On March 23, 1967, a small plane crashed into a mountainside 20 miles north of Da Nang, Vietnam, killing all eight passengers and the pilot. The passengers--all of them American educators--were conducting a survey on behalf of the Agency for International Development on public universities in South Vietnam. The plane crash occurred only a week before the educators were scheduled to return home from their year-long study.

One of the men conducting the survey was Vincent F. Conroy, lecturer on Education and director of field studies for Harvard's School of Education.

After the plane crash, three men, including Russel G. Davis, lecturer on Education and associate director of the Center for Studies in Education and Development, assumed responsibility for completing the report.

The following excerpts from the report are only a small fraction of the finished document. Most of the study's specific recommendations concerning university administration and organization have been eliminated.

The growth of the system in an age of turmoil and in response to immediate needs and demands has resulted in an ambiguous status for higher education in Vietnam. No active unit of the national government has the responsibility for continually setting goals for higher education and no way exists for readily interpreting the people's needs into higher education programs. Decisions affecting programs, organization and funding are made on the basis of short-term problems rather than on careful definitions in the long-term national interest. A lack of clarity in the purposes of the various institutions deprives the country of the high regard that a people should have for the education and training of their leaders and experts.

Against great difficulties, universities and some university programs do move forward. The heroic efforts of a number of Vietnamese officials who have taken initiative and who have stood fast in adversity encourage the survey team to believe that careful definitions of the authority and responsibility of boards, rectors, deans and other officials, accompanied by a stabilizing of their roles will enhance the possibilities of their leadership.

Country's Problems

University programs must serve both the needs of nations and of individuals. In Vietnam they can only do so by becoming immediately responsive to the country's problems.

It is hard to know and perhaps irrelevant to consider the extent to which the wide gap between the economic needs of Vietnam and its programs in the universities is due to the nation's preoccupaiton with war, the shortage of resources, the relative newness of its institutions, or to the academic customs that have been inherited by the country. Whatever its root causes, all Faculties except Medicine, Dentistry and Pedagogy have graduated less than five per cent of their total enrollment. The survey team interprets this as an indication of a waste of manpower, traceable in part to present university policies and programs.

Rigid standards applied in the form of examinations have the effect of controlling the numbers of students entering occupations for which there is a surplus such as lawyers, pharmacists, and architects. The same rationale also dictates a reduction in the number of students in occupations badly needed by the country, for instance, medicine and dentistry. Not only is the country deprived of the services of more leaders and experts under such a system, but the catastrophe to individuals is immeasurable. The duplication of some programs, such as law in two universities and planed in a third, and the absence of other programs anywhere in the system means that Vietnamese universities have not undergone the reorientation to essential needs that the country requires.

The success of the faculties of pedagogy in graduating a large proportion of students preparing for careers as secondary school teachers is an encouraging sign. Since this represents a joint effort between the government and the universities, it means that such cooperation can help to reduce deficiencies of national need. Agriculture, the various fields of engineering education and business and public administration need to be elevated to university status. Moreover, the universities need new programs and reorientation of their methods of selecting students to avoid the waste of manpower which occurs through duplication of effort and the lack of articulated purposes.

In order to meet needs for skills and specialization, the University of Vietnam should incorporate programs of agriculture, engineering and administration.

Agriculture, in normal times, is the basic economic occupation of a majority of the citizens of Vietnam and in the renewal of Vietnam's status as a food producer and exporter lies important potential for the nation's future. The goals of these new programs should, therefore, be national in scope and should be aimed at the realization of the enormous potential of the Mekong Delta.

Vietnam's long travail in war has deferred the development of the kind of leadership needed to create for its people the material advantages of developed nations. Improvements in transport, the creation and utilization of power resources, the development of an industrial capacity, and the use of mechanical and electronic technology require the education of substantial numbers of applied scientists.

As new programs are created, ways must be found to eliminate inefficiencies in the use of student and faculty resources within the university structures. The centralization of all student registration within each university and beginning the careers of all students in a common academic program prior to their pursuit of more specilaized training are, in the view of the survey team, necessary reforms in the ordering of existing and new programs. All students should be admitted to a balanced program of studies, including some electives, at the beginning of their university careers. One possible way to accomplish this is to combine the present Faculties of Letters, Science and some of the functions of the Faculty of Law into a common program combining humanities, social sciences, foreign languages, mathematics, and natural sciences. Professional faculties should then establish criteria in terms of numbers of years to be required as preparation for specific programs to take place in their faculties. The individual programs of students in the preparatory years should be planned in view of their ultimate career aspirations, in short, to make them eligible for admission to the professional faculty of their choice.