An Operational Research Project on Technical Education

TERMS OF REFERENCE THIS task I have been set by your planning committee is formidable indeed. I am supposed have been appointed to survey the general strategy of technical education in this country, and I am asked define an operational research project on this subject. Now operational research, as you know, is the application of the method of science the strategic problems of large and complex systems. The challenge I have received is therefore acceptable in principle; indeed, I can think of nothing more exciting or potentially valuable than be asked do this job. However, I am forced point out that I have been able do no more than simulate the exercise. For had this summons arrived in fact instead of in supposition, I should have wished work on it exclusively with a large team of scientists for a long time. As it is, I have had prepare this paper alone and by night-in the course of founding 'a new company. But I have taken your kind invitation seriously, and hope you will bear with the shortcomings of what I have say. Please remember that the discussion is pitched at the strategic level: there will therefore be no detailed analysis of figures, no tabular appendices, no international comparisons-with which frighten the statistically illiterate. What I have tried do is reply this question: how does the whole system work in its socioeconomic context, and what kind of scientific model would describe it? A model is vital, let me say at once, if any attempt is be made examine strategic questions; it is the only basis for scientific experimentation when one is not allowed experiment with the actual situation. Because of this breadth and scope of this undertaking, you may find that critical distinctions which are fundamental the work of educationalists tend disappear. For example, I have rarely found it possible draw distinctions between scientists, technologists and technicians in considering technical evolution as a whole. This is not because I fail appreciate the difference, but because the three groups are integrally related in any progress or regress that occurs. The other constraint, which is self-imposed, is that the project I am defining ought be a feasible proposition implement. It is easy prescribe massive research into so big a subject as this-but perhaps it could never be completed. Simplifications must be made, and key features identified, if any results are