Beebe Asked to Help In Indian Educational Study

C. E. Beebe, lecturer and researcher in education, will go to New Delhi next month to help redesign India's education system.

For seven weeks, Beebe will serve as special consultant to India's Education Commission. The former chairman of UNESCO's executive board is the third member of the Ed School Faculty to serve on the commission.

Roger Revelle, Richard Saltonstall Professor of Population Policy, is one of the commission's three permament members. A former director of research at the University of California, he has been in India since Nov. 1. Associates reported that he spends most of his time in the field, traveling from village to village, observing schools at first hand.

Daniers in New Delhi

Andre Daulere, lecturer on economics and education, stayed is new Delhi last summer advising the commission on economic aspects of reform.

The commission is India's sixth, beginning with the Wood's Education Dispatch of 1854. It is the first, however, to consider all aspects of the national system. Beebe said a major problem is the power distribution between city, state, and national educational agencies.

Since winning independence, India has greatly expanded its education system. It included 25 million students in 1950 compared to 60 million today. But because of the population growth, only 40 per cent of these are in school. India also faces the paradox of a large "educated unemployed." Indian education has always tended more toward the classical rather than the scientific, Beebe explained.

Great Expansion

The U.S. Agency for International Development recommended the establishment of the Commission in May, 1964, after India asked for assistance. AID now supplied financial support and pays traveling expenses for all foreign experts.