THE COLOMBO PLA&

has limited their ability to meet the situation by increasing the number of their own technicians. The problem of overseas recruitment has been aggravated by changes in the conditions of recruitment and service. Until recent times Europe provided a substantial proportion of the trained manpower in many Asian countries, whether of administrators, doctors, teachers or scientists. These people were normally employed by Governments or semigovernment organisations ; regular recruitment of Europeans to these government services has now ceased. At the same time there has been some repatriation of private enterprise capital, and Europeans have shown a certain reluctance to accept overseas appointments in the changed circumstances. This reluctance has been reinforced by full employment in highly developed countries, by the temporary nature of the employment offered abroad and by the disinclination of many men, who have been separated from their families during the war, to extend that separation by further service overseas. Before the last war trained men were engaged to serve private employers in Asia in large numbers —government participation in industry or trade being restricted to certain well-defined channels employing full-time career officers of the government technical services. With the considerable expansion of their activities, Governments are now having to augment their own permanent technical services by employing outside experts on development projects. Recent experience shews that men with the required qualifications are scarce and difficult to secure for the periods of service desired, which may be two or three years. But the needs have never been more urgent or of greater importance to the countries of the area. 6. There are three main ways of overcoming the problem, each requiring help from countries outside the area: (i) Expanding training facilities in the area. (ii) Ensuring that adequate training facilities for students from the area are available overseas in universities, technical institutions, public utilities and private manufacturing establishments of all kinds. (iii) Obtaining trained men from abroad. 7. Local Training.—A high proportion of the workers in developed countries are trained in some profession, trade or skill. The resources of trained men thus built up make it comparatively easy for developed countries to expand an industry or to embark on some notable public undertaking or an enterprise overseas in which technical knowledge and skill and industrial experience are required. In the predominantly agricultural countries of South and South-East Asia, the skill of the workers is mainly that of village craftsmen and artisans working as individuals with simple tools and using traditional methods. Only a very small proportion of the population has any training in large-scale-industrial production and the application of scientific and modern engineering processes in the varied fields of economic activity. The shortages in higher grades of knowledge and expertise are serious, but perhaps even more acute, because less generally appreciated, is the need to train middle and lowergrade workers and technicians of all types. These must be trained throughout the whole area, not just in hundreds as in the case of top-grade men, but in thousands. In the years ahead when overseas experts and skilled men have given their advice, completed their work on projects, and departed, the success of the development programmes will depend on the extent to which a sufficient number of people have been trained to take over and to carry forward the work which has been set in train. This is a matter to which increasing attention will have to be paid, and much outside assistance will be needed, especially in the days immediately ahead, in providing teachers and instructors from overseas to train instructors in the South and South-East

48