Meetings in Mexico and the Philippines emphasize the need for social awareness
Forestry scholarships offered by Honduras
Forestry faculty created at Malaysian university
Cameroon's ENSA puts stress on engineering, utilization
Industry experience added to Nigerian studies
Canadian forestry deans call for more financing
The importance of encouraging social awareness and high ethical standards among forestry students were the themes of two important national meetings on forestry education, one in Mexico and the other in the Philippines.
The meetings were the First Symposium on Higher Forestry Education in Mexico, at the National School of Agriculture, Chapingo, and the Consultative Workshop on Forestry Education, at the University of the Philippines, Los Baños. Both were held last December.
If forestry schools are to further their country's social objective, said Prof. Reyes Bonilla in the closing address of the Chapingo meeting, they should build a sense of professional ethics in students and encourage them to recognize current social problems, especially in the countryside. Treatment of these subjects in formal courses, he said, is not enough. Students should be exposed to the actual living conditions, aspirations and attitudes of people in the countryside, where they would later practice their profession.
Prof. C.B. Lantican, Vice-Chancellor of the University of the Philippines, referred to the strong sense of social and ethical awareness expressed by the educators, students and foresters meeting at Los Baños, as "an echo" of the First World Consultation of Forestry Education and Training held in Stockholm in 1971. It could have been said that it was an echo as well of the Declaration of the Seventh World Forestry Congress in Buenos Aires in 1972.
The Los Baños meeting recommended that Philippines forestry schools review their curricula with an eye toward achieving a more balanced education. It was recommended that "serious consideration" be given to the creation of a degree programme in forest products engineering.
Other recommendations were that:
- Professional ethics be included as course subject matter.- Practical working experience, or apprenticeship, be made a requirement for graduation and that this experience should be obtained either in forestry agencies or industries, or in both.
- Forestry education should take account of the students' need to obtain employment on graduation and attention should be paid by forestry schools to job placement.
- An in-depth study of the current professional requirements for foresters in the Philippines should be made by the agencies and organizations responsible for training foresters.
Students of forestry in Central America are being offered scholarships to attend the Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Forestales in Siguatepeque, Honduras, through the bilateral aid programme of the Federal Republic of Germany. The school is a completely Honduran institution, and has always encouraged attendance by students from neighbouring countries as part of an effort toward Central American integration.
The recognition by the Malaysian Government of the importance of forestry is reflected in two important moves in forestry education: the decision to create a Faculty of Forestry at the Universiti Pertanian Malaysia, and the creation of a four-year course at the Mara Institute of Technology leading to a diploma in wood technology.
For the new university faculty it is expected that teaching staff, as well as fellowships for postgraduate studies, will come from Australia and Canada.
The creation of the new course at the Mara Institute of Technology is connected with a significant development in Malaysia's national policy for forest industries. This is that industry should make increased use of commercially less well-known species of woods, which are cheaper. This is part of an effort to make more rational use of the country's renewable forest resources.
The new course in wood technology is seen as a significant step toward improving the efficiency and diversification of the Malaysian wood-processing industries. Training includes procurement of materials, production supervision, product and equipment design. Applied wood science work deals with gluing, seasoning, machining, wood treatment and finishing.
A unique feature of the course is a practical training in industry, which will total four months to be spread through the four years.
Malaysia also has an FAO/UNDP project for the creation of a forestry college at Kepong.
The Cameroon Ecole nationale supérieure agronomique (ENSA) near Yaoundé has created a forestry department. The new department is in the process of obtaining staff and expects to have five full-time professors, initially from France and possibly Canada, together with part-time lecturers from the Cameroon Forestry Department.
After taking a baccalauréat, students aspiring to the degree of Ingénieur agronome in forestry will follow a course of studies comparable to that which leads to a degree as Ingénieur des eaux et forêts in France. The programme is based on that of the University of Nancy but adapted to the particular needs of tropical forestry. This includes more emphasis on engineering and utilization.
Since Cameroon is a bilingual state, the forestry department, although catering mainly to the needs of French-speaking west Africa, is seen as one more link between the French- and English-speaking forestry communities of Africa.
FAO has had a forestry instructor at ENSA since 1971, and has been instrumental in planning the new department.
Other departments at ENSA deal with agriculture, animal husbandry, soil science, plant protection, economics and rural education.
The University of Ibadan has instituted a new degree programme in wood technology and forest engineering which includes 10-week periods of industrial work within the academic curriculum.
One week's work in industry will be equivalent to one unit of academic study, i.e., 10 lecture hours and 30 laboratory/workshop hours.
The deans of Canada's six university schools of forestry have issued a statement calling for more financial support from the federal and provincial governments and the country's forest industries. The following is an excerpt from the statement.
"The socioeconomic trends of contemporary Canadian society clearly point toward increasing dependence on renewable natural resources for the remainder of the 1970s and the 1980s. An increasingly urbanized Canada requires expanded recreational land. A well-informed and concerned Canadian public demands wiser management of forest, fish, wildlife and water resources, as well as a continuing supply of forest products to domestic and foreign markets."
"The various levels of government, the forest industries, and the university forestry schools must each do their share in meeting these needs and opportunities. This is why the schools have embarked on the development of a national strategy. They aim to generate, maintain and improve dialogues with associations, industries and governments so that each one understands the other and so that the available human resources will be used to everyone's advantage."
"If the opportunities for improved resource management are to be seized, the university schools must be strengthened, and this needs money as well as people. What the schools ask is that the federal and provincial governments and the forest-based industries increase their financial support in direct proportion to the potential opportunities for service in the solution of their problems which the Canadian forestry schools can offer. The schools ask for no more but, equally important, they ask for no less."
The six deans endorsing the statement were J.A.F. Gardner, University of British Colombia; F.V. MacHardy, University of Alberta; H.S. Braun, Lakehead University; V.J. Nordin, University of Toronto; A. Lafond, Laval University; and J.W. Ker, University of New Brunswick. It was issued by the Science Council of Canada as part of a series of reports designed to call public attention to the importance of forestry and the forestry profession in Canada.
How much time does a teacher have for teaching?
How activities are distributed at the Department of Forest Economics at Stockholm's Royal College of Forestry, can be seen in this plan for the budget year 1973/74.
|
Personnel |
Number of days spent in |
Total |
||
|
Research |
Education |
Other work |
||
|
1 professor |
25 |
90 |
85 |
200 |
|
1 assistant professor |
105 |
60 |
35 |
200 |
|
1 associate professor |
130 |
50 |
20 |
200 |
|
1 teacher |
20 |
25 |
55 |
100 |
|
1 research assistant |
105 |
35 |
60 |
200 |
|
1 assistant |
125 |
45 |
30 |
200 |
|
1 assistant |
85 |
65 |
50 |
200 |
|
1 tutor |
10 |
100 |
90 |
200 |
|
Total |
605 |
470 |
425 |
1500 |
|
Percentage |
40 |
32 |
28 |
100 |
" Education" includes, besides teaching for the lower degree certificate (173 days) and the higher degree certificate (155 days), research education (52 days) and further education (90 days). Under "other work" administration represents the heaviest load (190 days), following class preparation (130 days). The remaining 105 days are divided among "information" (55 days), "conferences" (35 days) and "various" (15 days).
