labour among , areas are deliberately being blurred.

B y establishing a variety of n e w learning contexts another basic characteristic of our societies is attacked: the clearly drawn lines between leisure, work and rest. All over Europe schools have been organized to be both a prep­aration for work, and for the young the func­tional equivalent of work. B y going to school, children learn that part of the day is spent performing a required set of activities outside the h o m e . Adapting to the rhythm of the day, week and year as defined by society at large means acquiring basic social skills. But the possibility that education can be obtained else­where, at other times and in other ways than at school, reduces the significance of classifying time as leisure, work and rest in connection with educational pursuits. M o d e r n teaching devices can also play a significant role here. Communication with, or without, educational content can be received while at work or at rest, and of course communication conveying leisure symbols, like music, can attempt to soften the working day, even at school. In addition, adult education mostly takes place as a leisure-time activity: systematically pursued by the individual, it is clearly both similar to, and relevant for, work, though not defined as such.

Educational purpose and motivation

In European societies, education used to be a scarce value of strategic importance to the indi­vidual as well as society. B y democratic action an effort was m a d e to distribute education more evenly throughout the population. Society in­vested large sums in the education of its m e m ­bers, and young people and their families de­ferred the benefit of receiving an additional contribution to the household finances, by send­ing young members of the family to school rather than to work.

In Europe at present, with nearly 30 million unemployed, work m a y seem scarcer than edu­cational opportunities for young people. T h e ethos of 'deferred gratification' m a y take on a different meaning in this situation: education is deferred, while young people start a career in the labour market, directly, without delay, so as not to be left out. T h e fact that work, leisure and rest are no longer clearly separated in time, place and function makes the choice between labour market and education for the individual concerned less dramatic than before.

T h e large numbers of people said to be rela­tively well educated and still jobless m a y also become a disincentive to seek education for those less strongly motivated. A n d finally, the fact that m a n y young people enter educational insti­tutions as a second choice, having failed in their first choice, which was to get a job, m a y be a disincentive to serious work within institutions.

There is no reason to expect a uniform set of reactions to the n e w situation in the labour market. S o m e young people will definitely in­vest in more education with a view to im­proving their employment chances. T h e edu­cation sought will be geared to a specific range of jobs, and the perceived probability of future success will influence the motivation for edu­cational achievement. Others will calculate that the labour market is so uncertain that their education might just as well be geared to their o w n private interests and abilities, whether rel­evant to work or not. National policy, finances permitting, will probably attempt to satisfy a wide range of educational adjustments to the labour market and mass unemployment. A m o n g these attempts some will strongly emphasize the intrinsic values of education and self-realization as a democratic right.

It m a y not be conditions in the labour market per se that most strongly attract young people to paid rather than unpaid work, but free edu­cation. T h e life-style of modern society is characterized by instant consumption rather than deferred gratification. T h e market for young consumers has shown remarkable growth. Shifts are rapid, items varied, from cheap rec­ords to costly cars, and marketing methods are

86 Ingrid Eide

aggressive as well as sophisticated. Young people m a y experience a variety of forces that compete for their attention, time and money . This cultural atmosphere is not conducive to long-term and concentrated effort demanded by most educational institutions. It is easier for young people from better-off families to withstand some of this pressure.

In m a n y countries there is concern over young people's consumption patterns. N e w class differences are evinced within the school c o m ­munity by means of clothes, other symbols and 'style', and counteract efforts by the school to maintain an ethos of social equality a m o n g pupils or students. A n e w discussion over school uniform, once rejected because it was con­sidered antidemocratic, m a y be expected, as those concerned seek more manifest methods of emphasizing equality a m o n g the younger m e m ­bers of the school community. This time, it is affluence rather than poverty that triggers the debate, but the values at stake are the same: schools should not, if truly democratized, dif­ferentiate students by criteria which are irrel­evant to school performance.

N o doubt, some of the smaller nations in Europe particularly will consider educational institutions as bastions in a fight against c o m ­mercialized, homogenized mass culture, globally marketed.

W h y this concern for democratizing education?

W h y does this interest in democratization of education exist in most societies around the world?

Society must have continuity. It must be viable, which means productive, economical and well organized. It must be both cohesive and inclusive, and in the event of failure instability threatens the very foundations of society.

Educational planning, old and new, has always been an arena for politics, particularly in democracies. T h e reasons are obvious. E d u ­cation affects all and integrates the individual into the collective in a number of ways. It is one

of the major vehicles of distribution and redis­tribution in society, and the heated debates over whether it produces, reproduces or corrects inequality bears witness to the crucial role attributed to education. Universal education is the most efficient mobilization of talent ever invented by society, and clearly geared to de­velopmental models.

Clearly, mass education is a means of main­taining order. Even the undesired phenomenon of disorganized classes at school seem preferable to disorganized, or destructively organized, crowds in the streets. Education, as a market, is more easily manipulated by public decisions than other markets, but also in educational institutions, the structure is too subtle to be fully manipulable by outside decision. This seems to be true right d o w n to the individual level. Learning is, basically, a voluntary process; one might say it is intrinsically democratic.

H u m a n beings are learners and organizers, and the organization of learning can show a variety of forms. Education for all is a means of equalizing learning opportunities. But learning habits and learning products are established long before the school takes over in the life of the individual. A n d it is perhaps this 'take-over' by the school that produces both learning and non-learning, both creativity and passivity, in schools. Today's criticism of schools from a democratic point of view has raised precisely this question: have schools and other educational institutions monopolized learning with the re­sult that too m a n y still take it for granted that school is the only place where learning takes place, that children and young people of school-age are the only ones w h o learn, and that teaching is for professional teachers alone? A n e w consciousness seems to be under way fo­cusing on the conditions of learning, reactivating households and parents, communities and places of work, emphasizing lifelong learning, and not only opportunities for lifelong education. It seems reasonable to consider this as a n e w wave of democratization, very different from previous horizontal democratization. This wave implies that more people should take on the teacher's role, and not only that of the learner;

Thoughts on the democratization of education in Europe 87

it implies that schools should be opened up to use more local material. This m a y raise another debate about politicization of schools and by schools.

A regionalization of higher education has been launched in m a n y countries. T h e central­ized location of higher education and research was considered an uneven distribution of re­sources, not only because it meant unequal access for potential students, but because large districts with their population, their productive and cultural life were deprived of the resources and the potential of institutions of higher learning. Access to educational and research institutions is another kind of access, a different kind of use, and perhaps a very indirect but still noticeable benefit. This n e w group of edu­cational institutions are clearly expected to define themselves as actors within their regions, able to serve, reflect and influence local needs.

In the everyday social atmosphere of schools and classrooms it is not the rules of democracy, but rather the rules of the weakest link, that operate. According to democratic rules the m a ­jority determines. T h e rule of the link means that the weakest link is determinant. O n e inadequate teacher or one destructive and dis­ruptive student can ruin a class. T o uphold the dignity of the individual frequently appears incompatible with securing the right to edu­cation for the majority of students.

This insight is a triviality for anyone familiar with schools, but what does it m e a n in terms of increasing the role of democracy, and improving the status and chances of democracy within schools and classes? Is this situation one of the reasons w h y authoritarian rule in connection with schools appears more c o m m o n , more acceptable, and hence more difficult to change than in society at large?

T h e individual, group or social class fre­quently focuses on the right to decide the use of time, the form of space, and the content of work.

At schools, more often than not, all these el­ements are predetermined. It m a y be suggested that some of the problems experienced within

m a n y schools represent a kind of chaotic, destructive and short-lived democratization: through disorder, control is gained over the use of time; through vandalism, space is affected; through not learning, students decide the con­tent of their work. Although this notion of 'destructive democratization' does not imply that a sudden switch to more democratic internal control would dramatically change the situation, some schools have successfully invited even the very young to share with adults responsibility for organizing time, space and work.

T h e traditional, hierarchical organization of most schools, the cleavage between youth and adults, between learners and temporary teachers and more permanent m e m b e r s of the school community—the externally determined law and budget—all these factors are not easily rec­onciled with ideas of internal democratic con­trol. But a variety of models have been tried, finding different answers to the eternal question of democratic organization. Whatever the form of democracy chosen, it is its content and pur­pose that determines its potential for success. All participants will be disillusioned if they are invited to perform empty rituals. Participation must m a k e a visible difference; it must provide a changed experience which is perceived as meaningful.

T h e continued interest in democratization of education must have m a n y supports, both old and new. Horizontal democratization will rep­resent a major effort. T o be complete, it will have to be both fragmented and individuated. M o d e r n information and communication tech­nology will facilitate this development which both attacks and opens up n e w avenues for educational institutions and for learning.

M o r e thought needs to be devoted to vertical democratization, to the social functions and the social functioning of educational organization. Democratization of education was intended to help lay the foundations for a democratic so­ciety. T h e opportunity to learn was also an experience of togetherness in learning, and interaction conducive to critical examination and organization of impressions, w h e n edu­cational institutions were at their best. A sense

88 Ingrid Eide

of individual growth was combined with the collective experience.

Democracy refers to relationships between individuals and between groups. It depends on people having learnt the rules as well as the roles of the game. It depends on people having a sense of purpose in their o w n lives and for society. It depends on the ability of individuals, groups and institutions to work out non-violent solutions to the conflicts within and between nations. Will education assist us in this en­deavour? •

Coming changes in science

and the curricula* Mircea Malitza

Science evolution and curriculum development

Forecasting in the field of science is generally carried out by constructing alternatives in the development of fundamental and applied re­search, by the assessment of different factors. These consist of the general advance of k n o w ­ledge, priorities and a potential of scientific creativity or of specific traditions in the field. In the case of the different scientific fields, the impact of these factors is variously manifested, therefore its assessment cannot be m a d e accord-ding to a standard methodology; it calls for the manipulation of various methods and techniques depending upon the very characteristics of the domains.

However, the difficulty in forecasting unex­pected breakthroughs, which often turn out to be of utmost importance, is well k n o w n . Even if broad trends in the evolution of science are identified, the problem of the impact on the curricula is not an easy one, on account of the dichotomy between the exact sciences regarded

Mircea Malitza (Romania). Former Minister of Education. Professor at theFacuity of Mathematics at the University of Bucharest. Has lectured on international affairs at academic centres in Asia, Europe and the United States. Author of books on education and mathematics: T h e Chronicle of the Year 2000, T h e Grey Go ld / co-author of the report to the Club of Rome entitled N o Limits to Learning.

Prospects, Vol. XII, N o . I, 1982

as disciplines and viewed as subjects to be taught. T h e difference between scientific knowledge

and what is actually being taught is c o m m o n and will certainly continue. However, in the future such differences will probably diminish for the following reasons: (a) science is directed more and more towards the needs of socio­economic development, towards applications; (b) contemporary culture is characterized by a massive and rapid circulation of information, thus scientific discoveries are spread simul­taneously all over the world through the mass media; (c) the n e w emphasis on training should lead to the allotment of larger sums to scientific research to find ways of designing flexible cur­ricula.

This does not m e a n that all scientific dis­coveries will simultaneously be included in the curricula. But dangerous gaps could thus be avoided. In any case there is a certain admissible lag, as a certain amount of time is needed to select, on the one hand, knowledge of real per­manent value from the mass of scientific dis­coveries, and, on the other hand, to translate scientific knowledge into a language accessible to children.

* This article is a shortened version of the study prepared by the author for the International Symposium on the Evolution of the Content of General Education over the Next T w o Decades, Unesco, Paris, 7-11 July 1980. A forthcoming Unesco publication will include all the contributions to the symposium and the final report. Ana-Maria Sandi and Barcu Chirimía participated in the study, particularly in gathering background information.

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Pressure for change comes from different quarters. T h e problem is h o w these pressures are to be identified and by w h o m . Considering the process of change of the curriculum as an innovation process implies looking at the models according to which innovations occur (Baez, 1977). T h e same process m a y be also viewed as part of the societal learning processes. Three types of such processes can be emphasized (Malitza et al., 1979).

T h e first type of societal learning implies the existence of a source of the creation of k n o w ­ledge, usually a centre of excellence where prob­lems are raised, research is concentrated and the solutions to problems are found. F r o m there, they are widely disseminated to large circles of people. T h e role of society at large is to adjust itself to and to consume the discoveries and knowledge which are produced in these singular points of radiation.

T h e second type of societal learning is based on the existence of m a n y centres sensitive to local needs. T h e y are of the problem-solving type. T h e restricted diffusion of their results leads to overlap, lack of co-ordination and care for the general interests.

T h e third type of societal learning is based on latent processes of change in society. T h e modification of value systems plays a leading role in this type of learning; the latter develops not so m u c h by institutions and organizations as by currents of opinion, diffusion of social traits, etc.

N o n e of these types excludes the existence of the others: at a certain given m o m e n t , in a certain place more than one model m a y be valid. W h a t is important is to avoid an over­emphasis of a certain model while the others are completely ignored.

Large-scale projects involving professional expertise and advisory networks are necessary for designing curricula to meet national aims and objectives. Sectoral and local groups are necessary for establishing needs from their viewpoints, and the existing possibilities to meet them. Alongside outstanding professional mathematicians, university research staff and schoolteachers, other groups should be envis­

aged, comprising people working in industry and in other areas where knowledge is being applied. Public opinion should be both in­formed and consulted on curriculum modifi­cations. T h e press, radio and television, meet­ings with parents, are a m o n g a variety of means that must be intensely used.

A special role in the development of any science curriculum is played by the prevailing epistemological views which are generally pro­jected in school science.

T h u s , the traditional empiricist-inductivist view is the one influencing to the greatest extent the way of presenting and explaining science. According to this view, the scientific method proceeds through a number of stages, already described by Francis Bacon: (a) observation and experiment; (b) inductive generalization; (c) hy­pothesis; (d) attempted verification of hypoth­esis; (e) proof or disproof; and (f) objective knowledge.

This positivist view of science and scientific progress relied on the idea of the existence of an objective reality apart from h u m a n beings, w h o can approach its comprehension by the iterated application of the described process.

N e w perspectives in the epistemology of sci­ence are offered by K . Popper's and T . S. K u h n ' s theories. Popper's hypothetico-deductive model is based on the idea that there are no discrete stages of objective knowledge, knowledge being at any one time provisional and open to possible refutation. His scientific method goes through the following stages: (a) the problem existing in a theory; (b) the n e w theory that allows a sol­ution to the problem; (c) deduction of testable propositions from the n e w theory; (d) tests of the propositions by attempted refutation; and (e) preference established between competing theories.

This view places the critical approach in a central position in scientific progress.

T . S. K u h n ' s basic view of scientific change consists of paradigms separated by revolutions. Scientists are no longer engaged in research seeking to prove or refute hypotheses. Most of the time they are engaged rather in a puzzle-solving type of activity, having quite explicit

Corning changes in science and the curricula 91

expectations for the solution of the problems in the frame of a given paradigm, generally accepted by the scientific community. Only in special revolutionary circumstances, tentative solutions are found which violate the current paradigm and surpass the c o m m o n , routine work of the 'normal' scientist. It is in these moments that a 'gestalt switch' takes place and scientists start looking at things in a n e w light, as defined by a n e w paradigm. T h e process is highly influenced by subjective attitudes and expectations.

A s already asserted, these different ap­proaches have an important influence on the way science curricula are conceived. A useful approach could be one in which going further than the traditional inductivist-empiricist ex­planation process, educators should try to de­velop a critical attitude towards the knowledge being taught (in a dialectic Popperian view); to foster the relativistic implications of the ways h u m a n beings view their world.

T h e evolution of exact sciences during the next decades

DEVELOPMENTS IN MATHEMATICS AND INFORMATICS

Mathematizing a field of knowledge means using mathematical models. Mathematical models have already penetrated the most varied do­mains: management, international relations, medicine, linguistics and even analysis of art. They are used in explaining reality and in forecasting. However, a mathematical model is defined on the basis of assumptions, which fix conjectures about the object (process) to be modelled. So far, mathematics has not been concerned with the adequacy of these assump­tions to the object (process). In the event of results not being satisfactory, the analysis could be started again, under different assumptions. This approach was adequate as far as m e c h ­anics or physics were concerned.

Nowadays, as mathematics must increasingly meet the requirements of economic, social and

humanistic sciences, the approach is likely to be modified. O n the other hand, opinions have also been heard to the effect that c n o w mankind has not time to wait for scrupulous, math­ematically exact substantiation of the results to be obtained: sometimes it has to confine itself to verisimilar reasoning'.

In the future mathematics will probably per­mit 'contradictory systems of axioms and more flexible logic, providing not only for the exam­ination of exact proof but also for verisimilar reasoning' (Boltjansky et al., 1978). This pre­supposes the creating of a logic allowing for the analysis of contradictory axiomatic bases in which deduction will contain an 'authenticity coefficient'.

This will also imply a deeper penetration of movement and dialectics into mathematics. Recent research has aimed at building u p a dialectic logic and even a dynamic mathematics, based on the notion of the dynamic set (Brusilovski, 1977).

T h e large-scale use of computers has been quoted as one of the factors exerting pressures on the mathematics of today. T h e revolution in modern computing devices is still going on. Innovations are likely to appear in the hardware field. After transistors have been replaced by silicon chips, there are n o w ample possibilities for manufacturing optical integrated circuits. T h e effort is presently concentrated towards software developments and the problems re­lated to the communications with the user.

All these preoccupations will also reduce production costs. Innovations will occur in two main directions: the first, telematics which is the result of connecting huge data-processing centres to the mass-media network (communi­cation by satellite included); and, second, pri-vatique born from the association of microcom­puters with video tapes, eventually branched to the communications networks.

Privatique will allow for the use of computers in household activities; supervising domestic robots, recording telephone calls, triggering garden-watering devices, obtaining cooking and hygiene advice, g y m lessons, etc.

Telematics will enable on-the-spot processing

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of a tremendous amount of data, obtained via satellite from the remotest areas. Terminals will help to connect users to centralized infor­mation sources.

T h e impact of computers is also manifested in the development of the n e w science of informatics, closely correlated with mathemat­ics. A s a consequence, branches based on informatics concepts are increasingly studied: algorithm theory, formal languages, numerical analysis, etc.

Algorithms in the framework of mathemat­ical logic are denned as finite sets of rules which w h e n executed in a given order lead to the solution of a problem or a class of problems in a finite time. Classification, search and re­trieval algorithms are increasingly used.

Formal languages are placed at the meeting point between mathematical logic and linguis­tics. Programming languages are conceived on the basis of the theory developed by this field.

Numerical analysis deals with the approxi­mate numerical formulation of the mathemat­ical problems and with finding out exact or approximate solutions to them on the basis of the round-off and truncation errors control.

Problems which cannot be solved by specific algorithms m a y be handled by heuristic pro­cedures involving search-scan strategies and backup capabilities which appeal to a spirit of creativity and innovation. These procedures are widely studied nowadays, especially in connec­tion with their use for artificial intelligence. This is a part of computer science devoted to getting computers (and other devices) to per­form tasks requiring intelligence. T h e studied mechanisms are extremely complex, as they take after the self-organization capacity of the living world. In handling these problems, arti­ficial intelligence is affecting most important issues such as learning, cognitive develop­ment, etc. It is possible that intensive studies in this particular field of research highlight the way in which people and even societies learn (Botkin et al., 1979).

O n e of the most promising breakthroughs is the brain-computer symbiosis which m a y give a n e w dimension to mathematical theory like

the one it has already added to applied math­ematics. With the advance of computers, the opportunity to study systems by using c o m ­puter simulation has been significantly in­creased. Simulation programme has become a research tool used in investigating all the sys­tems' variants and effects. Important results have been obtained, especially in forecasting; here simulation allows for grasping the counter­intuitive effects as well (Forrester, 1971), that is the results generated by the overlapping of complex causes, denying intuition. In fact, forecasting is attracting more and more special­ists, w h o are trying to create a methodology specific to the field by using adequate math­ematical methods, often combined with less exact methods derived from the social sciences.

A system, according to a simple definition, is the totality of elements in interaction which m a k e up a distinct entity. Structuralism pre­ceded systems analysis in shifting the emphasis from elements to relations where continuous transactions as well as energy and information flows occur.

Mathematics penetrated the description of the internal structure of systems (subsystems, organization and communication) as well as of other properties (degree of centralization, integration, isolation, states, stability, connec­tions, equilibrium, control, self-regulation, self-management, competition and co-operation). Attempts are also directed towards grasping behavioural characteristics (change, functioning, growth, homoeostasis) as well as different types of learning.

While operational research focused on the performance of parts and the optimization in relation to a single criterion, systems analysis put forth the idea of the performance of the whole and the multidimensional assessments.

DEVELOPMENTS IN PHYSICS,

CHEMISTRY AND RELATED FIELDS

In the experimental field of elementary particles further studies will be carried out to establish the interaction of high energies, achieved by

Coming changes in science and the curricula 93

means of the huge accelerators presently under construction. Since production costs are rap­idly increasing, new, more economical building solutions are being sought. A m o n g them, storage-ring accelerators offer the most p r o m ­ising perspectives (Buzzati-Traverso, 1977). B y means of these accelerators, m a n y processes can be studied from the interactions between hodrous to weak interactions, which are c o m ­parable to electromagnetic interactions, w h e n receiving the energy from such accelerators. Another experimental direction likely to be continued in the future is the detection of gravitational waves predicted by the general relativity theory.

A n interesting field of theoretical research is the extension of the relativity theory to p h e n o m ­ena occurring at speeds greater than the speed of light.

Apart from developments in the field of elementary particles one can cite other research, such as that on the magnetic field analogous to the electric charge, the magnetic monopole proposed by P A M Dirac on account of the symmetry with the Maxwell equations. T h e monopole or its 'combined' version of quark with electric charge and Dirac monopole with fractionary magnetic charge (the so-called dyon) could, if they really exist, elucidate a series of difficulties of the quark theory and of the violation of the C . P . symmetry.

Recent advances in spectroscopy have relied to a great extent on the utilization of the laser as a light source. Apart from saturation spec­troscopy, two other techniques utilizing lasers will be spectacularly developed in the future: two-photon spectroscopy and trapped-particle spectroscopy. In the future the most significant applications of these techniques will be in biological and nuclear spectroscopy.

R a m a n spectroscopy has widely developed due to the utilization of lasers as a light source. Besides the c o m m o n R a m a n diffusion, a whole series of superior effects could be set off, such as: coherent anti-stokes R a m a n scattering, R a m a n gain, H O R S E S (higher order R a m a n spectral excitation studies). Raman's studies m a y provide (due to the laser) indications on

the behaviour of phonons and poliritrons in crystals, on the Landau levels, the excitons or the Fermi resonances. B y using R a m a n scat­tering on magnons, anti- and ferromagnetic m a ­terials could be studied. Finally the diagnosis of plasma is possible by R a m a n study diffusion on plasmons or plasmaritons. T h e spectroscopy of nanoseconds was pushed forward, due to pulsed lasers, to the field of picoseconds (1 p s = i o - 1 2 s). Thus , it was possible to de­termine the vibrational life-times of poliatomic molecules, by stimulated R a m a n diffusion. For tricloretan, for instance, the relaxation time of vibrational states was found to be 20 ps.

Laser physics will be in the future a top priority field and one m a y estimate that devel­opments will especially occur with regard to increasing powers both in continuous and im­pulse conditions (io5 and io16 W respectively).

As regards the development of chemistry, one should first point to the development of the technological branches of chemistry and the development of analytical methods. Because of the world energy crisis, applied chemistry research will be channelled both to more econ­omical use of oil and to the discovery of cheap raw materials to replace it. Such a substitute has already been found. Efforts are being m a d e all over the world to harness n e w technologies for processing coal (from inferior peat to pitcoal), for producing gas or liquid fuels, metallurgi­cal coke, lubricants, wax detergents, ammonia , acids and synthesis fats. At the same time increased attention will be paid in the future to other fields of technological chemistry using natural raw materials. It is likely that there will be a significant b o o m in wood chemistry. Agri­cultural fertilizer chemistry will also develop, closely correlated to the successes scored in the field of applied genetic engineering. Attempts are being m a d e to produce artificially micro­organisms that would fix atmospheric nitrogen, able to develop symbiotically, on to the roots of cereals. Such a solution would eliminate the need for chemical fertilizers, thereby avoiding water pollution and soil exhaustion. T h e chemis­try of polymers will enter a n e w development phase. T h e development of the technologies

94 Mircea Malitza

of working at high pressures and the util­ization of lasers and of ionizing radiations in setting up reactions will be the promising novelties to be introduced in the future. Photo­chemical reactions are highly specific; by choos­ing an adequate excitation wavelength and under certain conditions, polymerization reactions m a y be directed toward products with totally n e w characteristics. It is hoped that polymers in­cluding atoms other than the usual ones will be obtained. It is likely also that in the future, polymers containing fluor and silicon will better resist difficult environmental conditions: high temperatures and pressures, oxidating, acid or basic environments, etc. 'Traditional' analytical chemistry and all physico-chemical methods that can be adopted to analytical aims will develop, promoted by two factors: (a) the needs of the industry for improved analyses for the characterization, and (b) identification of materials and the environment factor which has started increasingly to play the decisive role in opposing or accepting some technologies, in relation to their capacity to perturb the ecology of the environment. It is likely that every­thing in the field of analytical instruments will be automatized and digitalized. It is m a y b e interesting to note that there is also a reverse of this encouraging situation. T e n to fifteen years ago the operation of a spectrometer with atomic absorption required m u c h knowledge on the part of the operator about the principles of the instrument's function, and on its characteristics, therefore the instrument could only be operated by specialists; today this problem no longer exists. Nowadays , anybody m a y work with an atomic-absorption spectrometer, since the oper­ation consists in pressing a couple of buttons in a specific order. There are no dangers and if manipulatory errors are m a d e , the operator is immediately warned.

M o d e r n chemists should have knowledge of the electronic make-up of the instruments they use, and should even be able to repair their o w n instruments without external assistance.

In the field of organic chemical synthesis, notable progress has been m a d e in recent years. Unusual organic substances were prepared

such as catenanes and rotaxanes. T h e former can constitute, theoretically, the basis of a n e w kind of polymer with unexpected properties, such as resistance to fracture comparable to that of steel. 'Exotic' cubic molecules have been synthetized (the valency limits between atoms form the sides of a cube), or the prisman, D e w a n benzene (non-planar molecules) the anullens (aromatic non-benezenic compounds). M a n y of these compounds have been theoreti­cally predicted by applying the methods of the graph theory. In the chemical catalysis field the synthetization of catalysts with even better properties is expected. T h e progress in this field will be achieved by corroborating the re­sults obtained by Auger electron spectroscopy or E S C A (electron spectroscopy for chemical analysis) with those in the organo-metallic chemistry field. M a n y results from the physics of semiconductors could be used by chemists, in the preparation of catalysts with higher properties. There will be advances in the field of theoretical chemistry, in the first place in the area of better understanding the relationship between electronic structure and chemical re­activity. T h e possibility of using high-speed computers and the development of an efficient algorithm for solving the Schrödinger equation for polyatomic systems open up large perspec­tives for finding out the behaviour of a substance in a test tube before preparation. It is in a way the reactualization, at the molecular level, of the possibilities offered by Mendeleev's table.

BIOLOGY AND INTERDISCIPLINARITY

O n e of the characteristic aspects of the evolution of science during recent years has been the development of interdisciplinarity areas. T h e interest aroused by such fields is enormous. Nowadays there is no sharp dividing line be­tween biology, chemistry and physics. Biology is the beneficiary of the achievements in all the domains of science; on the other hand, biology stimulates researches in the other domains by the specific problem it raises.

M a n y Nobel prizes for biology are the result

Coming changes in science and the curricula 95

of activities of an interdisciplinary character. O n e of the interdisciplinarity fields with a bright future is that of immobilized enzymes. T h e immobilization of enzymes on solid sup­ports permits their efficient utilization in m a n y industrial domains, besides the academic interest it arouses. Immobilization makes enzymes more resistant to external degradative factors. Sus­tained efforts are m a d e to introduce immobi -lized-enzyme techniques in the oil industry. It is quite possible that in the future distilleries with boilers heated to 500 °C and pressures of dozens of atmospheres will be replaced by stations where the temperature is below 80 °C and the pressure normal, due to the substitution of classical catalyzers with biological ones. B y means of immobilized enzymes w e m a y even venture into the synthetization of artificial pro­teins. Dissipative structures and oscillatory chemical reactions are examples of such a situ­ation where theories such as quantum mechanics and fields like the differential-equation theory are stimulated by the solution of problems posed by biology.

Interdisciplinarity will undoubtedly score quite remarkable successes. T h e m o m e n t is not too far away w h e n w e will be able to study the dynamics of biological macromolecules in liquids, utilizing spectroscopic techniques, or of neutrons in real time. W e shall probably succeed, in the not too distant future, in using the extraordinary capacity of some biological structures to disseminate specific chemical sub­stance, achieving sui generis 'spectrograph' (com­bining the insect's olfactive apparatus with electronic systems of amplification and in­terpretation of the biological sensor), with the resolution of 1 molecule/cm3; or maybe w e shall succeed only in imitating the design of these vastly improved biological sensors.

The impact on the curriculum

A s w e have already mentioned, developments in the exact sciences have little direct influence on the curriculum. After all, the requirements of social life guide education in general; education's

aims are to provide the student with whatever he needs for active, intelligent participation in life. A special situation exists nowadays as social pressures are strongly exerted on the evolution of science in general, making it increasingly responsive to the urgencies of socio-economic development.

T h e evolution of mathematics indicates its close relation to real life. Mathematics becomes thus, more and more , 'mathematics for all'; its aims concern the individual as well as society and increasingly affect our culture and civil­ization. Both formal and non-formal education must reflect this orientation. However, it is impossible for one authority to decide what subjects should be included in the curricula and co-curricula for teaching exact sciences in school.

Curriculum development is a specific process involving the developmental characteristics and educational traditions of each country. W h a t seems to be more reasonable is to use a negative model indicating what subjects should not be taught, being totally outdated and useless. Such a list could only be drawn up by a large panel of specialists. B y its special position, Unesco could initiate the establishment of a commission w h o would edit and regularly publish such lists indicating what is considered scientifically and educationally outmoded. W h a t can be dis­played in a positive model are the directions to be taken for a steady development of the curricula.

MATHEMATICS CURRICULA

A s regards mathematics curricula, criticism has been raised where on the one hand there was an overemphasis on extremely generalized concep­tions, abstract as well as formal-logical, or, on the other hand, where there was too m u c h emphasis on the intuitive and implicit aspects of the manipulation of mathematical knowledge. Recent debates, starting with the famous book by Morris Kline (1973) have been mainly gen­erated by the contents, methods and objectives introduced by the reform (already old) called

96 Mircea Malitza

'new mathematics'. In short, the critics pointed out the following negative aspects: T h e notions taught are not justified from the

psychological point of view as they are in­accessible: first-grade children cannot under­stand the set theory by means of which numbers are introduced; axioms based on global deduction and formal nuances are beyond the reach of the majority of pupils in middle-year classes.

Excessive abstraction and formalism are not justified from the pedagogical point of view; simple things and ideas are m a d e unnecess­arily complex while at a certain m o m e n t in teaching, the emphasis on mathematical struc­tures is shifted to be replaced by ' c o m m o n mathematics' until university level.

There is a lack of motivation in learning this mathematics: as not enough intuition is being used, m a n y simple problems from the pupils' experience are eliminated and the work per­mits little personal initiative.

T h e mathematics taught is divorced from real­ity. Thus , whilst pupils m a y k n o w more mathematics, they are less able to apply it; they often find problem-solving too hard and prefer proving various trivial consequences of axioms and definitions; most useful concepts for instance which would enable the child to develop his spatial awareness are removed to m a k e room for concepts of formal algebra.

In fact, one reaches the conclusion that the problem must be raised on a more general plane, 'to attract formalism in pedagogy, or one must challenge the philosophical base—the formalist picture of the nature of mathematics' (Hersh, 1976). By placing the emphasis on mathemat­ical logic, most curricula with their alleged lack of attention to application have disturbed the necessary balance between utility and the inner logic and beauty of mathematics. But criticism of some curricula should not be equated with a plea for a return to teaching the 'old mathematics'; it should point out the weak points and the elements that are to be intro­duced.

So far, the objectives that mathematics teach­ing had in view were mainly concerned with

logical and formal aspects, aiming at the ac­quirement of the capacity for rigorous thinking, free from logical contradictions. These aspects proved to be insufficient, as mathematics edu­cation can hardly hang back from the effort to grasp its meanings. Thus , the question is not only that of using a clear, rigorous language but also of forming c o m m o n meanings. A n d m e a n ­ings are provided in the contexts displayed by the applications and use of mathematics teach­ing. Progressive learning, by exposure to various situations, in which the use of mathematics becomes meaningful, should accompany the axiomatic treatment.

A n inquiring attitude should be cultivated. Only inquisitive, critical minds can go beyond the superficial aspects of mathematics. In this way, creativity is also developed; it cannot be encouraged by the deductive presentation of a finite, consistent system of theories. T o arouse students' interest, it is necessary to point out the origin of concepts to allow them to discover by means of exploratory investigations the no­tions that must be learned. This presupposes, along with a logical exposition, a psychological one in which more attention must be paid to historical developments.

Another aspect to be taken into account w h e n teaching mathematics is to involve students in the process of abstraction rather than just teach them abstract notions. It is only in this manner that the conscious use of abstraction can be at­tained, along with an understanding of the dif­ferences between models and real phenomena.

A generally acknowledged objective is the development of probabilistic as well as deterministic thought. This process should be initiated from the first elementary grades, the more so as mathematics is increasingly bound up with science in which a probabilistic ap­proach is c o m m o n , and notions related to this approach are not beyond the understanding of students.

A final objective worth pointing out concerns the development of the capacity to perceive, and not only to solve, problems. Along with the usual activities of solving problems and proving theorems, students should have the experience

Coming changes in science and the curricula 97

of solving their o w n problems and proving then-o w n theorems. This issue is related to creativity and understanding, and is m u c h too easily overlooked.

In general overall goals and objectives in present-day curricula come close to the require­ments of the development of mathematics. T h u s , a list of objectives, quoted by D'Ambrosio (1979), is aimed at making the student capable of: (a) analysing the components of a situation; (b) recognizing analogous situations; (c) choos­ing a strategy adapted to a situation; (d) making himself understood by others; (e) possessing a critical attitude; (f) constructing simple deduc­tions and constructing a chain of deductions; (g) predicting a result and generalizing; (h) con­structing a simple model; and finally (i) taking part in a collective task.

T h e goals of education seem to be increasingly determined by a unifying principle eliminating the polarization expressed by the dichotomies: traditional or n e w mathematics, skills or c o m ­prehension, concrete or abstract, induction or deduction, intuition or formalization, mastery of structures or practice of applications.

T h e situation regarding contents is more controversial. Advice and indications are less easy to give as the contents are highly related to the specific conditions of students, schools, countries, etc. At a meeting-point between the elements listed as pertaining to the trend of mathematics development and the objectives quoted above, some topics can be established that should not be neglected in teaching math­ematics. S o m e of them have already been in­cluded in m a n y syllabuses,subjects suchas: prob­ability, statistics, discrete mathematics, matrix theory. Others will be included very soon, namely: courses in the construction of math­ematical models; courses in scientific organiz­ation; and subjects from computer science (informatics).

Informatics also provides topics to be taught: algorithms, formal languages, elementary nu ­merical analysis, programming; elementary edu­cation in systems science; and applications as an integral part of mathematics teaching.

T h e large-scale use of pocket calculators m a y

contribute to improving mathematics education. Apart from the fact that they eliminate the least pleasant aspects of mathematics, consisting of cumbersome calculations, they also allow for the use of real data, extracted from real prob­lems. Students should, however, still be taught to operate with small numbers and make esti­mations.

In mathematics education, according to some, emphasis should be placed less on what is taught and more on methodology and classroom environment. With regard to the general organ­ization of teaching, there is strong support for more flexible modular teaching, study centred on h u m a n problems, carried out by interdisci­plinary teams.

T h e design of n e w methods to teach applied mathematics should take into account the estab­lishment of n e w interpersonal relations between students and researchers and between students and students, relations with the community and technological advances. Psychologists point to the fact that intellectual maturity depends largely on having the opportunity of participating in activities. Hence, there is a need to devise activities leading the child to personal dis­covery. Activities must be rooted in reality, permitting pupils to investigate and examine the environment. They should be encouraged to collect data for themselves and devise then-o w n problems. Mathematical applications can be envisaged in real-life activities such as census and meteorological records.

As h u m a n relations in societies shift hori­zontally rather than vertically, the omniscient teacher /obedient student relationship is doomed to obsolescence. Already today, children are more critical of authority. Group work and discussions, with the tutor playing an enlarged role, seem more appropriate for egalitarian societies. Participation also prevents knowledge from becoming a theory detached from the problems that gave it birth. O f course it must contain functional, not only structural, methods for communicating knowledge.

T h e impact of n e w technological inventions should also be considered from the participation angle. Pushed to its extremes, the technicization

98 Mircea Malitza

of teaching leads to images such as: the student isolated with earphones in a cubicle listening to a taped lesson or sitting in front of a computer terminal pushing buttons marked 'Yes' and ' N o ' , staring mesmerized before a visual-display screen, all of which are instances of non-participatory learning. However, if used ju­diciously, technological aids enable students to concentrate on problems and their solutions instead of cumbersome computations. Computer simulations, for example, permit students to investigate more variants of a problem situation.

T h e assessment of what has been learned must include the ability to use acquired notions rather than the capacity to reproduce them. Rote learning and memorization play an in­significant role w h e n the aim is to obtain competence not performance. With ever closer ties between pure and applied mathematics, present and future, this competence is needed.

PHYSICS AND CHEMISTRY CURRICULA

There is a gap between curriculum content and the most outstanding fields of research. This gap is inherent since the educational system is rather conservative. But the gap between edu­cation and research is bridged by higher edu­cation, which is the first to receive the impact of scientific and technological progress. Dis­cussions on the curriculum have increasingly become objective-oriented. In science teaching, it seems that the general orientation is towards the creation of 'accomplished', broad-minded people w h o are aware of the fact that science is the leading factor of economic development, yet also aware of its huge destructive potential. T h e future scientist should be strongly involved in society and be aware of his responsibilities. T o quote M . G . Ebison (1972): ' W h a t I propose as a suggestion for you is that science be taught at whatever level, from the lowest to the highest, in the humanistic way . '

With regard to the teaching of physics and chemistry there should be a more consistent promotion in the curriculum of the basic ideas of the quantum and relativity theories.

As for teaching methods, it seems the his­torical method (Ebison, 1972), the display of ideas in the action of models of physical reality (in physics), and the promotion of n e w ideas on the role of the experiment (in chemistry), are possibilities that should be carefully con­sidered. Also, integrated science teaching should be the subject of a separate discussion.

W e have previously mentioned the necessity of making pupils conversant with the concept of the 'model' of physical reality. Almost all contemporary sciences use models as a means of investigating the real world that surrounds them, either physical or social phenomena. Models m a y be simulated on computers, which opens n e w perspectives in secondary education. G o o d pupils are often 'disappointed' that after learning classical mechanics, after having ac­quired a personal outlook on the functioning of nature, they are then told that they were wrong, that the relativity theory is the true one. This situation comes about through inadequate teach­ing methods that do not emphasize the basic hypothesis of the Newtonian model, and do not critically discuss the possibility that it m a y not necessarily correspond to reality. If w e teach pupils to conceive physical theories as a chang­ing mass of facts, theorems and ideas, then w e shall come very close to the ideal of modern thinking.

INTEGRATED SCIENCE

Integrated education has been intensely de­bated. T h u s there are discussions on 'global' curriculum integration, the integration of theory and practice, the integration of the natural sci­ences and the social sciences, vertical and horizontal integration. There is a profusion of valuable works on this theme, which have appeared lately.

Undoubtedly the characteristic aspect of contemporary science is the quantity of data. If the present development rate of science is maintained, specialization will remain one of the major characteristics of science over the next decades. T h e difficulties of such a situation are

Coming changes in science and the curricula 99

known: the limitation to narrow fields makes the understanding of general phenomena difficult. O n e efficient method is to promote research groups as opposed to the individual approach to science.

T h e integration of mathematics with physics and chemistry seems at first sight superfluous, since it is a natural process. However, there is still plenty of room for improvement, all the more so w h e n the material is designed for younger pupils.

Mathematical problems, which are often ab­stract, could be generally dealt with by d e m o n ­strating their relevance to physics, particularly as regards probability theory, the notion of complex numbers, the concept of limits, the introduction and utilization of differential cal­culus, etc. These examples are designed to show that it would be well worth while to focus math­ematics teaching on the application of math­ematics to physical phenomena. T h e laws of mechanics can also be dealt with as elements of algebraic structures and m a y facilitate the intro­duction of problems of variational calculus.

Although the integration of physics with chemistry is almost inevitable, they are still often taught as though they were separate subjects.

N O N - F O R M A L EDUCATION

T h e demand for flexible forms of education requires the use of a great variety of methods in formal education. Non-formal education must be carefully planned to complement and sup­plement formal education. T h e most quoted forms of free scientific activity that concern mathematics, physics, chemistry and related subjects are the following: Special publications and reviews for pupils

containing collections of problems or open situations to be worked out outside school.

Science clubs or societies including such ac­tivities as carrying out projects, designing and building models of specific items of apparatus, conducting surveys, collecting data and materials, pursuing ecological inves­tigations.

Competitions on various subjects and at various levels. T h e problem raised here (as with sports) is to avoid turning these manifes­tations into performance shows obtained by doping and intensive training. Competitions should be a form for furthering learning in a spirit of friendship.

Popular scientific centres or m u s e u m s endowed with scientific libraries and facilities for showing scientific films.

In schools: organization of scientific exhibitions, broadcasts m a d e by pupils on scientific subjects to be broadcast on close-circuit radio.

Science fairs, youth science camps, excursions

and field trips, quizzes. Distance teaching by correspondence, broadcast

courses on national radio and television, and multimedia teaching systems, supported by a wide variety of audio-visual aids as slides, tapes, cassettes, records, open-circuit radio and television broadcasting.

Distance teaching should be supplemented with simple but effective means for ensuring par­ticipation: group work with either a tutor or a counsellor present, telephone conversations with teachers which m a y clear obscure points. T h e distinction between non-formal education and so-called formal education is purely ter­minological. Non-formal education is an im­portant component of the educational system and will increase, both because of teachers' interests and the fact that the usually rigid re­lationship between teachers and pupils is re­placed by closer ties between pupils and teachers.

Teacher education

T h e teacher is and will continue to be the basic element of the educative process. In spite of m a n y attempts in several countries to replace the teacher with monitoring devices and self-testing systems for pupils, there is no chance that the teacher/human being will be replaced by the teacher/machine.

It seems that in the future, the computer will be mainly used for communication rather than

100 Mircea Malitza

computer-assisted instruction (D'Ambrosio, 1978).

A n important problem is that of teacher-training. T h e integrated teaching of science presupposes quite important changes in higher education of future teachers (Martin, 1972).

In conclusion w e would like to emphasize the following: Teaching of science will be carried out in a

more 'contextual' way, pointing out the prob­lems solved by science, in contrast to the axiomatic trends of thought, which have prevailed since the beginning of the century, reaching a climax in the 1950s. This pre­supposes that more attention will be paid to the history of science.

Teaching will include elements of 'science ethics' and 'technology assessment' appealing to values and a normative approach, in con­trast to the positivism that has prevailed so far.

It will explore border areas, where fields with different axioms and methodologies meet, involving unifying 'metatheories'. This will amplify the trends towards integration of sciences, which has important consequences for teaching and teacher-training.

T h e system of interdisciplinary work-teams and modular education will develop further.

Computer modelling will have a strong influence on science teaching; it will be practised in all scientific disciplines and will result in a spread of numeric calculus and simulated experiences.

Computers and telematics will shift the e m ­phasis from data, information and m e m o r y to process modelling, algorithms and operations.

Scientific organization will thrive, based on decision, systems and game theories and on optimization techniques.

A s the immediate future will be dominated by intense research into n e w energy sources and less energy-consuming technologies, the cur­riculum will reflect this preoccupation. m

References B A E Z , Albert. 1977. L'innovation dans l'enseignement des

sciences: synthèse mondiale. Paris, Unesco. BcLTJANSKY, V . G . J D A N I L O V - D A N I L Y A N , V . I. 1978.

Mathematics and Scientific and Technological Progress. Taliiij Intern. Symp. on Sei.

BoTKiN, J.; E L M A N D J R A , M . J M A L I T Z A , M . 1979. No Limits

to Learning: Bridging the Human Gap. Oxford, Pergamon Press.

BRUSILOVSKI, B . 1.1977. Systems Theory and the System of Theories. Kiev.

B U Z Z A T I - T R A V E R S O , Adriano. 1977. The Scientific Enter­

prise) Today and Tomorrow. Paris, Unesco. D ' A M B R O S I O , Ubiratan. 1978. The Education of Math­

ematics Teachers: Problems and Models for the Situation in Latin America. Helsinki, ICMI Symposium.

. 1979. Overall Goals and Objectives for Mathemat­

ical Education. New Trends in Mathematics Teaching, Vol. IV. Paris, Unesco.

E B I S O N , M . C . 1972. The Role of the History and Philos­

ophy of Physics in the Physics Curriculum. Implemen­

tation of Curricula in Science Education. Cologne/ Munich, Deutsche Unesco Kommission/Verlag D o ­

kument. Pullach.

FORRESTER, Jay. 1971. World Dynamics. Wright-Allen

Press.

H E R S H , R . 1976. Some Proposals for Reviving the Philos­ophy of Mathematics. Albuquerque, N . M . , University

of N e w Mexico Press.

K L I N E , Morris. 1973. Why Johnny Can't Add: The Failure of the New Math. N e w York, St Martin's Press.

K U H N , T . S. 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago, 111., University of Chicago Press.

M A L I T Z A , Mircea; S A N D I , A . M . 1979. Conducere si invatare

in sistémele sociale [Management and Learning in

Societal Systems]. In: S. Tamas (ed.), Conducere stiit

[Scientific Management]. Bucharest, Ed. Pol.

M A R T I N , Michael. 1972. Concepts of Science Education. Glenview, 111.

P O P P E R , K . 1959. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. N e w York, Basic Books.

V A L L É E , Robert. 1975. ' N e w Mathematics' and Teaching.

Int. J. Math. Educ. Sei. TechnoL, Vol. 6, N o . 2.

Education and the mass media: where they differ,

where they converge Michel Souchon

The media and education: from the past to the present

All of the major mass communication media had their origins outside education. Schools have always thought of them as competitors as regards their influence on society and ways of thinking, which explains the constant desire to make use of mass communication techniques in schools and the illusion about their ability to solve the major problems of education.

Educational institutions and the mass media are essentially rivals. Throughout the world, teachers make virtually the same criticisms of them. T h e mass media are reproached with placing such emphasis on entertainment and spectacle that whatever information they m a y convey is drowned in a flood of empty words. Education and the media rest on two irreconcil­able principles: on the one hand the spectacle, with its facility, superficiality, passivity and illusion of effortless learning, and on the other the training process, which implies effort, depth, the solidity of real learning and activity. Lastly, the most fundamental clash is between two orders of faculties: the school gives priority to reason

Michel Souchon (France). Director of studies in the

Department of Futures Research at the National Audio­

visual Institute. Has written on the sociology of com­

munication and of the media: L a télévision et son public, 1947-1977, Petit écran, grand public and

L'enfant devant la télévision (co-author).

and logic, while in the media imagination and the senses reign supreme.

Teachers do indeed admit that benefit m a y be derived from media men ' s attempts to present educational topics—as, for example, in popular science programmes. They are quick to point out, however, that such programmes cannot supply the coherent, structured knowledge that only schools can provide, and therefore give the illusion rather than the substance of knowledge. They also condemn what they see as the excessive amount of media time taken up by fiction: modern children m a y spend more time engrossed in imaginary adventures seen on films, television or cartoons than in their o w n history.

In the developing countries, it is pointed out that the ideology or values that the school seeks to impart differ from—and often contradict—the ideology and value-system conveyed by the media: the school is in some degree explicitly expected to keep children on the land by teaching them more efficient farming methods, while at the same time the media put out for­midably effective messages highlighting the town and urban models. It m a y be objected that there are similar contradictions within the mess­ages put out by each system: the school should help the peasant to farm his land more efficiently, yet it often encourages him to leave for the town, while media programmes aimed at slowing d o w n the flight from the land often conflict with advertisements that glamorize urban life­styles. It must, however, be admitted that

Prospects, Vol. XII, N o . I, 1982

102 Michel Souchon

teachers have good grounds for pointing criti­cally to the contradictions between the two basic contemporary systems for moulding the mind.

A study of the greater part of the media's content is enough to show that it calls into question schools as institutions, emphasizing their often outdated curricula, their failure to keep abreast of the latest knowledge and their often boring teaching methods, etc.

So the two institutions are competitors and rivals. But it must be confessed that the media exert a kind of fascination over teachers. W h e n ­ever a n e w communication m e d i u m appears, schools want to k n o w what use it might be to them. In m a n y cases, this is prompted not by a thorough correlation of educational objectives with the potential of the media, but by a wish to adapt modern techniques for use in edu­cation as audio-visual aids. T h e list is end­less—school radio and television, educational films, sequences and slides with spoken c o m ­mentaries or explanatory notes, language courses on records or cassettes and more sophisticated uses of tape-recorders in language labora­tories, etc.

Without in any way denying the benefits and m a n y successful applications of such techniques (monographs could usefully be written to cata­logue and describe the most productive exper­iments), it should be noted that there are three limitations on the use of the media in education. T h e first is the imbalance between those fields that lend themselves to visual techniques or spectacular presentation and are thus popular media topics, and the underrepresented fields that are based on ideas rather than images. Catalogues of audio-visual aids show the same tendency as television newscasts to emphasize topics for which pictures are available rather than more abstract topics—how can the prob­lems of inflation or fluctuating exchange rates be 'illustrated'?

T h e next limitation lies in the inflexibility and unwieldiness of both institutions, which m a k e co-operation difficult. T h e most typical example is that of school television broadcasts: it is very difficult to correlate the timetable of any class and the broadcasts designed for it.

T h e rigidity of school timetables matches that of television schedules.

Third, the use of modern audio-visual tech­niques tends to separate the two functions of education—to pass on information and to mould the mind. T h e first m a y be performed, subject to the foregoing provisos, by technical means: the second, conversely, implies physical con­tact—real education can only be w o n by close combat. T h e really important things, Nietzsche used to say, can only be taught person to person. So that while these techniques m a y be useful, it is misguided to think that they can be self-sufficient. In the language of c o m m u n i ­cations theory, it m a y be said that there is no education without feedback—and in that re­spect, one example is illuminating. All exper­iments in educational television, whether with children or with adults, show that there can be no genuine feedback with groups of more than twenty. If that number is to be exceeded, properly organized audience groups must be arranged, each with its leader—an organizer or teacher—within which the message m a y be 'reactivated'. T h e reactions to educational mess­ages depend largely on the quality of the audience network and the training of the group leaders. T h e economic consequences of such observations are plain: it is generally hoped that the mass media will be a panacea providing cheap education for large numbers of children or adults. Such expectations overlook the im­portance of providing a suitable context, with­out which media messages remain a dead letter. This illusion is persistent, and it would be surprising if it did not re-emerge periodically in the future.

But schools have not only attempted to use media techniques as audio-visual aids: they have also grappled with the problem of teaching young people h o w to use the media, which take up a large proportion of their free time. Here again, there is a long list of attempts to teach critical reading of the press, or intelligent viewing of films and television. Just as the school taught people in oral civilizations h o w to speak and listen, or to read and write when the written word held sway, should it not n o w

Education and the mass media: where they differ, where they converge IO3

teach them h o w to watch and show? T h e m a n y experiments such as 'screen education', or the more recent 'training of the active young viewer', were attempts to answer this question affirmatively.

There m a y , then, be said to be 'tangential encounters' between the schools and the media: attempts to use media-style techniques to assim­ilate the two different languages that pupils hear, or to establish training in the discerning use of the mass media. But the geographical distribution of those encounters is very uneven: frequent in the industrialized countries, where sufficient resources are provided to give them some chance of success, but far rarer in the developing countries—and when they do occur, they possess only limited resources.

Lastly, should it not be acknowledged that in comparison with the hopes awakened by the enormous capacity of cinema, radio and tele­vision for disseminating knowledge, the results as a whole seem disappointing? T h e proportion of educational and informative programmes is slight in comparison with that of entertain­ments such as serials, series, films, games, variety, sport, etc. A n d if, rather than the structure of messages broadcast, w e take as our criterion the structure of messages received, the structure of viewing or listening time, the proportion of educational and cultural pro­grammes declines even further. T h e mass media do not to any great extent serve the cause of education, and teachers consequently feel that they should either teach pupils the discerning use of the media, or else divert some of the fascination of cinema and television to their o w n account by using them as audio-visual aids.

The education of tomorrow: the major challenges

Only the naïve could hope to break n e w ground on the major problems for tomorrow's edu­cation, and no more than a cursory list will be presented.

O n e prior remark should be made: the situ­ation differs widely from region to region. In

what are called the industrialized countries, the number of pupils in primary education is n o w static, while in the developing countries it is rising very rapidly. M a n y countries have fairly uniform education systems, while in others different models coexist—a traditional oral-based sector, a modern sector for mass literacy and the written word, and a modern elitist sector using up-to-date educational techniques, for instance. A n d most important, of course, the resources vary enormously from rich to poor countries. These differences between countries and regions create a serious problem for the future: h o w to prevent them giving rise to disparities in the quality of the education sys­tems which could not but have cumulative effects?

T w o major educational problems will be the number of people to be educated and the number of subjects to be taught. T h e number of adults and young people seeking admission to educational institutions will rise greatly: more children will require primary and secondary education in countries with fast-growing popu­lations, more young people will be kept at school by the raising of the school-leaving age, and more adults will rejoin the education system through the development of lifelong education. O f course, the problem will be most acute wherever the shortage of funds and manpower is greatest.

At the same time, the amount of knowledge to be taught is growing constantly. T h e advance of technological and scientific discovery is such that curricula require constant updating. If education is effectively to prepare young people and adults for life in this technological age, n e w subjects or at least the latest developments in traditional disciplines must be included. Sev­eral countries feel it necessary to provide, for instance, basic training in data-processing and computer languages. This adds another 'stratum' of education: which traditional disci­plines must be sacrificed to m a k e room for it? Might not education, which reproaches the media with disseminating superficial and inco­herent knowledge, expose itself one day, and possibly soon, to a similar grievance?

104 Michel Souchon

T h e decline of the egalitarian ideal seems to m e to be one of the major challenges ahead for education. During the nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth centuries, school systems inspired by the ideal of m a x i m u m equality of educational opportunity were established every­where: free and compulsory primary education, the extension of public education through ' c o m m o n cores' at secondary level, and ex­tremely generous access to higher education. But alongside this there is n o w a trend towards commercial, voluntary and elitist sectors whose purpose is to give their clientele a distinctive brand of education. At times they are estab­lished in response to a crisis in the public sector, which is accused of inefficiency or 'hold­ing back the best' by lavishing excessive care on all. Elsewhere the commercial sector confines itself to providing extra services, thereby en­abling the few to gain m a x i m u m advantage from the free and compulsory system for all. Typical examples might be the evening classes in Japan, residential language courses abroad, the serially published encyclopedias which a m ­bitious parents purchase for their children and all the systems of 'tutoring', 'coaching', etc.

Another major challenge: will the future bring adequate educational solutions to the enormous problems of poverty, hunger and large-scale technological change? It is too often felt today that w e cannot design or set up education systems that might help—slowly, since lasting educational solutions cannot be quick—to solve the problems of rural develop­ment or health in the developing countries: coping with these countries' increased problems over the coming decades will be doubly diffi­cult. At a time of ever faster technological change, the unwieldiness of educational insti­tutions makes it hard for them to make the necessary adjustments.

These problems, outlined rather than de­scribed or analysed, are those that education systems will have to face in coming decades. H o w will the media evolve in that same period?

The media: looking ahead

It is no easy exercise to attempt to predict the future of the media. Admittedly, it is not diffi­cult to provide a list of foreseeable technological innovations—but the technologically and indus­trially possible is not always commercially or socially probable. Yet social probability is governed less by 'needs' or prior 'expectations' than by the demands of the market or the commercial policies of industrial managers. Those policies are based on calculated risks, and their success is judged in terms of wars, in which each company seeks to win predomi­nance for its o w n products and standards.

A further point is that the media as a body are so structured that any change in the place or function of any one of them—or the intro­duction of a n e w element—alters the place and function of all the others. Neither finance nor time-resources are infinite: no matter what ad­ditional factors need to be added to so over­simplified a model of causal relationships, tele­vision has clearly altered the place and function of the cinema by providing a large number of fictional programmes and taking up a large proportion of the public's time (box-office sales have fallen sharply, the audiences are struc­turally different and younger, the content of films has changed, etc.). A n d since the geogra­phy of the media is changed completely by a shifting border or the emergence of n e w terri­tory, it is difficult to m a k e forecasts in this area. T h e best solution is to start from the simplest aspect, the description of n e w technologies.

N o substantial technological improvements to the cinema seem likely, with the possible exception of three-dimensional picture tech­niques.

Television techniques, conversely, are chang­ing rapidly, both for production and in respect of transmission and reception. Technological ad­vances and the use of smaller equipment—such as one-inch instead of two-inch lenses—make lower production costs likely. Light-weight view-finding cameras ( E . N . G . ) will m a k e for faster operations that will put television on a

Education and the mass media: where they differ, where they converge I05

par with radio in news gathering. T h e replace­ment of analogue methods by digital techniques for processing audio-visual signals should im­prove the quality of transmission and enable a single channel to be used for television, radio and telephone signals, communication with data banks and reception of teletext systems, etc.

Programme transmission by direct broad­casting satellites will induce countries that have not yet installed ground transmission networks to save themselves the cost. Such satellites will extend the range of cross-border overspill, thereby improving opportunities for receiv­ing programmes from neighbouring countries. Another possible use of satellites with important educational implications is 'radiovisión': the equivalent of a satellite television channel is used to carry fifty programmes of still pictures each with its o w n sound-track. Also k n o w n as 'still-picture television', this system was tested in Japan during trials of the experimental communications satellite.

Messages will reach the television sets either by private aerials, different from and more expensive than the present models, or by c o m ­munity aerials and cable networks. This latter system, k n o w n in various countries as 'tele-distribution' or 'cable distribution', enables more programmes to be broadcast to the consumer than the overcrowded Hertzian sys­tem. A particular advantage is that it makes it easier to establish strictly local news and c o m ­munication stations. Another application, still unusual but likely to become less so with the growing use of optical fibres, is in 'interactive systems', in which the user m a y converse with the broadcaster and participate more fully in the programme. W h e r e optical fibres are con­cerned, it also brings closer the single network of which w e spoke earlier.

T h e structure of messages received on tele­vision sets will also change profoundly. M o r e programmes will be available, as w e have said, via satellites and/or cable networks. Addition­ally, the television set will be the core of a range of equipment and services that is starting to be called 'video technology*. T h e video recorder, which is to the audio-visual media and

television what the tape-recorder is to sound and radio, will be used to record programmes for screening whenever desired, and will be programmable several days ahead. It can also be used with pre-recorded video cassettes and h o m e productions m a d e with a video camera. With an appropriate reading head, private or family television sets will be able to show programmes recorded on video discs (here the user cannot himself record). Lastly, the set will serve as a display screen for teletexts, either broadcast or carried by the telephone network from data banks. This is k n o w n as telematics.

A further foreseeable development is the sys­tem of pay television, or 'toll television' as the Canadians call it. In these systems the user receives both channels financed by advertise­ments or licence fees and programmes for which he pays either a flat-rate fee (monthly or yearly subscription to a channel) or a fee per pro­g r a m m e watched, in the same way that he pays for telephone calls.

All this equipment will m a k e two radical changes to the system of the media. B y sharply increasing the number of channels and access­ible sources of messages, it will first of all bring about fragmented audiences and specialization of contents: the 'big media' will give way to the 'little media', 'broadcasting' to 'narrowcasting', and broadcasters, editors and producers of all kinds will appeal more directly to particular audiences, or will provide a greater quantity of messages designed to meet a single function or d e m a n d (sport, information, fiction, etc.). Sec­ondly, the more advanced of these systems will be interactive, enabling the user to intervene more and more in the course of the programme. For instance, the possibility of producing inter­active video discs is being studied: they would include pauses for users' questions and the messages would be recapitulated, m a d e more detailed or repeated in the light of the answers.

Such are in brief the major audio-visual techniques n o w available, or shortly to become so, that will become widespread over the next two decades. Such a list can be drawn up with­out too m u c h difficulty. But as a forecast of media developments it will not suffice: it must

io6 Michel Souchon

include the dates by which the equipment will be in general use and the impact of each upon the media system. T h e video recorder, for in­stance, is sure to become a part of m a n y house­holds, since sets are already on the market and are selling. But w h o can forecast when the numbers bought in any given country or group of countries will reach the critical threshold that forces television companies to review the n o w -prevailing rules for programming, such as the distinction between 'off-peak' and 'peak' times? A n d w h o , furthermore, can foretell where that critical threshold will lie?

T o complicate matters even more, it should be added that all the evidence points to wide variations from country to country or region to region in the pace of development of the n e w audio-visual techniques. In California, fifty-five television channels are available thanks to cables and satellites, and ownership of video recorders and cameras is a m o n g the highest in the world, yet several African countries have no television network and, even w h e n there is a station in the capital, broadcasts can only be received within a radius of a few kilometres. Putting these differ­ences in chronological terms, one might talk of a delay of thirty to forty years. But that supposes a linear and isomorphic form of development, while there are several reasons to fear that the gap will progressively widen: growth in c o m ­munications media is slow in the developing countries, but explosive in m a n y industrialized countries.

T h e countries which until the end of the cen­tury will progress no further than the major mass media—radio and television as n o w understood, without peripheral television services—seem unlikely to catch up with those which invest heavily in equipment for highly diversified content and specific programmes as well as mass messages.

In the latter, a rapid proliferation of video recorders can be foreseeen. Six to seven per cent of households already have them in Japan, some 3 per cent in the United States and 1.5 per cent in Western Europe. In a dozen years or so, the rate m a y well be 25 to 50 per cent. W h e r e video-disc reading heads are concerned,

the suggested price—or the actual price in the case of R C A — i s about half that for video recorders, and this in m a n y specialists' view should lead to an even more rapid penetration of the equipment. Connection to cable networks should also become c o m m o n , giving as it does access to more television channels and to various telematic services. Here, however, it is extremely difficult to suggest even very approximate fig­ures, since the situation is likely to vary greatly from country to country.

T h e other group, the developing countries, is more or less certain to catch up rapidly in television, since direct broadcasting satellites will make it possible to do without terrestrial transmission networks. These satellites should become commonplace in the second half of the 1980s. As a result, households will doubt­less soon be equipped with sets, and sales graphs will resemble those in the industrialized countries in the 1950s and 1960s, with market saturation in some fifteen years. Only an urban minority, on the other hand, will be equipped for video technology, mainly with video re­corders and video-disc reading heads.

T h e big difference between the two groups of countries is that only the second will have the n e w generation equipment giving access to personalized messages and interactive systems. T h e others will remain at the stage of mass communication, with messages designed for vast audiences and so for the 'average viewer', without opportunities for genuine feedback.

Media forecasts often overlook the pro­grammes, forgetting that unless the revol­utionary growth in communication channels is matched by the development of productions, there is a risk of programme shortage—or at least of a serious imbalance between channels and messages, 'hardware' and 'software'. It m a y be argued that the production of messages always lags behind communication techniques, and that each n e w technique begins by trans­mitting programmes borrowed from its prede­cessors. T h e cinema films theatre plays, the radio broadcasts concerts and music-hall, and television draws heavily on the repertoire of the cinema. But a technique comes of age

Education and the mass media: where they differ, where they converge I07

when it finds its o w n repertoire of messages. T w o phenomena m a y be adduced to illus­

trate the tendency towards imbalance between 'hardware' and 'software'. Although the stat­istics are hard to ascertain, it has been estimated that in m a n y countries, the ratio of television transmission and household equipment costs to programme production costs is of the order of three to one—and, of course, the imbalance is greater in some developing countries which lean heavily on cheap foreign programmes. T h e second illustration, also from the world of television: several countries have calculated the finance available per programme hour in con­stant figures, and have observed a decline: finance stagnates or grows slowly, while the increase in airtime continues because of the es­tablishment of n e w channels or increased daily broadcasting hours for old ones.

International exchanges—buying and selling, co-production and exchanges proper—will in­crease. T h e relationships will be as unequal as they are today, and involve the same dangers: the first influence of foreign products, that exerted on local producers through the impo­sition of models of international commercial success, is probably at least as important as their impact on the users of products that con­vey—implicitly in fiction, explicitly in the case of news and commentaries—stereotypes and models, standards and values.

T h e shortage of programmes will be m a d e good by other methods, including the systematic use of archives, recourse to all the existing audio-visual collections, production rationaliz­ation procedures such as the re-use of 'stock shots', and frequent retransmissions. T h e pro­moters of n e w services or media will probably wish to include educational documents in their catalogues.

Interaction between the media and education

If the enormous growth of educational needs is compared with the prodigious development of the media, the multiplication of channels and

carriers, the correspondence m a y appear to be pre-ordained. T o resume the principal points m a d e above, the mass media can meet the challenge of the growing numbers of people to be educated, since they can transmit the same message millions of times. T h e problems arising from the number of subjects to be taught are offset by the opportunity of consulting the best specialists in every field, those abreast of the latest knowledge, or constantly updated data banks, and by the ability to store, catalogue and distribute audio-visual products designed for teachers and their pupils. Even the problem of economic disparities seems soluble: while tech­niques such as radio and television for schools are costly, the size of audience reached results in a very low cost per pupil.

This argument is admittedly not new. Although challenged by several experiments, it is constantly resorted to, and the safest pre­diction in this study is that it will be used again in future. W h e n confronted with the magnitude of the educational problems of the future, the temptation will yet again be to place excessive hopes on the old or n e w media. A n essay on the illusions of the future is neither hard nor haz­ardous to write.

But perhaps the observation that in the past the appearance of n e w media has complicated teachers' problems rather than helping to solve them is insufficient ground for declaring hopes for the future vain. In support of these some­what pessimistic views, a few powerful tend­encies should be recalled that will in all prob­ability leave a lasting imprint on the history of relations between the world of education and the media.

T h e first of them is that the media are used predominantly for entertainment purposes. Each n e w m e d i u m is presented as an instrument for disseminating knowledge and information or promoting culture. N o n e w television or radio station is launched that is not claimed to be different, to meet the thirst for knowledge that is not satisfied elsewhere. But in the vast majority of cases, subsequent achievements do not match up to ambitions.

In Tokyo I had the opportunity of visiting

io8 Michel Souchon

the headquarters of the 'Captain' system, which links homes to data banks by telephone and could produce around 80,000 pages of text on h o m e television screens: by the end of 1981 the figure was 200,000. It carries political, economic and social information, administrative infor­mation, weather forecasts and road reports, train and aircraft timetables, entertainment pro­grammes, lessons in various subjects at various levels, games, especially quizzes, and hor­oscopes, etc. T h e educational potential of an interactive system that makes programmed edu­cation possible is clear. W h e n I asked for ac­curate figures giving the most popular pages, I was told they were those containing horoscopes and quizzes.

This majority use of the mass media and the n e w , more personalized techniques cannot fail to give them an image that will rebuff teachers and make them doubt the educational potential of these instruments. All teachers are willing to concede that television can in theory provide education and culture, but all are convinced that in fact its main purpose is to entertain.

T h e mistrust which the dominant use of the mass media arouses m a y of course be dis­pelled. But there is a further consideration which more effectively banishes dreams of the media solving tomorrow's educational prob­lems: the state of the available financial re­sources. These are very unevenly distributed, and are not co-extensive with the greatest edu­cational needs. This can only entrench existing inequalities: rich media in rich countries—and, incidentally, benefiting more especially the edu­cation of the richest—and in the poor countries, poor media that will still be mass media, with their cumbersome institutions reinforcing the inherent inflexibility of one-way transmission technology.

T h e n e w media are theoretically more centred on news, the search for information and the dissemination of knowledge (even if there are surprises here, as w e said above in connection with the 'Captain' scheme), while the old media, cinema, radio and television, are clearly more concerned with entertainment. Yet the latter will probably be the only ones within the grasp

of the developing countries, where educational needs are greatest.

T h e conditions that educational television must meet must once more be stressed in order to shatter the illusion that it can provide a cheap solution to the developing countries' educational problems. Everyone feels that it is not enough to broadcast programmes, no mat­ter h o w good, regardless of the educational standards of the target audience or of the reactions and environment which will make or break their impact—as is confirmed by every serious experiment. It is realized everywhere that the needs, knowledge and motivation of the target audience must first be studied. Similarly, an audience network must be established, and its quality is more important to the success of operations than is that of the television pro­grammes themselves. Again, television is often no more than the centre-piece of a 'multi­media' system. Radio, for instance, can correct the unwieldiness of television: while television programmes must generally be prepared well in advance and are very costly, radio programmes can be improvised quickly and more cheaply in response to questions and to recapitulate points which have been misunderstood. In short, there is and can be no genuine educational television which merely puts out courses, even good ones, at fixed times. Television is only a cog in a machine, a machine that makes it work and without which it is nothing but a voice crying in the wilderness or, worse, an instrument that widens cultural gaps.

At this point in the argument, the two domi­nant tendencies in modern teaching practice should be recalled: the first is the trend towards m a x i m u m rationalization, in which education becomes a technique (teaching by objective, programmed instruction, etc.), while the sec­ond emphasizes individual motivations (non-directive teaching, freedom to learn, etc.). Both reject the massive use of broadcasting tech­niques to s w a m p entire regions with educational programmes, m u c h as vast areas are sprayed with fertilizers (while the comparison is left unspoken, such projects are often spelled out: doubters are referred to the m a n y

Education and the mass media:

statements concerning 'educational satellites'). Rational educationists insist that teaching

methods must be closely aligned to specific objectives and that the results of education must be monitored at every stage. If w e inquire which of the old or n e w media can meet these requirements, traditional radio and television must be ruled out in favour of more flexible techniques that enable programmes to be in­terrupted on the spot in order to repeat sec­tions and slow d o w n or speed up the course (sound records or cassettes, combined sound and images, films, video discs or video cassettes, interactive teletext systems, etc.).

For its part, non-directive teaching reminds us that the pupil genuinely masters only the things to which his personal interest guides him and that he discovers for himself. T o help him in this process, he should be given the documen­tation he needs for his research and be helped to produce his o w n lesson—the teacher serving to help him formulate his ideas rather than as a repository of knowledge that he dispenses in his o w n way. For this purpose, particular use should be m a d e of media that enable audio­visual archives to be stored and consulted in documentation centres: series of slides with spoken commentaries, films, sound cassettes and records, video cassettes and video discs.

Whichever attitude is adopted, educational preferences clearly go to the n e w or future media with their capacity for flexible use, decentralized consultation and a personalized approach—in other words, those whose penetration seems likely to be slow in the developing countries or the deprived areas or communities in the indus­trialized countries. It was noted earlier that a parallel, commercial educational sector had in m a n y countries emerged alongside the free and compulsory public sector: it seems probable that the most sophisticated and educationally advantageous of the n e w media will be used above all in commercial institutes that train élites.

Finally, w e should mention one last dominant tendency that together with the restrictions on financial resources will very probably leave its mark on the future: the limitations imposed

they differ, where they converge 109

by the habits of teaching staff. T h e news media create a need for technical instruction courses—in itself no easy matter—but above all for an often radical rethink of traditional teaching methods. I do not consider the teach­ing profession more attached to its traditions and habits than any other social group. But it is as m u c h so, and it would be naïve to expect it to show more than the usual adaptability. It must be repeated that educational reforms will not fall from a sky full of satellites. T h e y will only come about through changes in the at­titudes of teachers.

Consideration of these powerful tendencies (predominance of entertainment in the media, restricted and unequal resources and the weight of inertia) leads to a vision of the future in which the school and the media are still competitors and rivals, with 'tangential encounters' whose im­pact on educational habits and media operations is slight. But such views m a y be valid only for the relatively near future of the next six to ten years, the 'future of the present' which John McHall said was contained in the past since it reflected outworn habits and was shaped by past decisions. However, he added that the future of the future was contained in the pres­ent. T h e more distant future will probably be fashioned by the attitudes of today; it is prefigured by micro-decisions that hold the seeds of a closer relationship and possible co­operation.

Attempts at a closer relationship and prospects for collaboration

These n e w attitudes will doubtless be brought closer by certain developments that can even n o w be glimpsed: a renewed emphasis on low-cost techniques, the rediscovery of the resources of audio-visual archives, some of which are n o w being catalogued, the gradual separation of the publishing, manufacture, storage and carrying of messages, and lastly, the potential combi­nation of large-scale and small-scale media in more flexible systems than the current mass media.

no Michel Souchon

T h e first path towards a closer relationship between the worlds of school and the media lies in the renewed interest in simpler technology. While the most sophisticated technical media exert a kind of fascination over teachers, a more objective appraisal shows that simpler tech­niques can bring important educational results because they are closer to the user and his daily concerns: witness some Latin American school radios which played a major role in the literacy and conscientization campaigns, or the use of the mobile cinema in India.

T h e second contemporary trend that opens n e w vistas of co-operation is the discovery of the potential that lies in the systematic exploi­tation of cinema and television libraries, both those that are n o w available and those n o w being constituted. Just one example: the Centre N a ­tional de Documentation Pédagogique (National Centre for Educational Documentation) has calculated that in France alone there are 200,000 scientific, technical or industrial films ranging from the birth of the cinema until the present day. There are similar resources in m a n y countries, and when the different prob­lems of teacher access have been solved, they will be a virtually inexhaustible source of edu­cational documents. T h e circumstances sur­rounding those problems are n o w more favour­able, and solutions appear more imminent.

Admittedly these libraries must be sifted to find the technically and educationally suitable material. There are also problems over the physical conservation of documents. N o n e of this is new, and solutions should be found when the benefits of the exercise are fully realized. Computer techniques will be very useful for cataloguing and indexing the libraries. For car­riage, transmission and reception, two conceiv­able solutions are satellites linked to storage video recorders and the publishing of video discs.

T h e programmes will more usually be pre­sented as collections of short documents rather than ready-made lessons, which leave nothing for the teacher to do. T h e latter will thus look for short programmes which he can develop in his o w n lesson. T o use an analogy with the

written word, textbooks will be less sought after than dictionary or encyclopedia articles.

Several systems will be available to carry the programmes, and cost/benefit calculations must be used in choosing them. O n e thing is certain: the present barriers and misunderstandings be­tween message-carrying techniques, mass con­tent designed for virtually everyone—for the audience in general and nobody in particu­lar—and the giant organizations must be broken d o w n if the entire process is to be managed. T h e idea of separating the publishing, pro­ducing, programming, storing and carrying of educational products is gaining ground. It is slowly being realized that the infrequent use of audio-visual media in educational institutions and the frequent failure or half-success of such use as is m a d e of them might well stem from the antagonism between unwieldy bodies m a n ­aging the media and unwieldy bodies managing education systems. A more h u m a n dimension must be found—and that cannot be done if message carrying and publishing continue to be combined, and if satellites are matched by production organizations on a similar scale.

Technology is clearly advancing in two di­rections: one towards 'gigantism', with satellites creating reception areas the size of entire sub­continents, and the other towards a measure of decentralization, with private media for audio­visual recording and storage, and local cable services. If these two directions are regarded as opposites, then two incompatible audio-visual systems will increasingly take shape with, on the one hand, satellites broadcasting mass messages produced by giant entertainment companies and, on the other, a reaction in the shape of a myriad of enterprises, attractive in that they satisfy the operators' needs for self-expression, but often insignificant in comparison with the major mass media, even w h e n they do not merely repeat the same logic and idiom on a smaller scale. Yet the two might conceivably complement each other by combining more flexibly than today's ossified media. Such flex­ible combinations would certainly be very useful to education.

Once again, the example of the educational

Education and the mass media: where they differ, where they converge II

satellite m a y serve. Used to pour out complete and polished educational messages compiled by cumbersome, remote institutions, its failure is certain. But that will not be so if it is given its proper role to play in message carrying, trans­mitting short programmes that can be received, stored and m a d e available to teachers for class­room use as illustration and demonstration.

Lastly, it should not be overlooked that the dynamism of the major audio-visual and tele­communications enterprises will weigh heavily in the future of the relationship between the media and education. They will impose their products and programmes on the world market. But without wishing to minimize their penetrat­ive power, I think that systems and programmes attuned to the tendencies w e have observed have greater chances of success in both educational and commercial terms.

Y o u will not be bored at the end of the twentieth century, Malraux once told a young friend. A n d he added: prepare for the unforeseeable. A n easy jest, perhaps, since the future is always surprising. But it is well to recall such banal remarks to give these notes a seal of unfeigned modesty. Not that self-confidence is their big­gest fault: it is, rather, excessive doubt and the provision of more questions than answers. Let us hope at least that the questions are the right ones, and that this paper will help to frame them correctly. As the Muslim sage would have it, the first half of knowledge lies in the question. T h e other half is the reply.

It remains for m e to go back and correct whatever element of excessive, technologically inspired optimism the previous section m a y con­tain as to the leitmotiv of this study, inequality. T h e media are the mirror of a non-egalitarian world: the communication and information media are unfairly distributed throughout the world, the market forces are unequal and power in the communication networks is unequally divided among individuals, groups and pro­ductions. Unless inequality is to be m a d e a virtue, it must be recognized that there is a pro­foundly immoral situation for which the future guarantees no remedy—indeed, a widening of

the gap is possible if not probable. In that other world this study has discussed, the world of education, the inequalities are no less flagrant: on the one hand, there are enormous quantita­tive and qualitative needs with very restricted resources, and on the other, lesser needs, par­ticularly in terms of quality, and large resources. T o hope that educational problems m a y be cured by use of the media is, it must be repeated, vain: it is to forget that the two orders of inequality are cumulative, not compensatory. •

m

TRENDS AND CASES

/ /

Technical education in Mexico: a preliminary

appraisal* Víctor L . Urquidi

General background

A m o n g the developing countries, Mexico has been able to sustain a steady, fairly high rate of growth for a longer period of time than most other nations. Despite occasional slowdowns, the latest having occurred in 1976-77, the average rate of growth of real G N P from 1950 to 1976 was 6 per cent. With the rapid increase in output of oil and gas since 1977, Mexico's G N P growth has risen to 8 per cent, at a time when recession in the developed countries and the impact of higher oil prices in m a n y large developing countries have significantly lowered the prevailing growth rates.

As might be expected, Mexican development over the last thirty years has required increasing inputs of skilled and semi-skilled manpower, particularly as the industrial component of G N P has become considerably larger. Although, as in other developing countries, most industrial skills are acquired on the job, the strong e m ­phasis on education—a major tenet of Mexican policy since the 1910-17 Revolution—has un­doubtedly contributed to the formation of such skills through primary and secondary schooling, the growth of technical education and support

Víctor L . Urguidi (Mexico). Economist, specialist in

development, population and human resources. President

of the Colegio de México and member of the Council

of the United Nations University.

for the expansion of the national university system. T h e provision of free education at all these levels by the state (though privately run schools and universities have also increased in number and enrolment) has ensured access to the educational system for all sectors of the school-age population. Political stability and continuity in basic economic and social policies have been important factors in the development of the educational system and in its constant improvement.

Nevertheless, a number of serious problems remain. T h e overall expenditure on education is still below targets set by Unesco, and can be estimated to be of the order of 3.5 to 3.8 per cent of G N P . Although enrolment in primary schools is close to 100 per cent of the cor­responding age-group in urban areas, it is well below in rural areas where over 40 per cent of Mexico's population still live; and in both urban and rural schools, the rate of attrition is high, especially in the latter, where in most small localities (and it is well to recall that 30 per cent of Mexico's population of 70 million in­habit localities of less than 1,000 inhabitants) schooling is not available beyond the fourth grade. Expansion of secondary- and techni­cal-school levels has been more rapid, but

This paper was prepared for the Workshop on E d u ­

cational and Training System Reforms Contributing to

Industrial and Technological Development, held at

the International Institute for Educational Planning,

Unesco, Paris, October 1980.

Prospects, Vol. XII, N o . 1, 1982

i6 Victor L. Urquidi

enrolment is still a modest percentage of the corresponding age-groups, and the same can be said for higher education. In 1970 the average length of education of the labour force was 3.5 years, 27 per cent of the labour force had not had any schooling, 30 per cent had c o m ­pleted only one to three years of primary edu­cation, 30 per cent had completed four to six years, and only 10 per cent had gone beyond primary education.

T h e 1980 population census will probably show some improvement over these indices. It will also show the beginning of a decline in population growth, due to a change in attitudes towards family size in the last decade coupled with the adoption of a national family planning programme. According to recent estimates, the national average birth rate has declined from 45 per thousand in 1973 to an estimated 34 per thousand in 1979/80 so that the population growth rate is n o w about 2.6 per cent.1 This will soon begin to have an impact on the demand for first enrolment in primary education, but of course will not affect secondary and higher educational levels for at least two decades. In fact, the social demand for education at these levels is bound to continue to expand rapidly, at rates of 10 to 15 per cent per annum or more, and m u c h has to be done to reduce wastage in rural primary education and to improve quality all round.

T h e labour force, characterized by a rather low aggregate participation rate of approxi­mately 27 per cent of the 15-64 population age-group in 1970,2 and not m u c h more in 1980, and especially low participation rates among w o m e n , will continue to increase at a rate of close to 3 per cent per annum for at least twelve to fifteen years. In spite of Mexico's fairly rapid G N P growth, open unemployment is of the order of 8-10 per cent of the labour force, and underemployment m a y affect as m u c h as 45 per cent. For 1970, one estimate indicated the non-utilization of at least 2 million available m a n -years, because of open unemployment and underemployment (including partial employ­ment).3 It is possible that this figure is pro­portionately lower at present, as a result of

recent rapid growth of output in the m a n u ­facturing and construction sectors, where labour shortages have developed, particularly at the semi-skilled, skilled and management levels, but it does not seem that the present pattern of industrial expansion has m u c h affected the prob­lems of basic structural unemployment and underemployment, and the absolute figures m a y not have declined but even increased to the neighbourhood of 3 million.

Manufacturing industry and construction, in­cluding petroleum and mining, accounted in 1970 for 34 per cent of G N P , as compared with 27 per cent in 1950, and in 1980 have risen close to 40 per cent.4 However, in 1970, those sectors employed only 26 per cent of the labour force. Although agriculture expanded rapidly, at least until 1965-70, it was unable, due mainly to long-standing structural factors and to mech­anization in modern commercial agriculture, to retain the rising rural labour force, with the result that migration of young members of the labour force to urban areas and to the United States (mostly as 'undocumented' labour) has proceeded at a fast pace. T h e service and commerce sectors, both modern and informal, have of course absorbed vast quantities of labour, and today account for about 32 per cent of the apparently employed labour force, including urban underemployment and informal 'self-underemployment'. Migratory workers from rural areas are predominantly people of low educational levels, w h o have rarely completed primary schooling. Their low level of skills leads them naturally into the worst-paid jobs for unskilled manpower (for instance in the construction industry and in informal services). In the manufacturing sector, the requirements for entry have been rising, to the exclusion of migrants due to their low levels of education and skills.

T h e above helps perhaps to explain the over­all context in which technical education is placed today in Mexico. It can be seen not only as a means of training a future labour force for better jobs and to meet the requirements of modern industry and services, but also, in view of the high rate of growth of the school-age

Technical education in Mex ico : a preliminary appraisal 117

population, as a means of keeping certain age-groups for a longer period in the educational system and out of the labour force or of open unemployment,5 while inducing them also to follow terminal educational channels rather than attempt to continue up through the higher levels of education.

There is at present an effort to relate the development of the educational system to the prospective development needs of the country, but not m u c h headway has been m a d e in the study of the problem, m u c h less in defining the future orientation of the educational sector.

In what follows, an account will be given of the nature and growth of the system of technical education, with some remarks on its efficiency and overall significance.6

The recent development of technical education

A s stated earlier, Mexico's educational system has developed steadily, and at a m u c h higher pace than population growth (in itself a high rate of growth), over the past decades. Since 1970, government policies have been directed more intensely towards quantitative and qualitative objectives. Total enrolment in the educational system' increased by 50 per cent between 1970 and 1978, from 11,538,000 to 17,331,000, at an

average annual rate of 5.2 per cent (see Table 1). However, although as m u c h as 72.5 per cent of total enrolment in 1978 was in primary edu­cation, the increase at this level was only 36 per cent over that in 1970, at an average annual rate of 3.9 per cent, whereas basic secondary education, which includes technical schools and comprises 13 per cent of total enrolment, rose by 109 per cent (9.7 per cent annually), terminal middle education (a small percentage of the total) increased by 121 per cent (10.4 per cent annually), the second-stage secondary education expanded by 157 per cent (12.5 per cent per year), teacher-training rose by 181 per cent (13.8 per cent annually), and higher education in all its forms increased its enrolment by 124 per cent (10.6 per cent annually). W h a t is signifi­cant is that, as enrolment for primary schooling has approximated fairly high levels, its mean annual growth rate has been, between 1970 and 1978, only 3.9 per cent, whereas the annual rate in basic secondary (including technical), second-stage middle education, teachers' normal schools and colleges and higher education has ranged from 9 to almost 14 per cent. O f course all these rates of increase have to be evaluated with qualifications in view of the high rates of attrition, including that at the university level.

T h e technical education system of Mexico has its origins in the nineteenth-century arts-and-crafts schools (some of which still exist).

T A B L E I. Mexico: enrolment in the educational system, 1970/71, 1975/76 and 1978/79

Level of education

Pre-primary

Primary

Terminal primary

Basic secondary

Terminal secondary

Second-stage secondary

Normal (teachers)

Higher

TOTAL

1970/71

(thousands)

400.1

9 248.2

147-8

I 102.2

33-9

279-5

55-9

271.3

11 538.9

1975/76

(thousands)

537-1

II 461.4

243.1

I 898.0

78.4

618.0

111.5

543-1

15 490.6

1978/79

Thousands

659.0

12 560.O

246.9

2 305.O

74-9

719.0

157.0

609.1

17 330.9

%

3-8

72.5

1-4

13.3

0.4

4.2

0.9

3-5

100.0

Percentage

1970-75

34-2

23.9

64.5

72.2

131.6

121.1

99-3

100.2

34-3

increase

1970-78

64.7

35-8

67.I

109.I

121.3

157-3

180.7

124.5

50.2

Average

annual

rate of

1970-78

6.4

3-9 6.6

9-7 10.4

12.5

13.8

10.6

5.2

Source: Secretaría de Educación Pública, Mexico.

Ii8 Víctor L. Urquidi

In the early 1920s a number of technical schools, including agricultural training schools, were created for teaching engineering and construc­tion skills, and in 1932 post-primary technical schools were established. In 1937 a National Polytechnic Institute was set up encompassing the basic secondary pre-vocational schools and second-stage vocational or technical middle-level schools and a number of university-level professional schools. T h e Polytechnic Institute was intended also to counter the traditional trends of the National University (humanities, law, medicine) and contribute to the needs of an industrializing society, albeit with a great deal of foresight. (The National University was later to develop its engineering, scientific and economic and social science professional open­ings also.)

In 1958, the Ministry of Education created an Undersecretariat for Technical and Higher Education, and adopted in its programmes the concept of 'technical education' in addition to its traditional basic secondary education. In 1967/69, a technical agricultural school sys­tem was created. In 1970, under the adminis­tration of President Echeverría, a strong boost was given to technical education and the necess­ary organizational measures were taken in the Ministry of Education at a high level, so that technical education at all its levels was to be effectively promoted, as will be seen below. In 1975, under the same administration, a National Council for the System of Techni­cal Education was established, parallel to the National Educational Council, to co-ordinate and promote technical-education activities in the secondary- and higher-education sectors. Under the present administration of President López Portillo a further strong emphasis has been given to technical education, with increas­ing diversification and regional decentralization, and in the ministry a separate Undersecretariat for Higher Education and Scientific Research was organized.

B y 1970 a rather complex subsystem of tech­nical schools had come into existence, consisting mainly of some 102 industrial (basic) secondary schools, eighty-seven agricultural (basic) sec­

ondary schools, twenty-seven industrial train­ing schools, twenty-five second-stage secondary schools (i.e. leading to higher education), ten 'terminal' second-stage secondary schools and twenty-five schools and colleges for technical education at the higher level (regional techno­logical colleges and Polytechnic Institute pro­fessional schools teaching engineering, etc.).

Mos t of the student body attend the industrial secondary schools, in which a large number of specializations are offered, of which sec­retarial training, electricity, industrial design, clothing manufacture, automobile mechanics, electronics, machine-shop operations, soldering and forging, carpentry and accounting take the bulk of the enrolment, especially the first three. In agricultural schools, the proportion of students in specialities other than crop and livestock farming is low, for instance, in forestry, fruit crops, rural industries, etc.

T h e second-stage secondary technical schools, mostly operated by the National Polytechnic Institute, but with a growing number of schools run by the Ministry of Education, offer special­ization in mechanics, electronics, electricity, automotive, chemical and other fields, as well as in fishing and marine industries. It is assumed that students emerging from these schools m a y go directly into industrial jobs, but in practice a large proportion go on to university-level courses.

During the period 1970-78, enrolment in the basic secondary technical schools (over 50 per cent of all technical education enrolment) went up more than fourfold, or an average of 23.1 per cent par a n n u m ; and the second-stage technical secondary education by a factor of 2.4 (see Table 2). This is the result mainly of the programme of expansion sponsored directly by the Ministry of Education, largely outside the capital, Mexico City. There was a thirteenfold increase in enrolment in terminal second-stage technical schools, but the relative share of this type of education was not significant. Enrolment in university-level technical colleges and schools also developed, with an increase of 142 per cent. O n the other hand, hardly any growth occurred in industrial training schools—a mere 24 per

Technical education in Mexico: a preliminary appraisal 119

T A B L E 2. Mexico: growth of the technical education system, 1970-78

Type and level

of school

Training centres

Basic secondary

Agricultural

Industrial

Fisheries

Second-stage secondary

Terminal second-

secondary

Higher education

TOTAL

stage

i

N o . of

schools

27 189

87

102

— 25

10

25

276

970/71

Enrolment

21 811

84852

16 816

68036

— 624OI

I 312

45051

215 427

Source: Secretaría de Educación Pública, Mexico.

No. of

schools

33 I 032

734 266

32 250

41 80

1436

1978/79

Enrolment

27067

446 966

192 998

246 665

7303

213 584

19376

109 295

816288

%

3-3 54-7 23.6

30.2

0.9

26.2

2.4

13-4

100.0

Per-

increase

1970-78

24.1

426.8

I 047.7

262.6

— 242.3

1 376.8

142.6

278.9

Average

annual

rate of

increase

1970-78

2-7

23.1

35-7

17-5

— 16.6

40.0

11.7

18.1

cent. T h e increase in overall enrolment in technical education was 279 per cent, or 18.1 per cent annually.

In actual figures, the expansion in the number of schools and in enrolment in the agricultural secondary schools was the most significant. B y 1978 there were 734 such schools as c o m ­pared with 87 in 1970, and the student body had risen from 17,000 to 193,000 (see Table 2). T h e number of industrial technical schools rose from 102 to 266, with enrolment going up from 68,000 to 247,000; it must be r e m e m ­bered, however, that this type of school includes secretarial training, in which enrolment was as m u c h as 46,000 in 1978.

Higher education in technical areas, through the Polytechnic Institute and the regional tech­nological institutes and others in m a n y parts of the country, is an obvious attempt to meet the demands of a rapidly industrializing economy through the formation of industrial engineers, chemical, electrical and mechanical and m a n y other specialties in engineering. They also include business administration, accounting, architecture, economics, information science and m a n y others. A start has been made in a broader, less specialized engineering edu­cation, and in marine technology, fisheries and related management.

T o summarize, in 1978, out of a total of

2.3 million students in basic secondary edu­cation, almost half a million were in technical schools of that level and kind. T h e total enrol­ment in technical education of all types, includ­ing higher education, was 816,000 out of an aggregate enrolment in the educational system of 17.3 million.

It is clear, therefore, that although technical education enrolment is the most rapidly growing sector in education, it is still a relatively low share of total enrolment (4.7 per cent). T h e Mexican educational system is strongly pyr­amidal, with a very broad base of primary education (72.5 per cent of the total)—of which a large part, especially the rural, is subject to high attrition rates—middle-level (sec­ondary, etc.) education accounting for only 17.9 per cent, and higher education, with 609,000 students, in more than 100 univer­sities, technological institutes and other centres, accounting for only 3.5 per cent of the total (again, with very high attrition rates).

Further expansion of the system took place in 1979 and 1980, but data are not available; the emphasis on technical education continues.

120 Victor L, Í. Urquidi

A preliminary appraisal

Given Mexico's stage of development, and the assured prospects of rapid overall economic growth in connection with the extraordinary expansion of the petroleum industry and the 'recycling' of earnings from it to the industrial manufacturing sector, to agriculture and the social sectors, including education, it is clear that the secondary- and higher-education sub­systems are bound to play an increasing role in the development process and will in turn be subjected to m u c h social and overall pressure. Unlike other petroleum-exporting countries, Mexico has developed a vast infrastructure over the last forty years, and its manufacturing in­dustries have grown rapidly, including heavy industry, chemicals, automobile manufacture, metalworking, consumer durables, food indus­tries and m a n y others. Investment in industrial development, although stimulated today by pet­roleum expansion, is also based on existing and prospective domestic market expansion and on growing export markets, and is conducted as m u c h by private enterprise, including foreign capital, as by state-owned and 'mixed' en­terprises.

T h e requisites for employment in industry have risen from requiring full primary schooling to full first-stage secondary education and some experience. A graduate from a secondary school, whether technical or not, is almost assured a job in the system, in industry or services, and the same can be said for graduates of higher levels (with some qualifications to be mentioned below).

Growth of the secondary and higher edu­cational system of course not only occurs as a function of industrial and service-sector devel­opment, but also as a result of social change, and it has overall cultural purposes in mind as well. In fact, it can be said that the edu­cational system is still bound by tradition and inertia. Secondary-level education mainly pre­pares students for admission to universities, and second-stage, middle-level schooling still bears the n a m e of 'preparatorio', i.e. preparatory to

entry into universities.8 Unlike most other countries, the universities in Mexico actually operate preparatoria schools, and frequently graduation from them automatically ensures en­rolment at undergraduate professional level. Universities also 'incorporate' into their system privately run preparatorias. In provincial uni­versities, especially, the preparatoria component overwhelms the undergraduate-level enrolment. T h e preparatoria schools tend to emphasize humanistic formation, and to some extent science.

Technical education is still strongly associated with the 'vocational' concept of education—to learn certain trades—and tends to attract the emerging lower social sectors and classes. But quite naturally, the social goal of these groups is not necessarily to become skilled workers or middle-level technicians, but to enter the main­stream of education and employment in white-collar jobs, thus contributing to the 'elitist' characteristics of the system. It is frequent in Mexico that graduates from technical, middle-and higher-education schools do not get the 'better' employment opportunities and have to accept jobs for which the required qualifications are lower than those which they ostensibly acquire through their schooling and degree courses.

A recent study9 shows, on the basis of a sample of graduates from technical and other second-stage secondary schools in the Mexico City metropolitan area, that there is no signifi­cant difference in the training acquired in tech­nical or non-technical schools; that earnings of graduates from general secondary schools tend to be higher than those of graduates from tech­nical schools; that the labour market prefers graduates from full basic secondary technical schools to those from 'termina l'-stage schools; that jobs obtained are below apparent qualifi­cations (especially among w o m e n ) ; that tech­nical education does not contribute m u c h to social mobility; that the rate of return on such education, as measured by actual wages, is very low; and that graduates from the technical secondary subsystem prefer to continue study­ing to undergraduate university level.

Technical education in Mexico: a preliminary appraisal 12

These conclusions are rather on the negative side, and refer to a survey carried out in 1978, reflecting earlier conditions before the very rapid expansion of technical education. M a n y changes have occurred and continue to occur in the structure of technical education, and it m a y be that some of these conclusions are no longer applicable to present conditions, par­ticularly in the light of overall G N P growth of 8 per cent at present and a visible shortage of semi-skilled, skilled and professional labour.

Nevertheless, it seems that the middle-level educational subsystem, whether through the expanding technical schools or through the traditional secondary schools, is either unable to meet the prospective needs of the labour market, or is basically inconsistent with the development objectives of society. Attempts are being m a d e to achieve some measure of co­ordination between the technical school system and the requirements of the production sector, by introducing research activities in techno­logical schools and colleges, special courses for teachers of such schools within industry, and visits to factories by both teachers and students. But the fact remains that, for instance, in agri­cultural areas, farmers are not aware of or not interested in the activities of the agricultural technical schools, and the graduates of such schools migrate to the towns. Furthermore, the rapid expansion in enrolment has meant a short­age of well-trained teachers and very heavy teaching loads. There is not sufficient inter­action between theory and practice, between technology and actual production.

T h e Mexican Government is obviously aware of and concerned about these problems, which undoubtedly are not exclusive to Mexico, and is reviewing methodology on studies relating to manpower planning and the implications for the educational system. It has not yet been proved that technical education meets the m a n ­power demands of development or even of the short-term labour market. O n the other hand, in a country of social inequality such as Mexico, and given the university-oriented secondary-school sector, technical orientation can be ben­eficial from a purely social and cultural view­

point. T h e labour market will continue to provide skills through on-the-job training in industry as it has done in the past, and recent legislative measures have been taken to encour­age the industrial system to expand training facilities for semi-skilled and skilled labour, and professionals.

Mexico has not suffered m u c h brain drain, but there is evidence that secondary-school graduates are n o w joining the flow of u n ­documented workers migrating to the United States where, even in semi-skilled jobs, nominal wages can be several times higher than in Mexico (although with the employment risks inherent in such a type of migration). A m o n g professionals, there is little emigration in the technical and engineering skills, and it is argued that in m a n y cases the emigrants return with practical knowledge and management skills they might not otherwise have obtained in Mexico. In any event, the demand for this type of personnel is considerably in excess of current supply, and given the growth prospects of the Mexican economy, and increasing industrializ­ation, posts for skilled workers, technicians, engineers and executive personnel will be at a premium.

T h e Mexican Government has adopted for the first time an overall-development plan, an employment plan and a number of sector plans, notably an industrial plan. All this, in the context of surplus resources arising from the petroleum sector, points in the direction of an unprecedented, even more rapid, expansion of the educational system, and improvements in quality, especially in the secondary and higher levels. But, as regards technical education, which is more costly than general education, a serious effort will have to be m a d e to improve it, orient it more squarely to development needs and eliminate the prevailing stigma attaching to it as being second rate and designed for the lower social strata. •

122 Víctor L.

Notes i. T h e current rate of population growth is officially stated

to be 2.9 per cent. However, there is evidence from recent fertility surveys that it m a y have already de­clined to 2.6 per cent.

2. Francisco Alba, La población de México: evolución y dile­mas, 2nd. ed., p. 101, Table 6.2, Mexico City, El Cole­gio de México, 1979.

3. V . L . Urquidi, 'Empleo y explosión demográfica', Demografía y economía, Vol. VIII, N o . 2. 1974, pp. 148-9.

4. Alba, op. cit., p. 105, Table 6.3. 5. There is no unemployment insurance in Mexico. 6. I a m indebted to D r Jorge Padua, of the Centre for

Sociological Studies, El Colegio de México, for assist­ance in preparing the following two sections.

7. T h e structure of the Mexican educational system is as follows: Pre-primary school, ages 3 to 5 (very limited in

coverage). Primary school, ages 6-7 to 11-12, six years. Basic secondary school (including technical), ages 12-13

to 14-15, three years. Second-stage secondary school {preparatoria, vocational,

technical, terminal, etc.), usually three years, ages 15-16 to 17-18.

Normal (teachers' training), at three levels: secondary, post-secondary, undergraduate and postgraduate.

University undergraduate education (or its equivalents in regional technological institutes and others), four to five years.

University postgraduate education, two to four years. 8. Regarding preparatorias, see note 7. 9. Carlos M u ñ o z Izquierdo and Pedro Gerardo Rodríguez,

'La enseñanza técnica: ¿canal de movilidad social para los trabajadores?: una evaluación de los efectos internos y externos de la enseñanza técnica de nivel medio supe­rior que se imparte en la Zona Metropolitana de México, D . F . ' , Revista latinoamericana de estudios educativos, Mexico City, Centro de Estudios Educativos, 1980.

;z

Book reviews

Prospects, Vol.

Solving Educational Problems: The Theory and Reality of Innovation

in Developing Countries

R. G . HAVELOCK and A. M . H U B E R M A N

International Bureau of Education Studies and Surveys in Comparative Education

1980, 308 pp .

Havelock and Hube rman admit (p. 19) that 'in m a n y ways this was a challenging book to write but it was also frustrating'; and the same might well be said of our feelings on reading this large book (large both in size and in scope). Let us start with our frustrations, which will allow us to end on a more positive note.

W h a t strikes the reader from the outset is the ambitiousness of the project. In the first few pages w e read: 'This is a study of the process of educational change in developing countries . . . w e try to explain how educational change occurs in different settings, why it occurs in the ways it does and some of the implications for managing change in developing countries' (p. 9). A few pages later (p. 24), to justify their attempt to establish a theoretical basis of in­terpretation, the authors add that ' A good theory is not just for scholars, philosophers and scientists; it is also for practical decision-makers because . . . it gives a basis for predicting what is likely to happen in a particular innovation project by pointing out the areas of similarity to other projects which have been tried in the past in similar settings.' T h e aim could hardly be more ambitious: it is nothing less than to put forward 'a science of information process' (p. 19) applied to education in developing countries. N o w on the authors' o w n admission this is an extremely diffi­cult, not to say an impossible, task in view of the in­formation available to them, of which they give a de­tailed list in the introduction (pp. 10-13). Their sources of information consisted essentially of: (a) some case-studies, mainly the monographs published by the I B E and the collection edited by C o o m b s and A h m e d under the title Education for Rural Development, and the final reports of nineteen Unesco projects; and (b) a survey by questionnaire carried out at a confer­ence in Geneva in 1975 of eighty-nine national directors and chief technical advisers of teacher-training projects (financed by the U N D P with advice from Unesco), together with more detailed interviews with twenty-seven of the participants at the confer­ence.

N o w this body of material, plentiful though it might appear at first sight, in fact constitutes a relatively narrow base given the ambitious nature of the proposed study. It is a pity in particular that Havelock and Huberman did not use at least part of the existing literature on projects financed by sources other than the U N D P , especially the World Bank. But

[, N o . i, 1982

124 Book reviews

above all, as the authors themselves acknowledge, 'Most reports were found to deal with the content of change . . . and very few with the process' (p. 10). Hence the difficulties met with w h e n , to validate the theoretical framework suggested, the authors came to 'place the fragments' they had 'into our grid of major process elements, steps, strategies, barriers, and so forth' (p. 19). Hence the importance—excessive in our view—assumed by thetwo other sources, es­pecially one of them, namely the use of the ques­tionnaire, which raises serious problems of meth­odology. After all, it would seem obvious that the kind of projects covered by the questionnaire (pro­jects concerned solely with teacher-training and heavily supported, both technically and financially, from outside) are far from representative of the s u m total of innovatory projects in education in the de­veloping countries. This is something that Havelock and H u b e r m a n themselves acknowledge several times in the book, notably on page 166, where they write: ' W e need to recall once again that these are not a representative sample of all types of innovatory proj­ects in education. In fact, w e would suspect that the sample is strongly biased in favour of those projects where outside resources did play a major role.' But they presumably did not take it sufficiently into ac­count w h e n they used the replies. T h e result of this seems to us to be significantly to bias the conclusions on some points. This is particularly true as regards the extraordinary (in our opinion quite disproportion­ate) importance given, in the chapter summarizing 'Barriers to Innovation', to transport of materials —classified as the most serious difficulty, particularly as regards educational materials—coupled with the underestimation of political barriers, rated only seventh in seriousness. It is obvious, after all, that in teacher-training projects the transport of educational materials can be of great importance, whereas at this preliminary stage political factors do not really enter in. But the latter become paramount w h e n the trained teachers actually try to put into practice the inno­vations they have been taught. Here again, moreover, the authors are certainly aware of the distortion, since they appeal to other sources of information (and even to simple c o m m o n sense) to correct the replies to this item on the questionnaire.

T o conclude on this point: obviously the authors cannot be blamed for the limitations of their sources of information: indeed, they deserve credit for the candour with which they themselves stress these limitations. But it still comes as a surprise that despite all these gaps, which they themselves stress, they nevertheless persisted in their original grand design; and this, as w e have said, is bound to leave the reader feeling disappointed, especially as he had been led to expect better things. Once their original theoretical grand design had, for reasons they explain very well, proved impracticable, they would in our view have

done better to have reduced their ambitions to more reasonable proportions, and instead of arousing ex­pectations in the reader which they knew they could not satisfy (particularly with the chapter, 'Social Systems and Innovation Systems: A Unified Frame­work for Understanding the Process of Deliberate Change') to have stressed (as they do on page 19) that 'the process of innovation management must still be considered very m u c h an art and not a science; indeed, it is a crude art form at best!'

Re-reading what w e have just written, the worrying thought occurs to us that w e m a y have discouraged people from reading this book. This is certainly not our intention; and while for the reasons just stated w e think it would have been better if its authors had been, in a word, less ambitious in their theoretical aim, at the same time the book's second objective, namely to lay 'emphasis . . . on presenting and ana­lysing the wealth of data collected and on some preliminary ways of drawing practical lessons from them' (p. 9) seems to us to have been fully achieved. Thus having in Chapter 3 suggested a very stimulat­ing classification of projects according to four par­ameters (infrastructure, authority, consensus and resources), the authors, in a series of analytical chap­ters, present the gist of what their sources of infor­mation have taught them about the origins of innovations (Chapter 4), project planning (Chapter 5), material and intellectual resource acquisition and utilization (Chapter 6), participation (Chapter 7) and evaluation (Chapter 10); while two more synthetic chapters about barriers to and strategies of innovation seek to draw the overall lessons.

It is impossible in this review to summarize even briefly all these lessons. W e shall confine ourselves to some comments on project planning, participation (at the stages both of design and implementation) and evaluation.

As regards the planning of even the most innovat­ory education projects, Havelock and H u b e r m a n point out that one of the main problems is that edu­cation always tends to see itself as a watertight system rather than as a subsystem integrated into the overall social system. 'For an education system,' they write (p. 67), 'output dialogue is a fundamental problem which is rarely handled well. Since the primary output of schools is people with various kinds of skills and understandings and since such outputs are intended to supply skilled manpower to other systems such as agriculture, medicine, industry, etc., school systems should be in continuous dialogue with these other systems. . . . Ultimately, the value of an education system must be judged not on the basis of its output but on the use which can be m a d e of that output by these other systems.'

As regards participation by everyone involved in innovation, it is necessary, if success is to be achieved, both at the stages of conception and implementation

Book reviews 125

of the innovation. N o one can really participate in a project that has been drawn up without them. N o w Havelock and Huberman point out: 'Often the re­cipients of an innovation are not even informed of what will happen' (p. 194). Yet 'repeated analyses of the innovation process have shown that successful follow-through . . . depends upon the involvement, knowledgeable action and sustained motivation' of all those concerned. T h e conclusion is that 'participation is not only socially and morally desirable but func­tionally necessary' (p. 194).

There remains evaluation. O n this Havelock and H u b e r m a n repeat the conclusions of A h m e d and C o o m b s , noting in their turn the almost total lack of evaluation either during or at the end of projects. (One of the principal difficulties in reporting on edu­cational innovations in developing countries', they write;, on page 266, 'is that of finding reliable evidence of what happened.') Hence,their plea for the intro­duction of rigorous evaluation systems, both during and after. This is an idea to which w e entirely sub­scribe, though without drawing the conclusion from it that this need for rigour excludes from participation in the case-studies 'those w h o were directly involved... [their] colleagues or associates' (p. 20). Indeed, it seems to us that one of the most promising approaches to evaluation (and this certainly agrees with what Havelock and Huberman say about participation) lies in what has been called 'assisted self-evaluation'. This means involving the participants in their o w n evalu­ation (but with outside 'scientific' control) in such a way that they discover by themselves the strengths and weaknesses of the programme on which they are working and the evaluation provides a means of improving the innovation's chances of success.

That was a quick, and doubtless very subjective, sample of some of the lessons Havelock and H u b e r m a n draw from the copious literature they have processed and analysed; but w e would not wish to end without quoting, almost in extenso, the two essential con­clusions they arrive at.

First, if it is true that the main obstacle nowadays to drawing up a genuine 'theory of innovation' for education in developing countries is the absence of real 'empirical research' (p. 19), then there is no doubt that the most urgent task is to multiply case-studies, which should include the following five features: '(a) They should cover a specific situation within a particular country in depth, using . . . direct observations . . . and retrieving information not only from officials but also from students, teachers and other community members . . . (b) They must be objective, reporting on failure as well as success . . . (c) [They] must focus on the process, not simply on the content of the innovation: they must look at the various stages, examine the strategies employed, and identify the barriers encountered and find out h o w they were overcome, (d) [They] should make use of

our existing attempts to categorize innovation pro­cess . . . so that. . . comparisons,. . . generalizations and syntheses can be m a d e possible, (e) [They] should be conducted so that the innovation can be traced over the years of its implementation, diffusion, expansion, or demise' (p. 20).

Similarly, if it is true that the findings of the study paint 'a rather dismal picture of international and national efforts to innovate, repetitions of obvious mistakes or omissions' (p. 19), should this not lead us, as the authors urge, to pay m u c h more attention than people have so far to the process of innovation itself rather than merely to its content? T h e merit of this book is undoubtedly to make us aware of this; and time is short, for 'even the most radical changes are not radical enough for the needs' (p. 75).

Guy BEIXONCLE

France

Éducation en Afrique: alternatives

Yvonne M I G N O T - L E F E B V R E and Jean-Marie M I G N O N (eds.)

Paris, A C C T - I N E P , 1980

This book is a collection of the papers presented in 1978 at a seminar on education in Africa at the Institut National d'Éducation Populaire, Marly-le-Roi (France). These communications are all the product of reflections prompted by the acknowledged failure of a great m a n y development operations undertaken in the 1960s. Being too technocratic and overcentralized, w e are told, those schemes came to grief because they were launched by governments and international institutions without sufficient regard for the aspir­ations of the people concerned and for traditional cultures. T h e authors set out to examine the alterna­tive of a more decentralized, endogenous and diver­sified form of development, particularly in education.

This highly topical theme is in keeping with the policies recommended by Unesco in regard to devel­opment. T h e interest of the subject makes it all the more regrettable that the work contains so m a n y grammatical errors and misprints.

T h e introduction by Yvonne Mignot-Lefebvre and Jean-Marie Mignon points out the considerable obstacles to the extension of decentralized develop­ment experiments in Africa, examines their viability and stresses the potential value of such initiatives for the renewal of education systems.

T h e work is then divided into two parts. T h e first comprises general reflections on African youth (Joseph Ki-Zerbo), language and power (Yves Person), oral cultures (Arlindo Stefani), the economic involvement of rural youth (Marie-France Desbruyères), young

126 Book reviews

city-dwellers (Loïc Barbedette) and the relationship between formal and non-formal education (Isabelle Deblé). T h e second part presents various more or less innovatory educational projects: participation of young people in the development of the Sahel (Alioune Sail); training of newly literate rural youth in Mali (Guy Belloncle); advancement of rural w o m e n (Yvonne Mignot-Lefebvre); role of the teacher in the United Republic of Cameroon (François M o u -dourou); rural development in the Ivory Coast (Hélène Haddad); co-operative training (Henri Des-roche); co-operative youth movements based on traditional associations in Upper Volta (Bernard Lédéa Ouedraogo).

It is not of course possible here to summarize and comment on each of these studies. I should just like to raise two general questions concerning them. First, what is the potential role of local African communities in development? Secondly, what are the pre-conditions for innovations aimed at increasing that role to succeed?

ENDOGENEITY AND DEVELOPMENT

O n e argument put forward by several of the authors is that in Africa development and education are moving in directions that are alien to the traditional societies forming the bulk of the population. Such development and education are thus, as it were, imposed on society and tend to make it lose its identity, thereby depriving it of the essential driving force for its o w n development.

This argument is often accompanied by a mythical and idealized view of traditional societies, with the introduction of foreign models being regarded as uniformly harmful. In farming, for instance, w e are told that the traditional cropping system respected the balance of nature and maintained soil fertility, whereas the introduction of cash crops for export has impoverished the soil. In reality, the main factor in the depletion of the soil was the rise in population density due to peace and better sanitary conditions, which was not matched by sufficient changes in the cropping system, in particular intensified production through the introduction of fertilization techniques. As things are at present, a return to the old system of farming would neither help to provide more food nor to preserve natural resources. Furthermore, de­velopment has not been entirely negative since it has m a d e it possible to feed a m u c h bigger population than in the past and provide it with hitherto unknown goods and services.

T h e same simplistic view is adopted in most of the other contributions to this work in respect of education, culture, health, economics and social relationships, and is equally unjustified. While the old conditions and customs had some points in their favour, one should not forget the immense progress

m a d e by African societies and communities by dint of a huge effort. A s stated by J. Ki-Zerbo, this progress deserves to be better known.

There can be no question then of a return to 'paradise lost', the requirement being rather to c o m ­bine the modern and the traditional in such a way as to exploit the positive aspects of the two cultures at present confronting each other and to switch from a conflictual-type relationship to an association. Fur­thermore, despite the tendency to over-simplification displayed by some of them, in the final analysis the authors are in favour of this solution. They criticize with justification, in m y opinion, development poli­cies which overlook the contributions of traditional society, and this holds good for education too. They are also opposed to the 'clean-sweep' theory held by some sociologists, according to w h o m traditions, as obstacles to progress, must be discarded. However, the n e w modes of development they propose do not consist in rejecting all external aid and returning purely and simply to tradition.

O n the contrary, what is needed according to these authors is to reorient development and education by encouraging innovatory experiments in which modern techniques are alloyed with cultural and social tra­ditions. Exemplary in this respect are the young farmers' associations in Upper Volta, made up of young people graduating from the training centres for young farmers, which were formerly rural edu­cation centres. These bodies are based on the model of traditional youth associations but they are designed, with the support of the village elders, to train and set up young people w h o will use modern farming methods and contribute to the progress of the c o m ­munity. T h e same goes for the more recent exper­iment in further education for new literates in Mali, which concentrates on traditional knowledge before progressing to new ideas.

T h e same trend is to be found in the language field. T h e European languages adopted in most African education systems are imperialistic and apt to smother traditional oral cultures. T h e latter should be accorded a place in education so that African societies do not lose their soul.

Thus the innovatory elements of the experiments reported in the work consist of an alliance between the traditional and the modern and an endeavour to secure the participation of whole communities, par­ticularly rural communities, in the experiments. Such participation helps to provide a link between young people—whose great potential due to their high number in the population and increased edu­cational opportunity is stressed by the authors—and the older generations w h o harbour traditional know­ledge. Whereas development has hitherto been in a conflictual relationship with tradition, regarded as one of the main 'obstacles to development', it is n o w proposed that ways be sought of reconciling the

Book reviews 127

two. Such an approach clearly requires that projects should no longer be prepared in offices in the chief towns or in commissions—even regional c o m ­missions—made up of civil servants but should be worked out in association with the representatives of the communities concerned. Participation is thus essential if development operations are to take account of traditional cultures. Bringing this about will require considerable changes which are not likely to be easy in view of all the customs and interests involved. H o w can these changes be effected? W h a t chance have innovatory projects along these lines of suc­ceeding?

VIABILITY OF INNOVATIONS

T h e history of innovatory schemes in Africa to give more room to traditional cultures and popular aspir­ations in national development, particularly in the field of education, is very rich but abounds in stillborn projects and short-lived ventures. Most of the exper­iments referred to in the second part of the work are therefore entirely n e w undertakings or even just ventures proposed by the authors. Only the 200 young farmers' associations established in Upper Volta since 1967 and the co-operative (university-level and international) colleges have really shown their worth. O f the other ventures still being pursued, several are just kept going by foreign assistance without which they would have been abandoned. Still others have remained in embryo, without any possibility of expansion, let alone general application.

Analysis of the causes of these failures is extremely instructive for future projects. Such analysis is un­fortunately m a d e difficult by the fact that in m a n y cases the projects have not been designed with a view to evaluation. I shall confine myself here to a few considerations suggested by m y perusal of the work.

First, the reader familiar with these problems will be surprised to see no mention, except in the article by Isabelle Deblé, of problems of cost. Yet everyone knows that in m a n y African countries the main obstacle to the development of education is the heavy cost burden placed on national resources, particularly as regards teachers' salaries. A n y inno­vatory project in this field should therefore be designed in such a way as to minimize its unit costs so that it can be expanded and possibly later become the general practice. There are m a n y experiments, h o w ­ever, where this dimension has not been given due attention and which have not been able to be pursued further, in particular after the withdrawal of outside assistance.

A second technical factor making for the success of a project is simplicity of design and adaptation to the national environment. In countries where the experience of administrators and development officers is often limited, the more complex a project is, and the more at variance it is with the national admin­

istrative structure, the more likely it is to fail. Prob­lems often arise in particular following the departure of foreign personnel w h o have been assisting in an experiment. Genuine association of national per­sonnel with the design of a project, and of course subsequently with its implementation, is therefore a decisive factor in its viability. In the case of an experiment which is not unanimously approved of by national officials, the preparatory work will be of vital importance, it being necessary to convince them of the soundness of the option before going on to the implementation stage.

In her article, which seems to m e to be the centre­piece of the work, Isabelle Deblé takes account of these factors w h e n she draws conclusions from the various experiments she has had occasion to analyse. In her view, the mistake has been to believe that the poorly developed education systems of the Third World would provide more favourable testing grounds for innovation than those of technically advanced societies. In fact, the innovatory experiments under­taken in poorer countries, very often running quite counter to the conventional educational system, have been unable to progress for lack of resources and because of resistance every bit as stubborn as else­where. T h e author concludes that only by associating innovations more closely with conventional school systems can one hope to bring about the desired renewal of education in Africa. M o r e generally, it seems to m e that, if they are to succeed, these edu­cational innovations need to be more closely inte­grated into development policies and institutions, especially as regards rural development. W h a t is the point, for example, in training young country people cin the village and for the village' if agricultural pricing policy is such that they can never hope to earn anything like as m u c h as town-dwellers? Insti­tutional integration (i.e. the taking over of the management of innovatory experiments by the c o m ­petent authority) can take place in the national edu­cation system or in the agricultural extension network or in the public health sector, with of course regional and local co-ordination, since w e are talking about decentralized development. This assumption of re­sponsibility for innovations by conventional structures will no doubt lengthen the preparatory stage of innovatory projects. Recent experience seems to show, however, that without it efforts at innovation are unlikely to succeed.

André M A G N E N

Division of Educational Financing, Unesco

128 Book reviews

The UNRWA/Unesco Experience in Refugee Education

Knud M O R T E N S E N and K . D . W A G N E R

Institute of Education University of Copenhagen November 1980, 138 pp.

Perhaps, the most sustained and significant experi­ence in imparting education and knowledge to 'refu­gee' populations has been that of U N R W A / U n e s c o . For one thing, it is the most prolonged in terms of period of time, covering as it does the years 1950 to the unknown future; for another, it is the widest in scope: today it imparts education to Palestinians at the elementary and preparatory level to no less than 400,000 pupils. Furthermore, it imparts different types of education to various sectors of the Palestinian population such as teacher-training and vocational training, and makes it possible for a limited number of Palestinians to acquire a university education. U N R W A today employs more than 10,000 teachers and runs more than 600 schools. While U N R W A has been performing its educational tasks for over thirty years, it has done so despite serious difficulties. Neither the political environment of the region in which the Palestine refugee population is concen­trated nor the relations between the states of the re­gion are really conducive to the transmission of learn­ing normally obtained in 'stable' societies. Equally important, U N R W A is an international agency whose mandate was established by the United Nations. T h u s its budget and other resources are directly dependent on the attitude of the international community to the Palestine question. Even with its appropriated financial resources, quite clearly U N R W A constantly faces serious crisis. In recent years, the heavy financial demands on U N R W A ' s meagre budget threatened its viability; only the financial support generated from the oil-producing states averted what could have been a major and perhaps crippling crisis.

Whether as an educational enterprise or as an edu­cational effort interrelated with the politics of a national community that is highly active in its attempt to retrieve its national sovereignty or as an educational enterprise that is affected by sometimes conflicting jurisdictions of various states and by international politics, the U N R W A / U n e s c o system should have commanded the attention of a host of scholars. Yet it is quite surprising that not a single comprehensive study ofthat system of education has appeared in any language. Aspects of the educational experience of the U N R W A system have been dealt with either in separate articles or in chapters in books that dealt with the whole question of either the Palestine refugees or U N R W A as a whole. T h u s considering

the paucity of technical and analytical studies of that system, it becomes readily apparent w h y the present study by Mortensen and Wagner is an important contribution. For in this monograph the authors try to identify the entire system of education associated with U N R W A , its functioning and likely contribution not only to the Palestinians but to those concerned with imparting education to refugee populations elsewhere. In other words, the authors are as con­cerned with the relevance of that system to popu­lations w h o m a y be in a similar situation.

It is appropriate at this juncture to indicate both the major impetus of the study as well as the meth­odology employed to provide the kind of answers the authors were seeking. T h e authors indicate quite clearly that their objective in carrying out the study is essentially two-fold: first, 'research into the U N R W A / U n e s c o programme would reveal m a n y useful lessons on possible ways of educating refugees', and, second, to assess 'those educational techniques . . . which might usefully be transferred to other settings'. T o accomplish their purpose of conveying the extent of the U N R W A / U n e s c o system, the authors relied essentially on two principal sources: first, they assembled available data, statistical or qualitative, published or unpublished. Thus they availed themselves of the rich statistical resources published by Unesco and U N R W A , examined tech­nical reports available at U N R W A ' s headquarters in Vienna as well as in Paris, and so forth. Equally important, the authors undertook a field trip to the principal areas of U N R W A ' s operation (excepting Lebanon, for obvious reasons). They spoke with U N R W A field officers, inspected some schools and interviewed several key personnel involved in the operation. T h e results of this careful approach are n o w embodied in this straightforward monograph.

T h e authors convey their findings in the light of a threefold schema: one part of the monograph is essentially descriptive in which the authors recap­itulate the origin and development of the U N R W A system of education since 1950, its administrative structure, the kind of population it was intended to serve and serves, the environmental factors that affected the educational system and the interaction of the system with the host countries where the refugee population was to be found. Another part of the monograph is essentially analytical in which the authors analyse the difficulties, highlight the prob­lems, educational and otherwise, and relate edu­cational innovation to the growing needs and c o m ­plexities that developed over time. T h e last part of the monograph is essentially evaluative where the authors try to assess the meaning of that educational experiment, where the relevance of the techniques developed by U N R W A in the specific environment of the Middle East is discussed in terms of its ap­plicability to other regions of the world.

Book reviews 129

Without question, the best and richest part of the monograph is the descriptive one. For here the authors discuss the mandate of U N R W A , describe the admin­istrative system of U N R W A in detail, and its various educational components, the overall enrolment of students over time, the school buildings and the edu­cational methods employed by the system. This portion of the monograph is richly documented with statistical tables rarely assembled so usefully and in a single place. While one is likely to find information on U N R W A ' s Institute of Education in diffuse pub­lications, its discussion in Chapter 7 of this m o n o ­graph is perhaps the most systematic and detailed.

T h e analytical portion is somewhat more atten­uated and more interspersed with the descriptive part. T h e authors are quite aware, on the basis of their experience, of m a n y of the factors that have affected U N R W A ' s operations; yet they are quite circumspect when it comes to their presentation. They note, for example, the very important contri­bution of the U N R W A system to narrowing the gap between male and female education. While they allude to the reasons underlying the gap, they could have been more explicit in their discussion of the issue. Similarly, the authors note the tremendous drive of the Palestinians towards higher education which they attribute to purely existential factors. A more thorough analysis might have revealed that more than fifteen per thousand of Palestinians pursue their higher edu­cation today (which is more than any other country in the Middle East) but that the drive is not only related to the exodus from Palestine but in fact was present during the Mandate period. T h e authors note, and rightly so, that the curriculum which is used by U N R W A is that of the 'host' countries. While they view that as a constraint in some sense, they are not willing to deal with the limitations ofthat curriculum in terms of the specific needs of a refugee population interested in maintaining its national cohesion and integration.

This is precisely the part of the discussion that would have been enriched by some attention to Arab and Palestinian discussions of the U N R W A system of education. A s U N R W A ' s officers and other scholars are fully aware, the Palestinian leadership paid considerable attention to the education imparted by U N R W A and to its teachers in particular. Aware of the constraints of the 'host' curricula which governs the U N R W A system, and sensitive to the inter­national character of U N R W A , the Palestinians de­vised their o w n system of in-service training for U N R W A teachers of social studies for the purpose of transmitting educational ideas and material intended to strengthen the national identity and personality of the Palestinian student. T h u s while Mortensen and Wagner are right in stating that 'the possibilities for the planners of adding subjects, specifically related to the refugees' cultural or political origins, to the

adopted curricula m a y be limited or non-existent', that purpose could be accomplished by another authority capable of creating a complementary system as the Palestinians did.

A n equally important aspect of the constraints of the 'host country' curriculum that deserved more serious consideration by the authors is precisely the relevance of that curriculum to the needs of the specific population. Without question, the curriculum used by U N R W A prepared each of the Palestinian concentration that availed itself of U N R W A ' s edu­cational system eventually to find employment in that particular country or even in neighbouring countries. But that education might not be the most appropriate for a Palestinian society.

If the sole objective is to enable individuals to participate in the labour market of the host country, that solution might be the most appropriate. But if the population in question is more concerned with its o w n reconstitution or the reconstitution of its o w n society, obviously a different type of training would be re­quired which will raise serious political questions. Mortensen and Wagner explicitly opt for a 'safe' approach and do not call into question the need to accept the host countries' curriculum. While they are free to make that option, at the m i n i m u m they should be alert to assess the social, economic and political implications of such an option.

In a certain sense, of course, no one doubts the absolute need to educate refugee populations. U N R W A ' s contribution in this regard is unique. But any examination of such a question must wrestle with the additional question: education for what? While Mortensen and Wagner m a d e an important contri­bution to the discussion of the U N R W A system as a comprehensive one, their contribution would have been even more significant had they been willing to come to grips with the philosophical and political implications of training 'refugee' populations—Pales­tinian or otherwise.

Ibrahim A B U - L U G H O D Professor of Political Science

Northwestern University Evanston, Illinois

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IVORY C O A S T : Librairie des Presses de l'Unesco, C . N . Ivoirienne pour l'Unesco, B.P. 2871, A B I D ­JAN.

JAMAICA: Sangster's Book Stores Ltd., P . O . Box 366, 101 Water Lane, K I N G S T O N .

JAPAN: Eastern Book Service Inc., Shuhwa Torano-mon 3 Bldg., 23-6 Toranomon 3-chome, Mi -nato-ku, T O K Y O 105.

J O R D A N : Distribution Agency, P . O . Box 375, A M M A N .

K E N Y A : East African Publishing House, P .O . Box 30571, NAIROBI.

K U W A I T : The Kuwait Bookshop Co. Ltd., P .O . Box 2942, K U W A I T .

L E B A N O N : Librairies Antoine, A . Naufal et Frères, B.P. 656, B E Y R O U T H .

L E S O T H O : Mazenod Book Centre, P . O . M A Z E N O D . LIBERIA: Cole & Yancy Bookshops Ltd., P .O.

Box 286, M O N R O V I A .

LIECHTENSTEIN: Eurocan Trust Reg., P .O .B . 5, FL-9494 S C H A A N .

L U X E M B O U R G : Librairie Paul Brück, 22, Grande-Rue, L U X E M B O U R G .

M A D A G A S C A R : Commission nationale de la République Démocratique de Madagascar pour l'Unesco, Boîte postale 331, A N T A N A N A R I V O .

M A L A Y S I A : Federal Publications Sdn. Bhd., Lot 8238 Jalan 222, Petaling Jaya, S E L A N G O R ; University of Malaya Co-operative Bookshop, K U A L A L U M P U R 22-11.

M A L I : Librairie populaire du Mali, B . P . 28, B A M A K O . M A L T A : Sapienzas, 26 Republic Street, V A L L E T T A . M A U R I T A N I A : G R A . L I . C O . M A . , I, rue du Souk X ,

Avenue Kennedy, N O U A K C H O T T . M A U R I T I U S : Nalanda Co . Ltd., 30 Bourbon Street,

P O R T - L O U I S .

M E X I C O : S A B S A , Insurgentes Sur n.° 1032-401, M E X I C O 12, D F ; Librería El Correo de la Unesco, Actipán 66, Colonia del Valle, M E X I C O 12, D F .

M O N A C O : British Library, 30, boulevard des Moulins, M O N T E - C A R L O .

M O R O C C O : Librairie ' A u x belles images', 282, avenue M o h a m m e d - V , R A B A T , C . C . P . 68-74. For 'The Courier' (for teachers): Commission nationale m a ­rocaine pour l'Éducation, la Science et la Culture, 19, rue Oqba, B . P . 420, A G D A L - R A B A T (C.C.P. 324-45).

M O Z A M B I Q U E : Instituto Nacional do Livro e do Disco ( INLD) , Avenida 24 de Julho, 1921-r/c e i.° andar, M A P U T O . N

N E T H E R L A N D S : Keesing, Boeken B . V . , Postbus 1118, 1000 B C A M S T E R D A M .

N E T H E R L A N D S ANTILLES: Van Dorp-Eddine N . V . ,

P . O . Box 200, Willenstad, C U R A Ç A O , N . A .

N E W Z E A L A N D : Government Printing Office book­shops: Retail bookshop—25 Rutland Street; Mail orders—85 Beach Road, Private Bag C .P .O . , A U C K L A N D . Retail—Ward Street; Mail orders — P . O . Box 857, H A M I L T O N . Retail—Cubacade

World Trade Centre, Mulgrave Street (Head Office); Mail orders—Private Bag, W E L L I N G T O N . Retail—159 Hereford Street; Mail orders—Private Bag, CHRISTCHURCH. Retail—Princes Street; Mail orders—P.O. Box 1104, D U N E D I N .

N I C A R A G U A : Librería Cultural Nicaragüense, calle 15 de Septiembre y avenida Bolivar, apartado n.° 807, M A N A G U A .

N I G E R : Librairie Mauclert, B . P . 868, N I A M E Y .

N I G E R I A : The University Bookshop of Ife; The University Bookshop of Ibadan, P . O . Box 286; The University Bookshop of Nsukka; The Univer­sity Bookshop of Lagos; The Ahmadu Bello Uni­versity Bookshop of Zaria.

N O R W A Y : Publications: Johan Grundt T a n u m , Karl Johans gate 41/43, O S L O I. Universitets Bokhande-len Universitetssentvet, P . O . B . 307, Blinden, O S L O 3. For 'The Courier': A / S Narvesens Litter-aturtjeneste, Box 6125, O S L O 6.

PAKISTAN: Mirza Book Agency, 65 Shahrah Quaid i-Azam, P . O . Box 729, L A H O R E 3.

P A N A M A : Agencia Internacional de Publicaciones S. A . , Apartado 2052, P A N A M Á I .

P A R A G U A Y : Agencia de Diarios y Revistas, Sra. Nelly de García Astillero, Pte. Franco 580, A S U N C I Ó N .

P E R U : Editorial Losada Peruana, Jirón Contumaza 1050, apartado 472, L I M A .

PHILIPPINES: The Modern Book Co. Inc., 926 Rizal Avenue, P . O . Box 632, M A N I L A D-404.

P O L A N D : ORPAN-Import, Palac Kultury, 00-901 W A R S Z A W A ; Ars Polona-Ruch, Krakowskie Przed-miescie no. 7,00-068 W A R S Z A W A .

P O R T U G A L : Dias & Andrade Ltda., Livraria Portugal, rua do Carmo 70, LISBOA.

P U E R T O R I C O : Librería Alma Mater, Cabrera 867, Rio Piedras, P U E R T O R I C O 00925.

REPUBLIC OF K O R E A : Korean National Commission for Unesco, P . O . Box Central 64, SEOUL.

R O M A N I A : ILEXIM, Romlibri, Str. Biserica Amzei N o . 5-7, P . O . B . 134-135, BUCURESTI. Periodicals (subscriptions): Rompresfilatelia, Calea Victoriei Nr. 29, BUCURESTI.

SENEGAL: Librairie Clairafrique, B.P. 2005, D A K A R ; Librairie 'Le Sénégal', B.P. 1594, D A K A R .

SEYCHELLES: N e w Service Ltd., Kingsgate House, P.O.Box I 3 I , M A H É .

SIERRA L E O N E : Fourah Bay College, Njala University and Sierra Leone Diocesan Bookshops, F R E E T O W N .

SINGAPORE: Federal Publications (S) Pte. Ltd., N o . 1 N e w Industrial Road, off Upper Paya Lebar Road, SINGAPORE 19.

SOCIALIST PEOPLE'S L I B Y A N A R A B JAMAHIRIYA:

Agency for Development of Publication and Dis­tribution, P . O . Box 34-35, TRIPOLI.

SOMALIA: Modern Book Shop and General, P . O . Box, 951 M O G A D I S C I O .

S O U T H AFRICA: Van Schaik's Bookstore (Pty) Ltd.,

Libri Building, Church Street, P . O . Box 724, PRETORIA.

SPAIN: Mundi-Prensa Libros S.A., apartado 1223, Castelló 37, M A D R I D I; Ediciones Liber, Apar­tado 17, Magdalena 8, O N D A R R O A (Vizcaya); D o ­naire, Ronda de Outeiro, 20, apartado de correos 341, L A C O R U Ñ A ; Librería Al-Andalus, Roldana, 1 y 3, SEVILLA 4; Librería Castells, Ronda Univer­sidad 13, B A R C E L O N A 7.

SRI L A N K A : Lake House Bookshop, Sir Chittampa-lam Gardiner Mawata, P . O . Box 244, C O L O M B O 2.

S U D A N : Al Bashir Bookshop, P . O . Box 1118, K H A R ­

TOUM.

SWEDEN: Publications: A/B C E . Fritzes Kungl. Hovbokhandel (Postgiro, 18 46 92). For 'The Courier': Svenska FN-Förbundet, Skolgränd 2, Box 150 50, S-104 65 S T O C K H O L M ; Wennergren-

Williams A B , Box 30004, S-10425, S T O C K H O L M .

SWITZERLAND: Europa Verlag, Rämistrasse 5, 8024 Z Ü R I C H ; Librairie Payot, 6, rue Grenus, 1211 G E ­NEVA 11.

SYRIAN A R A B REPUBLIC: Librairie Sayegh, Immeuble

Diab, rue du Parlement, B.P. 704, D A M A S . T H A I L A N D : Suksapan Panit, Mansion 9, Raj damnern

Avenue, B A N G K O K ; Nibondh & Co. Ltd., 40-42 Charoen Krung Road, Siyaeg Phaya Sri, P .O . Box 402, B A N G K O K ; Suksit Siam Company, 1715 Rama IV Road, B A N G K O K .

T O G O : Librairie Évangélique, B.P. 378, L O M É ; Li­

brairie du Bon Pasteur, B . P . 1164, L O M É ; Librairie Moderne, B . P . 777, L O M É .

T R I N I D A D A N D T O B A G O : Trinidad and Tobago

National Commission for Unesco, 18 Alexandra Street, St. Clair, P O R T O F S P A I N .

T U N I S I A : Société tunisienne de diffusion, 5, avenue de Carthage, T U N I S .

T U R K E Y : Haset Kitapevi A . S . , Istiklâl Caddesi, no. 469, Posta Kutusu 219, Beyoglu, I S T A N B U L .

U G A N D A : Uganda Bookshop, P . O . Box 145, K A M ­

PALA.

U.S.S.R. : Mezhdunarodnaja Kniga, M O S K V A , G-200. U N I T E D K I N G D O M : H . M . Stationery Office, P .O .

Box 569, L O N D O N SE I 9 N H ; Government Book­shops: London, Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Car­diff, Edinburgh, Manchester.

U N I T E D REPUBLIC OF C A M E R O O N : Le Secrétaire gé­

néral de la Commission nationale de la République-Unie du Cameroun pour l'Unesco, B . P . 1600, YAOUNDE.

UNITED REPUBLIC OF TANZANIA: Dar es Salaam Book­shop, P.O. Box 9030, D A R ES SALAAM.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Unipub, 345 Park Avenue South, N E W Y O R K , N . Y . IOOIO.

UPPER VOLTA: Librairie Attie, B.P. 64, OUAGADOU­G O U ; Librairie Catholique 'Jeunesse d'Afrique', OUAGADOUGOU.

URUGUAY: Edilyr Uruguaya, S.A., Maldonado 1092, MONTEVIDEO.

V E N E Z U E L A : Librería del Este, A v . Francisco de M i ­randa, 52, Edificio Galipán, Apartado 60337, C A R A C A S ; La Muralla Distribuciones, S . A . , 4a, Avenida entre 3a y 4a transversal, 'Quinta Irenalis' Los Palos Grandes, C A R A C A S 106.

Y U G O S L A V I A : Jugoslovanska Knjiga, Trg Republike 5/8, P . O . Box 36, 11-001 B E O G R A D ; Drzavna Zalozba Slovenije, Titova C.25, P . O . B . 50-1, 61-000 L J U B L J A N A .

Z A I R E : Librairie du C I D E P , B . P . 2307, K I N S H A S A ; Commission nationale zaïroise pour l'Unesco, Commissariat d'État chargé de l'Éducation natio­nale, B . P . 32, K I N S H A S A .

Z I M B A B W E : Textbook Sales (PVT) Ltd., 67 Union Avenue, S A L I S B U R Y .

UNESCO BOOK COUPONS

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Contents of preceding issues

Vol. X I , N o . 2, 1981

Robin Burns Development education and disarmament education Yuri Babansky School and the information explosion

VIEWPOINTS AND CONTROVERSIES

Hans W. Weiler The uses of educational planning: some further thoughts George Psacharopoulos The state of educational planning, revisited

DOSSIER

EDUCATIONAL REFORM—II EXPERIENCES

Sixten Marklund Sweden: setting up the comprehensive school Andrés Cardo Peru: the Educational Reform and the Nuclear System Colette Senami Houeto Benin: training teachers to implement the reform Federico Car attorn San Marino: the reform of primary education Minda C. Sutoria T h e Philippines: management and evaluation of reforms David R. Evans Ghana and Indonesia: reforms in non-formal education at the community level

TRENDS AND CASES

René Ochs European co-operation in education Pierre Tabatoni The Sofia conference: a footnote to the report

Vol. X I , N o . 3, 1981

Norman Henchey The search for coherence in general education

VIEWPOINTS AND CONTROVERSIES

Alberto Moneada Education and development Milagros Fernández The World Bank and the Third World: reflections of a sceptic

DOSSIER

EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH FOR DEVELOPMENT

Pablo Latapi The effectiveness of educational research Jean-Pierre Vielle The impact of research on educational change Sheldon F. Shaeffer Increasing national capacity for educational research

prospects Kenneth King Dilemmas of research aid to education in developing countries Miala Diambomba Research and external aid: a view from the recipient side Susanne Mowat The diffusion of research: four examples from Asia Ernesto Schiefelbein Research trends in Latin America: Seminario 80 Errol L. Miller From research to action: language policy in Jamaica

TRENDS AND CASES

Sushmita Bannerji Adult education in India: a village-level experience

Vol. X I , N o . 4, 1981

Fred Mahler Integrating education with production and research in Romania

VIEWPOINTS AND CONTROVERSIES

Seih Spaulding The impact of international assistance organizations on the development of education

DOSSIER

EDUCATING HANDICAPPED CHILDREN AND YOUTH

Karl-Gustaf Stukdt Economic aspects of special education V. I. Lubovsky Basic principles of special education in the U S S R Hugh Stuart Taylor Helping parents to become partners in the education of their handicapped child Rose Chacho Family involvement in the training of mentally retarded children: an Indian example Lothar Hammer Early identification of handicaps and early special education in the German Democratic Republic Armin Löwe Hearing-impaired children: prevention and integration Prem Victor Hearing-impaired children in India: needs and possibilities Svend Ellehammer Andersen and Bjern E. Holstein Integration of blind children into schools in Denmark Vanda Weidenbach Music in the education of the young multiply handicapped deaf-blind child

TRENDS AND CASES

Knud Mortensen School education for Palestinian refugee children and youth