1139 



LACK OF QUALIFIED TEACHERS AND GRADUATE FACILITIES 



Failure of the educational systems in many LDCs to develop quali- 

 fied teachers in science and the technical arts, a rare commodity, com- 

 pounds the larger institutional problem. A further deficiency is that 

 graduate training, so vital to developing a national scientific infra- 

 structure, has not been adequately developed. Prof. A. B. Zahlan, 

 Chairman of the Department of Physics at the American University 

 of Beirut, explained the virtual nonexistence of graduate schools in 

 the Middle East in a way that might be applicable for many other 

 undeveloped areas: "It has been generally assumed that backward 

 countries could get along with rudimentary educational institutions, 

 and that the only source of advanced training for citizens of develop- 

 ing countries should be the institutions of advanced countries." ^^^ 

 Graduate training of Greek students is almost exclusively carried on 

 abroad. Greece does not have a fully integrated training cycle for the 

 formation of a professional class.^^^ And according to Habib Naficy, 

 Minister for Curtural Affairs at the Iranian Embassy in Washington, 

 with eight universities in Iran "it is still impossible to provide the 

 higher education training demanded by qualified graduates." ^^^ By 

 failing to develop graduate facilities, the LDC is thus placed in double 

 jeopardy : the possibilities of creating the core talent for scientific 

 development are further reduced, and the student going abroad be- 

 comes vulnerable to brain drain. 



Added to the failure in developing graduate training are the nega- 

 tive characteristics of LDC academic institutions. The structure of 

 intellectual and educational institutions in many LDCs is rigid, tradi- 

 tion-oriented, and compartmentalized, having the effect, as Dr. 

 Frankel said, of "frustrating the innovator." ^^^ This faulty educa- 

 tional structure adds to the problem of upward mobility for young, 

 ambitious scholars who are trying to establish an academic career for 

 themselves. 



WEAKNESSES IN COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK 



Finally, the absence of a network of communication contributes to 

 intellectual stagnation in the LDCs. Academic publications, confer- 

 ences, and seminars among scholars, important appurtenances to the 

 scholarly life often taken for granted in the advanced countries of the 

 West, are uncommon in the LDCs. Yet they are a vital source of group 

 communication, interaction, and cross-fertilization. They provide the 

 sta^e for the exchange of ideas, the testing of hypotheses, the dissemi- 

 nation of newly acquired knowledge, and the creating of an intellec- 

 tual environment of challenge and response, that dialectic so necessary 

 for the advance of scholarship and learning. 



2»5 Quoted In, Said, op. cit., p. 14. 



^^ George Coutsoumarls, "Greece," In Adams, Brain Drain, chapter 11, p. 172. 



237 Habib Naficy, " 'Brain Drain' : The Case of Iranian Non-Returnees," International 

 Development, 1966 (Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. : Oceana, 1967), pp. 66-67. 



23* Hearings, Senate Judiciary Committee, International Migration of Talent and Skills, 

 1968, p. 22. 



