The development of higher education in southern Asia will require a great deal of time and effort, Edwin O. Reischauer, director of the Harvard-Yenching institute, declared yesterday.

Reischauer, who returned last week from a six month tour of Asia, was pessimistic about chances for the development of a scholarly community with a true international outlook in southern Asia, even though education in East Asia has reached an extremely high level.

"Universities do exist in Thailand, Burma, and India," he said, but they seem to have little interest in anything except the affairs of the former European colonial powers and the development of their own newly-nationalized governments.

The situation in East Asia, where the Harvard-Yenching Institute spends about $200,000 a year, is much more promising, according to Reischauer. The money is used to establish and maintain a high quality of education and to promote research in Asian studies.

With the aid of funds supplied by Harvard, and other grants by the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Asian Foundation, East Asian universities are able to improve the quality of their faculties and to increase the amount and extent of their research.

Evidence that the program has been extremely successful was given by a unique three day conference held recently by scholars and educators from Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. It was "the first international conference for the purpose of furthering education ever held in Eastern Asia," Reischauer said.

Men from leading universities discussed many common problems, but they were primarily concerned with developing methods of exchanging materials and publications with each other. "Co-operation among these countries since World War II has not been extremely successful," Reischauer observed.

Although giving financial aid is its chief function, the Harvard-Yenching Institute also attempts other methods of assistance. Every year fourteen professors from East Asian universities are brought to Harvard for a year or more of study, Reischauer noted.