Agricultural education for development

PES covers the period 5/77-6/78 and is based on document review, site visits, and discussions with project staff. Despite problems associated with converting the project from grant to loan funding, inputs and outputs are on schedule and project performance is outstanding. While progress at the goal level is slower, the project has helped ameliorate serious climatic (flood and drought) and pest problems. Emphasis in the past year has been on developing graduate programs at the IPB and GMU and the 4-year B.S. curriculum at all the universities, as well as on ordering two-thirds of the remaining equipment. Regarding the establishment of graduate programs to award 100 degrees per year, the IPB began an M.S. program in 1975 and a doctoral program in 1977 and has enrolled 100 M.S. and 15 Ph.D. candidates; GMU started its Ph.D. program in 1977 and has capacity for 15 candidates per year. The IPB has set up a basic B.S. curriculum which the Directorate General for Higher Education has approved and recommended to the other universities; work at GMU and the other universities is progressing. It is expected that the eight universities will meet the target of 600 B.S. graduates per year by project end. All the universities have continued to strengthen their administration and student community service programs. All Ph.D. participants have begun their studies, and the percentage of faculty with Ph.D."s is now 12% at the IPB, 8% at GMU, and averaging 3% at the other universities aginst the respective 1981 targets of 25%, 20%, and 3%. However, these targets were unrealistic in that they did not include M.S."s or account for growth in the number of faculty, and are now being revised. Lastly, a master plan for higher agricultural education is taking shape. Project experience taught that technical assistance projects are easier to manage when there is a grant as well as a loan component, and that institution building takes a long time (i.e., 10 years is realistic).