898 



sion is provided by the Department of State. The principal functions 

 of the Commission are to: 



— formulate and recommend to the President policies for 

 international education; 



— appraise the effectiveness of Government programs in 

 educational exchange; 



— submit annual reports to the Congress and the public on 

 the programs; and 



— assist in developing better pubhc understanding of and 

 support for programs authorized by the legislation. 



Scope and Limitations oj Scientific Exchanges in the Fulbright-Hays 

 Program 



Throughout its history the Fulbright-Hays program has lacked both 

 appropriate data collection and evaluation procedures,*^ consequently 

 there has been insufficient attention to systematic improvement of 

 planning an d program operations.*^ Scientific exchanges, constituting 



58 With the exception of a detailed review the Congress gave to operations and activities of mutual educa- 

 tional and cultural exchange programs when it was considering the Fulbright-Hays legislation in 1961 

 congressional consideration of these programs has been limited essentially to annual appropriations com- 

 mittee review of the State Department's Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Program A search of 

 Congressional hearings and literature 1960 to 1970 reveals no special attention to the Fulbrieht-Havs 

 program. " ' 



Each year the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Afiairs inserts into House Appropriations Committee 

 nearings raw data printouts on senior level American exchanges conducted during the year These data 

 typically include name and address of U.S. grantee, subject field, foreign location, funding, and program 

 duration. However, it is difficult to obtain from this material a clear picture of exchanges carried out The 

 Bureau does not categorize these data or present tabular or statistical summaries showing trends in ex- 

 changes. Sometimes the Bureau reports on the basis of a program year and other times on the basis of a fiscal 

 year, precluding valid comparative longitudinal analyses. 



In their published annual reports, both the Board of Foreign Scholarships and CU typically report only 

 gross statistical data which do not provide a good basis for evaluation of program activities by country or 

 subject. (For instance, see Table 2. pages 46-7 in U.S., Department of State, Bureau of Educational and 

 Cultural Affairs, International Exchange, 1967: Report, 1968. 



Inadeijuacies in the availability of data have been widely criticized. Typical, for instance, is the following 

 exchange between Representative John Rooney, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee for 

 the Departments of State, Justice, Commerce, and the Judiciary, and Mr. John Richardson, the Assistant 

 Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs: 



"There are so many U.S. Government civiUan exchange activities that you cannot keep up with them 

 all. To which the Assistant Secretary repUed: ". . . There is much in what you say. ... We have a 

 number of other agencies whose purposes and missions vary somewhat from ours. . . . There are many 

 diflerent activities here under agencies with varying missions. It is really difficult to add them up and to 

 conclude one thing or another about them . ..." (U.S. Congress, House. Committee on Appropriations. 

 Part 2, Depai-tment of State, 92nd Cong, 1st sess. (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1971): 



Typical of the consistently repeated recommendations for improving the gathering and dissemination of 

 information on educational exchanges is a statement in the 1971 report of the U.S. Advisory Commission 

 on International Educational and Cultural Aflairs. It found that there was a need for "\ central inventory 

 of all programs ... in international educational and cultiual aflairs, both public and private. Information 

 was available and should be collected regulariy in one place either within the Bureau of Educational and 

 Cultural Affairs, or the Department's Ubrarv." (Eighth Annual Report (1971), p. 5.) 



See also similar recommendations In: Task Force on Management Reform for the Department of State 

 Diplomacy for the 1970' s: A Program of Managmient Reform for the Department of State, 1970. pp. 480-481- 

 and U.S., Congress, House. Committee on Foreign Aflairs, and Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations' 

 Required Reports to the Congress in the Foreign Affairs Field, 1973, pp. 65-71. (Joint Committee Print.) 



^» The need for a research capability to assess the effectiveness and impacts of the Fulbright-Hays program 

 has been recommended repeatedly. According to the program's first advisory commission: "We still know 

 too little about the processes of communication between cultures, of attitude formation, of educational 

 development in relation to other aspects of national development." 



^^ "Continuous research and evaluation concerning these processes and methods," the' group recommended, 

 are needed as guides tointeUigent long-term planning of Government programs." (U.S., Advisory Commis- 

 sion on Educational Exchange in 1961, Toward a National Effort in International Educational and Cultural 

 Affairs, p. 75). Throughout its history, the successor to this group, the U.S. Advisory Commission on In- 

 ternational Educational and Cultural Aflairs, has also called for development of a research capabihty in ■ 

 the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. (See its reports: Third Annual Report (1965), p. 5; its Sixth 

 Annual Report (1969), pp. 28, 30). In 1970 in its Seventh Annual Report, A Multitude of Counselors the 

 Commission reiterated its recommendations: ". . . We believe that the development of a social science 

 research capability in the Bureau is a fundamental and urgent management requirement. . . . Institution- 

 aUzing the evaluation and research function . . . would give it the stajing power which 'contracting out' 

 lacks. It would also provide the daily evaluation and research continuity which operators of the program 

 cannot themselves provide" (pp. 8-9). 



The Bureau did maintain a small evaluation staff for a few years after passage of the Fulbright-Hays 

 Act; in 1964 the staff was abolished when funds which previously were available for contract Research and 

 Development purposes were cut, causing "restrictive personnel policies which delayed establishment of 

 a permaneiit research and development evaluation stafl." (A Multitude of Counselors, op. cit., p. 8.) Recent 

 actions indicate that the Bureau, most hkely under pressure from Congress as expressed in PubUc Law 

 90-132, op. cit., will place greater emphasis on research and development. In fiscal year 1970 the Bureau 

 spent $13,9/1 on research and evaluation. In fiscal year 1971 $114,000 was allocated for this purpose; the 

 Bureau sought $214,000 for research and evaluation functions for fiscal year 1972. (See: U.S., Congress, House, 

 Committee on Appropriations, Department of State: Hearings, Pt. 2., 92d Cong., 1st sess., 1971, p. 921.) 



