The Universities and International Technical Assistance

Abstract

N THE October number of this magazine, Robert M. Rosenzweig discussed some of the principal issues growing out of universitygovernment relationships in the foreign-aid program.' His remarks and several recent high-level studies and reports dealing with these relationships2 suggest the utility of a closer look at the internal problems of universities in the administration of overseas technical-assistance contracts. There is widespread agreement in universities and in government concerning the conditions necessary to effective contract administration. This is evident both in the literature and in the discussions that have been held from time to time under the auspices of the American Council on Education, Education and World Affairs, and individual American universities. The difficulty lies, not in agreement in principle, but in administration in practice. That there may be gaps between highest-level formulation of institutional principles and precepts and lower-level interpretation and execution of policies is to be expected. The hiatus between theory and practice is no more characteristic of universities than of other human institutions. In situations where guide lines, conventional responses, and mutual expectations are well defined, inconsistency between principles and performance may pose no serious problem. But in new endeavors, where the lessons of experience have not been learned and where professional and personal values are at hazard, incoherence in institutional behavior may seriously diminish the benefits to be expected from the effort. University contracts with government for technical assistance overseas have been vuilnertable to this incrnnsisi-encv andi for three itdentifiable reasonns