SCIENCE EDUCATION AND RESEARCH
 

16.01 The basic approach and philosophy underlying the reconstruction of education adopted by us in this Report rests on our deep conviction that the progress, welfare and security of the nation depend critically on a rapid, planned and sustained growth in the quality and extent of education and research in science and technology. Science has radically transformed man's material environment. In the technologically advanced countries the average span of human life has increased by more than a third over the last hundred years. Science is universal and so can be its benefits. Its material benefits are immense and farreaching-industrialization of agriculture and release of nuclear energy, to mention two examples-but even more profound is its contribution to culture. Science is liberating and enriching of the mind and enlarging of the human spirit. Its fundamental characteristic has turned out to be the possibility of unlimited growth. Every advance in science deepens our understanding of Nature but it also heightens the sense of ignorance. Nature is inexhaustibly knowable. Nothing comparable to the scientific revolution in its impact on man's development and out-look has happened since the neolithic times.

16.02 Rapid Rate of Growth. Science represents a cumulative and cooperative activity of mankind and its rate of growth is extremely rapid. A number of indices, such as the output of research papers or the number of scientists and engineers or the consumption of energy, indicate that the doubling period of science, and activities directly related to science, is some ten to fifteen years. It is not at all clear why this constant over the last three hundred years since the beginning of the scientific revolution in Western Europe. A doubling time of ten years means that a decade from now the volume of new knowledge gained will equal nearly that accumulated over the past several centuries. The total number of science journals was about a thousand a hundred years ago. The number now stands as a hundred thousand. 186* By the end of the present century it is expected to reach a million. The number of scientists has been doubling every ten years. Such a growth rate

186* The number of 'surviving journals' is about 35,000; and the number of journals with a run longer than about 15 years is only a few hundred.

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implies that at any given time the number of scientists alive is nearly ninety per cent of all who ever lived since the beginning of science. So rapid is the growth of science that, as some people have put it, a scientific paper is often out of date by the time it is in print; a book is out of date before a student has completed the course; a graduate is obsolescent on the day of his graduation; and a research equipment is often out of fashion by the time it is procured. Again, it is characteristic of expanding science and technology that the time gap between basic discovery and its application is continually diminishing. It was a few decades a hundred years ago, it is a few years, now. Of course, the exponential rate of growth of science cannot continue indefinitely. For example, if the present rate of increase in the number of scientists were to continue for another hundred years, the number of scientists would almost equal the total world population, an obvious impossibility. Sooner or later, therefore, the growth rate must slow down, and perhaps level off eventually with the growth rate of population. The first signs of an approach to this stage are, perhaps, becoming evident in some of the scientifically advanced countries. For instance, the growth rate of research and development expenditure which was about 15 per cent per year for more than a decade in the USA and UK is now slowing down considerably.

16.03 Quality in Science Education. Science has added a new dimension to education and to its role in the life of a nation, but central to all this is the quality of education. If science is poorly taught and badly learnt, it is little more than burdening the mind with dead information, and it could degenerate even into a new superstition. What we desperately need is improvement in the standard and quality of science education at all levels in the country. Strengthening university science and research must be treated as a fundamental national goal. Strong and progressive universities constitute the foundation of all research and development effort of the nation. To achieve quality in science education and research demands serious and sustained effort, full and vigorous government and public support, a relentless pursuit of excellence, and above all it needs determination, hard work and dedication.

16.04 Major Steps and Programmes for Strengthening Science Education and Research. We shall describe a number of steps and action-programmes which we believe essential for strengthening of science and research. Some of these are listed below:

- recognition that teaching and research are mutually supporting activities. High quality teaching in science is possible only in a research environment-research is essential for its sustenance. 15

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- basic research should be conducted largely within universities; and to train research workers should be their major responsibility. Laboratories for basic research, unless there be compelling reasons, should not be set up divorced from teaching.

- promotion of effective cooperation (joint research projects, training of postgraduate and research students, exchange of staff, etc.) between institutions of higher education and national laboratories and industrial and government scientific establishments/organizations;

- Centres of Advanced Study: development of existing centres and setting up of new centres, and 'clusters of centres'; the centres should serve as a major source of supply of teachers and researchers to other institutions;

- modernization of curricula; stress on experimental and field work;

- science education at all levels should be strongly reinforced through study of applications to local environment and industry;

- improvement of laboratories and libraries;

- special attention to gifted students;

- development of laboratory workshops and facilities for servicing, repair and fabrication of scientific apparatus; training of laboratory technicians;

- organization of courses in interdisciplinary fields, and in subjects of special scientific and industrial importance;

- special attention to development of mathematical studies and research;

-production (on a national basis) of 'quality books' for undergraduate and postgraduate education;

- constitution of an effective body to advise Government on science policy, including priorities in allocation of funds for different sectors of research;

- national organization (academy) of scientists; its major role in raising quality of research and of national publications and journals in science and technology; promotion of international relations in science; and

- vigorous and continuing effort to forge strong links between science, technology and production. A high level of science education and research and a strong industrial and agricultural base go together: the three elements in the S.T.P. triad reinforce and accelerate the development of one another.

16.05 Selective Approach. The Report can do no more than create an awareness of the challenge we face-its urgency and magnitude-and indicate broadly the lines on which we should proceed. What is needed

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most to bring about a radical improvement in the present situation is a rigorously selective approach, a concentration of effort to build centres or peaks of excellence to serve as pace-setters and 'breeders' of more centres of excellence. It implies that the scale of support to institutions is determined on the basis of national needs and their level of performance, capabilities and potentiality for growth and development. No country, affluent or poor, can afford to squander its resources on institutions which are of indifferent quality and determined to remain stagnant. When resources are scarce and problems formidable, the principle of concentration and selectivity becomes all the more imperative. Of course, it has to be applied not mechanically but imaginatively and wisely.

16.06 Some Definitions. In this chapter and in the Report generally we use the terms science, and scientist, in two senses, general and limited. (The word scientist was first used in 1840 by William Whewell, Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.) In its general sense 'science' covers the entire spectrum of scientific knowledge, Pure and applied, extending from mathematics and basic science subjects to metallurgy, engineering and agriculture. *187 In its limited sense, science stands for pure or basic science subjects such as physics, chemistry, biology, biochemistry and geology. in the case of basic science subjects the main concern is with the discovery of fundamental laws and operations and of gaining insight into the working of nature. Applied science deals with application of basic sciences to meet man's diverse material and cultural needs, and it includes all engineering and technological subjects. The term research includes 'pure research' and 'applied research'. We use pure research and basic research as equivalent terms. Applied research does not include 'development' which is a stage linking applied research to production. We use the term R and D to include the whole spectrum of research and development activities, including design and testing of prototypes. *188 Development is usually the most costly activity of all.

16.07 It should be recognized that the distinction between pure science and applied science, and between basic and applied research, as also between research and development, which was well- defined a few decades ago is now getting less and less sharp. In some fields hardly any distinction can be drawn. In fact, the great strength of contemporary

187* In the USSR and the Continent of Europe the term science has a much wider connotation. It also includes economics, social sciences and allied subjects.

188* The Report (1961) of the Committee on the Management Control of Research and Development in the UK (Chairman Sir Solly Zuckerman) has differentiated under the term R and D, five categories of activity. These are: pure basic research, objective basic research, applied (project) research, applied (operational) research and development.

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science lies in the close interaction and mingling of basic and applied sciences. *189

16.08 New Development. It is almost certain that in the next decade or two we may see unravelling of the details of the genetic code, and with it a rapid progress in the cure of hereditary diseases and eventually a partial control of the progress of man's evolution itself. Advances in molecular neurology and understanding of the process in the brain may provide new means of influencing and modifying man's mental state. Manned flights will be achieved not only to the moon, but possibly also to other planets. The discovery, when it comes, of life (intelligent life, who knows?) outside the earth will have the most profound consequences for man's development and his future destiny. It is almost certain that within the next ten years communication satellites will be able to picture broadcasts to domestic TV-receivers anywhere in the world, thus opening up revolutionary possibilities for education. Progress in computer technology is likely to revolutionize, through cybernetics and automation, many aspects of man's life. The study of quasers may bring to light some entirely unsuspected process of energy generation, and provide new clues to the origin of the universe. New discoveries in high-energy physics may provide an altogether new insight into the nature of sub-atomic particles. Godel's epochal work on the axiomatic foundations of mathematics has revealed an inherent limitation of mathematical reasoning and logic which has far-reaching philosophical implications.

16.09 There is no doubt that to several of these and other exciting fields India will make contributions of some significance, but it is certain that the shape, quality and volume of future science in the coming decades will be determined essentially by the work of the countries which are in the forefront of science today. This simple fact has far-reaching consequences for us. It implies that our university courses, specially at the postgraduate stage, and research activities will be largely fashioned and determined by developments which will occur outside the country. It underscores the importance in our system of education of the study of English and other world languages, and of giving a high priority to an energetic expansion on a big scale of library facilities so that we could derive full benefit from the rapidly growing world-stock of science and technology. Above all it means that no effort should be spared to identify the truly gifted individuals and to give them every possible opportunity and encouragement for the unfolding of their innate abilities and creative potential.

189* H. J. Bhabha, J. D. Cockcroft and P. A. M. Dirac, three top- ranking physicists, had their first degrees in engineering.

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INVESTMENT IN EDUCATION & RESEARCH AND NATIONAL PRODUCTIVITY

16.10 Let us for a moment compare the expenditure on higher education in India and the industrially advanced countries. It is an interesting statistical fact that the average expenditure on higher education per student per year, in almost every country is of the same order as the GNP per capita. *190 For example, the expenditure per student per year in our country is about one-thirtieth of that in the U.K. The cost of scientific instruments and apparatus is about the same in the two countries. Further, India has largely to import special apparatus required for advanced study and research. This needs foreign exchange which is in very short supply. It is in a sense inevitable that the level of laboratory equipment and other basic facilities (including books and journals) available to an Indian student will be, on an average, far below that available to students in highly industrialized countries. It may also be noted that in the scientifically advanced countries the cost per student in pure science, in undergraduate and postgraduate courses, is roughly the same as that in engineering and agriculture. The expenditure per student in the universities in the UK for 1963-64 was: Art (pond)501; Social Sciences (pond)465; Pure Science (pond)757; Applied Science (pond)671; Agriculture (pond)916 and Medicine (pond)1,078. *191 The USA figures faculty-wise are Humanities $3,200, Education $3,300; Social Sciences $3,250; Biological Sciences $3,374; Physical Sciences and Mathematics $3,380; Engineering $4,020. *192 In India the average cost per student in pure science is much less than that for engineering. This is because our science laboratories in general are very poorly equipped and very little attention is paid to practical work and demonstration experiments. *193

16.11 The industrialized countries have a much higher GNP per capita and thus can, and do, invest in education and research on a scale higher by orders of magnitude than the under-industrialized parts of the world. *194 A highly industrialized country needs for the bulk of its

190* The relationship does not hold for some of the African countries which spend on higher education per student about as much as the highly industrialized countries, but their enrolments in higher education are proportionately extremely small.

191* Source. Fifth Report of the Estimate Committee-Grants to Universities and Colleges (UK, July 1965).

192* The President's Science Advisory Committee Report on Meeting Manpower Needs in Science and Technology.

193* It is worth recalling that according to the Report of the Indian Education Commission of 1882 the average cost per student in government colleges at that time was about Rs. 350 per year which in terms of current price-level would be roughly ten times higher than what we spend today. As against this fall in the cost per student, the enrolment in higher education has increased nearly a thousand- fold.

194* Thus, for example, the US expenditure on higher education was 0.26 per cent of the GNP in 1900. It rose to 1.23 per cent in 1960. The expenditure, per year per student, in higher education rose from $ 574 in 1930 to $ 1,747 in 1960 (at current prices). The increased cost accounts for rise in salaries of teachers, better staff-student ratio and improvement in general facilities. (F.Machlup, Production and Distribution of Knowledge in the U.S., Princeton University, 1962, p. 78)

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