THE COLOMBO PLAN

The present output of trained men is insufficient to meet growing needs, and if adequate expansion is to take place in these countries, substantial assistance will be needed from overseas to provide fully competent staff and the necessary equipment. (10. Training Overseas. —The need to maintain and where possible to expand the facilities in countries overseas for giving the highest type of training to students is well understood by the members of the Commonwealth. India, Pakistan, Ceylon and Malaya send as many students abroad as they can afford, while the other members of the Commonwealth have made provision for receiving overseas students into their universities and technical colleges. In the British Isles, for example, the universities and university colleges at the beginning of the academic year 1948-49 had a total student population, mainly full-time, of about 100,000, of whom nearly 8,000 came from overseas; there were 860 from India, 110 from Pakistan, 170 from Ceylon and 113 from Malaya. These figures take no account of the large number of students from these countries studying in other technical and training colleges. Under India's scholarship scheme for students from other Commonwealth and foreign countries, scholarships were awarded to sixtyfive students during 1949-50, of whom fifty have already joined and started their work. Australia, New Zealand and Canada also provide facilities in their institutions of higher learning for Asian students. The United Kingdom and other Commonwealth countries account for a very high proportion of the overseas training being given to students and research workers from Commonwealth countries in South and South-East Asia. But although a great deal is already being done, Commonwealth countries, both within and outside the area, are reviewing the provision they make for receiving and assisting students from the area, with the intention of seeing what more they can do to help. Australia, for example, is working out detailed plans for 150 additional special fellowship awards and for several group visits of technical students in 1951. It is hoped that it will be possible to increase the number in subsequent years. Certainly the need for increased facilities abroad for study and research in agriculture, medicine, engineering and education will continue for many years ahead. India alone wishes to send abroad over the next six years some 3,000 such students. An important facility for overseas training is that provided by private firms which make arrangements for apprentices and students to spend a period in their factories acquiring knowledge of the methods of production and the problems of management. This type of training is particularly valuable in terms of the quick practical benefits it can give to the country from whom the trainees are drawn. ill. Overseas Recruitment. —The provision of training, whether in the country itself or overseas, cannot meet the most urgent needs which must be satisfied if the programmes for economic development are to go forward. These must be met by recruitment from overseas of a sufficient number of scientific, technical and educational specialists. The following table and the fuller statements given at the end of each of Appendices 3-6 do no more than illustrate the nature of the need. The figures in the table relate only to the needs arising out of the development programmes and even in this restricted sense, which takes no account of the needs at present outstanding, they are not complete. Moreover, the summary statement necessarily cannot indicate the complexity of the needs and the varying degree of specialisation called for by particular projects.

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