Organization for economic cooperation and development; Partnership for progress, part 5

Partnership for progress. A special series of reports from the recent Washington policy conference on education in the advancement of economic development. This series is brought to you by the National Association of educational broadcasters. The conference was sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development the organizational outgrowth of the one time Marshall Plans organization for European Economic Cooperation. Now writer and producer for this series of reports is the and E.B. radio network's Washington analyst John F. Lewis among the highlights of the recent conference on education as an instrument of economic development. It was a US State Department dinner for the visiting delegates of more than 20 countries. Two speeches were given at the dinner the first by David Bell America's director of the federal budget who has a personal background of experience in dealing with the problems of underdeveloped countries and more specifically with educational problems. At one point in his remarks he declared.

In the United States at the present time so far as we can make these estimates reliably it appears that the direct costs of education and training may be running in the neighborhood of 25 billion dollars. And if you add the wages foregone if you add the absence of income which could otherwise have been produced by the people in school which is perhaps three quarters as much again you are approaching 50 billion dollars which is about 10 percent of our gross national product. It's obviously possible to argue that it is not necessary in an underdeveloped country to look to to anticipate that it is necessary to invest 10 percent of the gross national product in this way or 5 percent in direct costs. It seems to me that the percentage of Ares I know of and European countries where education is considered not to be so lavish is not too different from the figures I've been using. And moreover when you look at

the requirements of a modern civilization it seems quite likely that the degree of education required in order to bring today's underdeveloped countries into the modern technological civilization that that degree of education may be quite high and the volume of resources may be very large. The conclusions that one would draw from this if it is correct and you will all be considering this over the next couple of days would be at least two. First that the volume of aid which we who have it to give should be contributing and maybe quite substantial. And this you may be able to put some order of magnitude figures to this point if you agree with it. Before the end of your conference and secondly I think it is also evident that perfessor Harbison point she makes so out of his paper that the institutions of a country all of the institutions of a country not simply the educational institution should be used to the maximum extent

for training purposes. But this conclusion is a very important present harvest and makes the point particularly in relation to industrial and business enterprises and points to the amount of training that they can provide and should provide. It is also true as many of us have seen in underdeveloped countries of the military services which can do a great deal of training in skills and in literacy which can make a big difference to the volume of to the extent of the person adult personal abilities that are available to contribute to development. I would as I say therefore suggest that the volume of resources which we should be contributing all of us is quite substantial to help in the educational development of underdeveloped countries this is not a cheap task so far as I can see. Another comment I might I would like to make before introducing your main speaker is that I hope you will not get too involved too bound up in the consideration of statistical

proportions in relationships and volumes that they. There is a most significant element of quality which is involved in the development of an educational system in a country. Many of us who have worked in these countries have been persuaded that the most scarce resource of all is you can use various terms we would I would call it leadership. The scarce ability to manage sizable enterprises whether they are business enterprises or not. The ability to see through policy problems to come to a firm view and hold it to create long term policies and maintain them. The ability to set the course for a nation correctly. And delete all the parts of the country that are necessary to be related to overall objectives. This ability is extremely scarce. I take it

it would be argued by any of you who are educators that we don't know how to produce this in schools and that consequently there is no direct relationship that can be proved between the requirements for leadership and the nature and state of the country's educational institutions. On the other hand I think it might be argued on the other side that one of the things which seems to contribute to the development of leadership in a country is extremely high quality education institutions some extremely high quality education institutions. And if this is the case then I suggest that one of our objectives might well be to try to assist in the establishment of at least one institution in virtually every country with as high standards as Oxford or Harvard or any of the great universities in all your countries. And this is a point which I hope will not be overlooked in the masses of statistics with which we also have to deal.

After David Bell had spoken Dr. Thorkild Christensen secretary general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development summed up some of the general problems facing the greatest free world international organization as it tries to improve educational facilities in both the advanced countries of the West and in the underdeveloped countries of Africa Asia and Latin America. Dr. Christensen a Danish economist and former finance minister of Denmark said Now if economists but the fact is behind economic growth. But must we have in order to have economic growth. It would ordinarily mention free. It will mention Labor. They will mention physical capital invested in buildings machinery ships and so

on. And then days a mystical thing sometimes called a set fact. It's given various names. Sometimes it's simply called technological crisis or that kind of things. But I think there is much more in it than that. It is not only the art of making things technical article it better it's also better administration and more stable political systems a better attitude to change and innovation and old elements which form together what we could call the cultural pattern of a society. In fact economic growth means radical change of the whole culture of society. And therefore the cultural pattern as such

is an important factor behind any substantial economic growth. Now the cultural pattern is a mixture of a hundred different things that I submit that the most dynamic element in it is more knowledge. Why are we having this conference on education. Is it not simply because two instruments of providing knowledge for people. One is science by which in a way knowledge is produced. The other is it your case by which the knowledge produced by science is broached and made available to people. This is why it your case is such an important political issue today.

We have seen after the Second World War that's a tremendous in thought and it has to have knowledge not in science at all just post. I think it could be truly said that the destructions joinder six second world war when much more serious than during the First World War. Nevertheless reconstruction after the Second World War has been much more successful than after the first. I submit because there was more knowledge and knowledge is an amazing thing. I believe it is the only thing in the world which you can give away and yet keep it. After an hour in a classroom the pupils will have more knowledge than before but the teacher will not have less knowledge

if he is a good teacher he is like to to have more. At least he knows more about his teacher says about his pupils. He knows more of teaching. He may even though the subject he has been teaching because to question some of his films may have some new light on the knowledge he had before. However there is smoke in it you cation than mere knowledge. There is something I would call the attitude of those educated attitude towards life. I think one of the most important things to bring about in less developed countries is a new attitude towards the acceptance of change and innovation. What has been the great difficulty in bringing about economic

progress has been such attitudes hostile to change and innovation. And it is felt by those who work in underdeveloped countries that one of the most saying important things to bring about is a new attitude. Acceptance of innovation. However we might have to educate ourselves in this field too. Yes I think one aspect of our health. So the under developed countries which has to do with the education of us own people. I was saying some minutes ago that we should try to help the underdeveloped countries growing faster than we grow ourselves just diminishing the differences in the economic levels. This is easy to

accept as long as they are very poor and we are very rich. But when they approached our standards and when at the same time they had become increasingly competitive. Concerning textiles all the time Sister us whatever it may be it might be no place for other Western countries to go on accepting that still we should tell them to have economic growth and to be even more competitive to ourselves to our own societies. I think we should begin. It took a beating ourselves to accept this change when it is still to come. In some yes time. Secretary-General Christensen of the OEC de thus enumerated the real objectives of the policy conference that is leading North America and Western

Europe into a partnership for progress. The task is a big one to improve our own educational systems in the advanced countries while trying to make application of the best of our know how to the underdeveloped countries of the world. From the Washington conference of the OEC d this is John F. Lewis reporting. You have been listening to one of a series of broadcasts covering highlights of the recent policy conference of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on education in economic development. Your narrator and producer for this 0 0 ECD partnership for progress conference was John affluence this program was produced and distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters. This is the end. The radio network.