research stations and as far as possible, demonstration farms, but they should cooperate fully with the Departments in their extension work and coordinate this with the programme activities of the Departments.

14.12 Postgraduate Education and Research. The importance of the postgraduate work in providing the leadership needed in agriculture, and in bringing about quantitative and qualitative improvement in the teaching of agriculture is now widely recognized. Postgraduate education in agriculture and animal sciences has, however, not been developed on a scale commensurate with needs, either from the quantitative or from the qualitative points of view, and several important areas have been almost completely neglected.

14.13 Postgraduate work should become a distinctive feature of the agricultural universities. Their postgraduate departments will have to provide the agricultural sector with research workers, subject matter specialists and teachers for the secondary schools and agricultural polytechnics. Many of the administrative officers and certainly all the subject matter specialists in the extension service should hold M.Sc. or Ph.D. degrees. Likewise, senior scientists in all research institutes and teachers in agricultural universities and agricultural colleges should have postgraduate training.

14.14 Estimates of the requirements of specialist personnel at this level during the next twenty years have not been worked out with the precision that is necessary and possible. The ISI/LSE Paper which has been reproduced in a later section gives some basis for these; but these need further investigation, closer analysis and revision. Depending as they do on the progress in reorganization of research and extension services, the development of educational institutions and of agro-industries, the forecasts will not be useful unless they are continually revised. Broadly, however, we estimate that one hundred thousand people (agricultural research-10,000; education-35,000; agricultural and agro-industries development-55,000) with postgraduate training will be needed in the next two decades in addition to those already in position. This would mean adding 5,000 postgraduates per year during the next twenty years.

14.15 The present yearly intake into postgraduate courses is about 13,000 in various fields of agriculture, about 200 in animal sciences and negligible numbers in other fields like agricultural engineering, agricultural economics, animal breeding, and other specialized fields. To meet the anticipated output of 5,000 postgraduates per year, the present intake would have to be increased in proportion, a higher acceleration being desirable in the hitherto neglected areas.

14.16 Even more important, however, is the need to raise the

14.19 EDUCATION FOR AGRICULTURE 645

quality of the product. Many of the existing institutions lack the physical facilities, adequately trained staff and in particular the atmosphere so essential for quality education. It is very important that a possible lowering of standards consequent on the numerical increase projected above should be scrupulously avoided by adequate advance preparation. For this purpose, urgent steps should be taken to strengthen the provision of staff and other facilities in existing institutions and to carry out the adjustments and changes that expansion necessitates. Indeed, from this point of view, it may be preferable to suffer a shortage during the immediate years than to produce poorly trained personnel just to meet current demands on an ad hoc basis. We would, therefore, recommend that expansion of personnel and facilities should be undertaken only in a few selected, quality institutions and not be based on any other considerations.

14.17 How can quality training be ensured Postgraduate education should not be looked upon as a mere extension of undergraduate education as appears to be the common situation in the country today. At the postgraduate level, there must be an effective integration of various disciplines and a symbiotic mingling of active research and teaching. We therefore recommend that no institution should be allowed to undertake postgraduate instruction unless it has a strong and broad-based programme of basic and applied research of its own and the members of the faculty are participating actively in the research programme. Such an active research programme is essential if teachers are to keep in touch with recent advances in general and in their own specialized fields in particular. It is also necessary if the students are to be given sufficient training in research methodology, which should be an integral part of all postgraduate training. Good libraries, well equipped laboratories and adequate experimentation facilities are also of great importance, and no postgraduate institution can function without them.

14.18 We also urge that before any institution is allowed to develop postgraduate instruction, a competent body of professional persons should examine the stature of the institution and the physical facilities available. Only such institutions as have adequate facilities for education and research should be authorized to go ahead with programmes of postgraduate instruction.

14.19 Some of the central research institutes, like the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), the India Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI), and the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), and the agricultural universities would constitute suitable centres for strong postgraduate schools in agriculture. The IARI has already gained a position of pre-eminence in this field and the IVRI and NDRI are also research

646 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 14.20

and teaching institutions of national importance which are being deve- loped still further. In addition, each agricultural university should develop postgraduate work, perhaps concentrating on certain speciali- ties suited to their history, location and interests. Close cooperation and interdependence should be forged between the different agricultural universities themselves and also between them and the central research institutes which are seats of active postgraduate instruction. Free movement of staff and students from one institution to another would be highly desirable.

14.20 We understand that the premier body concerned with agricultural research, the ICAR, is itself being reorganized in such a way as to bring about close integration of education, research and extension. A process of rationalization of the research set-up in the country is envisaged with the strengthening of selected central and regional research stations and the abolition of many of the existing, poorly equipped and poorly staffed small stations. All the central agricultural research institutes are being brought together under the ICAR which will coordinate and support problem-oriented and production-oriented research programmes at these institutions as well as in the country as a whole. Close cooperation between such central research organizations and the agricultural universities would obviously be desirable. The ICAR which is to be closely connected with agricultural education, especially in the agricultural universities, can play a very important and leading role in bringing about such integration. The ICAR has in recent years developed some very worthwhile and fruitful projects of coordinated research on an all-India basis with active Centre-State cooperation which are proving to be highly effective not only in making research activity more efficient, expeditious and productive, but also in the development of valuable research potential in the country and, what is even more im- portant, in the creation of a cadre of able research leaders. This, we feel certain, is a welcome development for both research and higher education in agriculture and one which should be encouraged on a wider scale.

14.21 There appears to be a tendency in some agricultural colleges and agricultural universities to restrict admission to postgraduate courses in agriculture to agricultural graduates. This, in our opinion, is a very short-sighted policy. Agricultural research cannot thrive without drawing upon the best talent from basic disciplines cognate to agricultural science. Graduates in other disciplines such as chemistry, physics, statistics, botany, zoology, etc., have obviously a great and direct contribution to make to the development of agriculture. Graduates from other faculties such as economics, business administration, engineering, etc., would also be needed and would contribute to research investigations on the assessment and utilization of resources, economic development,

14.24 EDUCATION FOR AGRICULTURE 647

marketing and related fields. We are, therefore, unable to support the existing restrictive practices and urge that talents from as many fields as possible should be harnessed to the betterment of agricultural research and education.

14.22 Extension. The agricultural universities should be entrusted with responsibility for the research facilities and programmes of agricultural departments and for extension work which provides the necessary link between new elements of technology developed through research and application to farm practice. This may be begun by entrusting responsibility for research immediately and that for extension progressively through a phased programme. These programmes can be expanded as staff and other resources permit. In their extension work the universities should cooperate fully with the supply services and other programmes and activities of agricultural departments. We shall return to this subject a little later.

14.23 Undergraduate Teaching. For the next few years, the principal task of the agricultural universities would be to provide high-level undergraduate education in agriculture. We shall, therefore, say something about its organization. *169 Agriculture, like all other scientific subjects, is rapidly changing. Hence the main educational tasks of the agricultural universities will be the same as for the other institutions of higher education: to give their students a deep knowledge of fundamental principles; an ability to solve new problems as they arise; and the will and ability to continue learning without a teacher throughout their careers. In the agricultural universities, as in other universities, the students should spend a major part of their time in independent study and should be introduced to research as early as possible. The aim of formal teaching should be to give the students a knowledge of the spe- cialized language of the subject being taught, an understanding of its basic principles, an ability to use the relevant literature, and a recognition of the frontiers of knowledge in the field.

14.24 During the first years of their undergraduate courses the students should, in addition to lectures and laboratory work, take part in 'tutorials' or 'preceptorials', review and explanation of lecture materials. Much of their time should be spent in independent study in the library, the laboratory and on the university farm, and in solving technical problems assigned by the instructors. During their last years, the students should spend less time in lectures, review and formal laboratory work and more time on independent studies.

169* This is also applicable, mutatis mutandis, to the other undergraduates teaching in all universities.

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14.25 The requirements for independent study cannot be fulfilled unless the university library has a large collection of modem books and periodicals, which are well arranged and easily accessible to the students. The university library will need both an adequate budget for purchasing books and periodicals, and an adequate staff to order, catalogue, sort and file acquisitions, to help students and faculty members find what they need, to maintain proper procedures for taking books on loan, and to weed out obsolescent and useless books.

14.26 The teaching at all stages should de-emphasize cramming and memorization and should be designed to stimulate curiosity, to develop problem-solving ability, and to foster originality. Extra- curricular activities should be stressed, including student competitions, journalism and creative writing, debates, individual and team sports and formal and informal student discussion groups. Each of these activities should have a voluntary faculty adviser who enjoys this aspect of his work.

14.27 In keeping with the findings of other committees, we recommend that the duration of the first degree course should require five years' study after ten years' schooling. It is impossible to be rigid in this prescription because the duration of the course will depend not so much on years of schooling as on the attainments of the average student at the time of his entry into a degree course.

14.28 Teachers. The agricultural university must be a community of scientists and scholars in which the faculty members have collective responsibility and authority for academic affairs. In each university there should be groups of able scientists in each field who will work together in preparing curricula, taking special responsibility for the progress of the students, setting standards of student performance, testing and evaluating the students, organizing, developing and using laboratory, library, computer and field facilities, and stimulating each other in research and teaching through seminars, collaborative research and informal relationships. One of the earliest and also the most difficult tasks in the establishment of these universities is, therefore, to get together this band of scientists and scholars. From this point of view, we make the following recommendations:

(1) The success of these universities will depend on their ability to provide life-time careers and a total environment for their staff members which will attract many able persons in competition with other professions. This will probably mean that, for many of their staff members, there should be a rotation of assignments between classroom teaching and laboratory research, experimental station research, and work in the field with rural people.

(2) The UGC scales of pay, which have now been revised and

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brought on par with those in IITs and CSIR, should be extended to these universities also. These should be subject to periodical revision to ensure that they do continue to attract able men.

(3) In structuring faculties, the aim should be, as soon as good men can be found, to appoint a number of professors in each field. In the long run, the number of professors, readers and lecturers should be determined by needs and quality of staff and not by a rigid hierarchy.

(4) Part of the undergraduate teaching should be done by the senior professors and part by teaching assistants drawn from the ranks of postgraduate and research students. The paths to faculty promotion should be based on outstanding accomplishment, independent of the accidents of seniority. The criteria for promotion should primarily be accomplishment in research, but first-rate teaching should also be rewarded. Faculty and research staff members should receive sabbatical leave every few years to refresh and renew their understanding of their own fields. Good faculty housing at low rentals should be available on or near the campus. Good schools for the children of the staff should be made available.

(5) The faculties should have a major voice in choosing their own members, but the selection of new faculty members should be on the basis of wide participation within the university faculties and not simply by the department concerned. Within broad limits established by his fellow faculty members, each teacher in an agricultural university should be free to teach as and what he thinks best. Such freedom in teaching will require that the teacher has major responsibility for assessing his own students. External examinations should be reduced in importance and abolished as early as possible. Staff members should devote only a part of their time to lectures, tutorials or preceptorials, seminars or laboratory teaching. The remainder of the time should be available for research, working with individual students, and working with fellow staff members to improve the quality of instruction, the library collections, the physical facilities, and other problems of common interest.

14.29 It is obvious that to staff the network of agricultural universities as well as the existing agricultural colleges and the proposed agricultural polytechnics, a large-scale programme of teacher training will have to be undertaken immediately. For this purpose, we recommend that five or six existing centres with high standards and facilities be chosen and scholarships offered on a national competitive basis to graduates in science and agriculture for training at these centres with the

650 EDUCATION AND NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT 14.30