Experience with its field programs has served to emphasize for FAO the importance of the organizational aspects of education and research.
Three levels of education are recognized: vocational (guards, foremen), technical (rangers, technicians), and professional (forestry and forest products officers, engineers, etc.) the latter being divided into undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
Vocational forestry schools may be associated with technical schools and training centers. In the past FAO has organized a number of centers in various parts of the world for training instructors of forest workers, generally with the International Labour Organisation (ILO). More will be organized in the future.
Technical forestry schools can operate within the framework of the general education system of the country (Ministry of Education) or, in the case of forest ranger schools, be affiliated with or subordinated to the forest service (Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, or Ministry of Forestry). Technical schools should be linked with demonstration programs.
The importance of this technical-level training for the proper management and use of forest resources cannot be overstressed. Students must be assured that conditions of service in subsequent government or private employment offer a worthwhile status and career. It is also important that they be made fully aware of the limits of their future responsibilities. Only in exceptional cases can they expect to achieve university education, because an undergraduate university course is not based on technical training but on the highest standard of secondary school education.
Undergraduate forestry education should be organized within the framework of a national university. Forestry faculties which award forestry degrees must enjoy full autonomy within the university. The program of education and research should be at levels comparable to those provided for other university-level professions.
Sometimes a decision has to be taken as to whether a forestry faculty should be physically part of a university, even though there may be no forests in the immediate vicinity, or should be located on its own within a forest region. The former is preferable.
Forestry education should be closely affiliated to education in social sciences and agriculture, and physical sciences and engineering, but should not be subordinate to either.
Forestry instruction should also be offered in agricultural schools and faculties, in order to give agriculturists, especially in the tropics and semiarid zones, background and guidance in, for instance, the management of farm-forests.
The limited number of secondary school (high school) leavers eligible for university education, and the limited facilities for basic sciences for first- and second-year forestry courses, are often factors impeding the establishment of new forestry schools and faculties. They are factors that must be thoroughly investigated when considering proposals for new institutions.
The FAO Advisory Committee on Forestry Education has recommended that a minimum international aid program of five years and a minimum staff of six instructors should be arranged when planning projects in universities having no forestry faculty.
Postgraduate education should be restricted to especially well-developed educational institutions having a strong experimental or research program. National aspirations to establish national institutions may often have to be discouraged if co-ordinated regional arrangements are feasible.
Professional manpower is a scarce commodity in most countries, and so it is advantageous that education and research should go hand in hand at the same institution. Instructors engage in research to broaden their own experience and develop new knowledge. A sufficient number of specialists - foresters and others - must, however, serve these faculties, in order to keep the subject fields specialized and allow enough time for both teaching and research. Subdividing the staff into teachers and research workers means wider disciplines and a separation of teaching and research.
Within the complex of United Nations agencies, assistance in the planning and development of a forestry faculty or research institute is primarily an FAO responsibility, with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Unesco) participating on matters relating to integration of the faculty within the university concerned. FAO provides the applied agriculture/forestry sciences staff, and Unesco the basic sciences staff used in common by agriculture, forestry and other faculties.
Projects in education and research receiving assistance through FAO field programs in 1964
|
1. |
ARGENTINA |
Watershed Management Training Institute, University of La Plata |
|
2. |
BRAZIL |
National Forestry School and Forest Research Organization, Federal University of Paraná, Curitiba |
|
3. |
CHILE |
Forestry Institute, Santiago |
|
4. |
COLOMBIA |
Forestry Department, National University of Colombia, Medellin |
|
5. |
COSTA RICA |
Forestry Department, Inter-American Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Turrialba |
|
6. |
ECUADOR |
Forest Ranger School, Conocoto |
|
7. |
MEXICO |
Forestry Department, National School of Agriculture, Chapingo |
|
8. |
PERU |
Forestry Research Organization |
|
9. |
LIBERIA |
College of Forestry, University of Liberia, Monrovia (1956/64 EPTA; 1964/67 UNSF) |
|
10. |
NIGERIA |
Department of Forestry, University of Ibadan |
|
11. |
NIGERIA |
Savanna Forestry Research Station, Northern Nigeria |
|
12. |
TANZANIA |
Wildlife Management College, Mweka |
|
13. |
UGANDA |
Forest Ranger School, Nyabyeya |
|
14. |
SUDAN |
Forestry Research and Training Center, Khartoum |
|
15. |
SYRIA |
Near East Forest Rangers School, Lattakia |
|
16. |
IRAN |
Forestry and Range Institute Karadj; and Forest Ranger School, Gorgan |
|
17. |
PAKISTAN |
National Forest Research and Training Institute, Peshawar |
|
18. |
INDONESIA |
Forest Engineering Institute, Bogor |
The following projects may also develop in the near future:
|
19. |
VENEZUELA |
Faculty of Forestry Sciences, University of the Andes, Mérida |
|
20. |
TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO |
Forest Ranger School, Port-of Spain |
|
21. |
GABON |
Forest Ranger School, Cap Esterias |
|
22. |
UGANDA |
Forestry Faculty University of East Africa, Makerere |
