the resources to compete globally in most fields. The only strategy that is really viable
is to identify affordable technologies where there is a comparative advantage. The
corollary of this is to emphasise the scientific and technological needs of the population
as a whole, and make special provision to support science and technology in carefully
selected areas. For a good proportion of developing countries it will remain much
cheaper to buy specialised training abroad than develop local facilities for which the
demand will be limited and the costs high. The problem of ensuring that expensively
trained staff do contribute the fruits of their training to the national economy that
sponsors them, and do not simply brain drain themselves away, remains. But it is an
illusion to believe that training in national institutions prevents this.
Policy on science and technology has to address competing priorities. These may
include an orientation to initiatives which contribute to national economic growth based
on capturing part of global markets for products with a significant science and
technology component; lessening dependence on imported technology and meeting
domestic ambitions to become more self sufficient, improving the employment
prospects of the workforce through increasing knowledge and skill levels; enhancing
the quality of life of the mass of the people through better understanding of their
environment and how to make best use of it employing scientific understanding. Which
of these is emphasised clearly has implications for the nature of science and technology
education that can contribute to such policy objectives.
Thus appropriate assistance should reflect judgements of the nature of demand for
scientific and technological skills. The kind of education and training that encourages
the creative development of new products and develops them to a marketable form may
not be the same as that which enables a systematic approach to be adopted to
developing process innovations, or to maintaining equipment developed elsewhere.
Academic science which emphasises the fundamental and is laboratory based may not
encourage the development of the technological skills of solving problems in the real
world that depend primarily on the identification and application of existing
technologies. And similarly the appropriate mix of graduate level to technician and
craftsmen who need scientific and technological understanding will depend in some
measure on the structure of the local economy and the development strategy being
pursued.
What the impact of changes in technology in the future will be is difficult to judge.
New agricultural technologies may change the pattern of rural livelihoods. Increased
urbanisation suggests that it is familiarity with urban applications of science and
technology that is becoming more important for many citizens whose lives are
increasingly divorced from rural areas. Scientifically based products and services are
widely dispersed yet knowledge of their way they work is concentrated amongst a
minority. This has many implications. Safe practices in the domestic use of electricity
are widely disregarded through ignorance, many machines representing substantial