end, the theme of the technical conference on small-scale farming recommended by the Fifth Session as a preliminary to the Sixth Session, was expanded at the suggestion of the Caribbean Research Council to provide for fuller treatment of education at a joint conference on education and small-scale farming. On the invitation of the Commission, UNESCO acted as a co-sponsor of the technical conference, and a UNESCO consultant in education was assigned to the Commission for 9 months in 1954 to make the study of fundamental, adult, literacy, and community education recommended by the West Indian Conference, and to assist in preparations for the joint conference.

The Joint Conference on Education and Small-Scale Farming was held at Trinidad in October 1954. Delegates from all the areas served by the Commission were represented, as were observers from several nonmember Governments, multilateral organizations, and educational institutions in the area. The documentation prepared for the Joint Conference points out many of the educational problems and needs in the geographic area under consideration and indicates lines of thinking about these problems by educational specialists from its various territories. Included were papers on "The Need for Instructional Materials Related to the Caribbean Environment," "The School in its Relation to the Community,' "Teacher Training in the Caribbean," "Administration of Education in the Caribbean," "Financing of Education in the Caribbean,” "Education in Relation to Growing Urbanization and Industrialization," "Community Education Including Adult Education," and "Educational Research in the British Caribbean."

This documentation and the Report of the Joint Conference became, in turn, the basic documentation for the Sixth Session of the West Indian Conference in May 1955, which accepted, with minor modifications, most of the recommendations of the Joint Conference. Thus, the conclusions reached in the field of education at the two meetings were similar and supplemented those of the Fifth Session on Vocational Education as an identification of the educational problems and needs in the various territories of the area, as seen by their own representatives. The keynote of the two meetings on the role of education in the area was expressed in the view of the Joint Conference, and concurred in by the West Indian Conference, that "Education must be regarded not as an amenity to be afforded after the achievement of economic progress but as an essential and concomitant instrument of economic, social and political development." To this end, the Sixth Session of the Conference regarded its deliberations as being concerned, in the

4 Caribbean Commission, West Indian Conference. Sixth Session, 1955, p. 79.

terms of the language of the agenda, with "the Adaptation of Education to the actual needs of the Area," and indicated by its recommendations that a majority of its delegates believed that education in the Caribbean was unrelated to Caribbean conditions and needs.

Specifically the Sixth Session, reflecting the views expressed in the report of the Joint Conference of 1954, considered and approved recommendations which were concerned, among other things, with the following matters: (1) the fostering of group activities in which pupils play a leading part, as a method of civic education; (2) the introduction into both primary and secondary school curricula of practical subjects, such as manual training, school gardening, and home economics; (3) the increased production and use of textbooks and of reading and instructional materials with Caribbean relevance; (4) the establishment by the Caribbean Commission of a Clearing House for information regarding such materials relating to primary and adult education; (5) the improvement of methods for the selection and training of teachers and the broadening of the teacher-training curriculum to include practical subjects and training for participation in community education; (6) recognition that teachers of agriculture be regarded primarily as teachers; (7) the cooperation of all departments of government and appropriate private agencies in community development; (8) recognition that the attainment of the major objective of free universal primary schooling should go side by side with such development of other forms of education as economic and social progress dictates and that in educational development there should be close cooperation between education and other government departments concerned with social and economic affairs; (9) the desirability of continued support from UNESCO in meeting educational problems in the Caribbean in various ways, including the assignment of a UNESCO consultant on education to the Caribbean Commission to advise the Governments of the area and the SecretaryGeneral on educational matters and to assist in setting up the aforementioned Clearing House of educational and instructional materials having Caribbean relevance; and (10) the urgent necessity, in view of the limited financial resources available to Caribbean Governments, for experimenting with various types of school organization and administration, including the interlocking and double enrollment systems, as well as the possibility of enlisting self-help in the villages and towns in relation to the school. It must be mentioned that the Netherlands Antilles Government stated that it could not associate itself with a number of the recommendations approved, on the grounds that they were irrelevant, inappro

priate, or not applicable to the situation in the Netherlands Antilles.

5

It should also be noted that both the Joint Conference of 1954 and the Sixth Session of the West Indian Conference in 1955 recognized the significance for educational programs of popular attitudes towards agriculture, the principal occupation in the Caribbean area. The Joint Conference expressed the view that "a basic problem is the historically deep rooted aversion to agriculture as a means of livelihood," and noted certain social and economic reasons for this attitude. The West Indian Conference, while agreeing on the fact of the existence of this attitude, observed that the view of the Joint Conference required some qualification insofar as it referred to certain Caribbean areas, in that it "felt there was no aversion to agricultural occupations as such except insofar as peasant agriculture has for so long been associated with low standards of living." The 1955 Session of the West Indian Conference remained, through 1959, the most recent Caribbean Commission sponsored conference at which West Indian delegates voiced their views on the overall educational problems and needs of the area. Since 1955 there have continued to be mention and consideration of certain specialized educational problems at various meetings of West Indian representatives. The 7th Session of the West Indian Conference in 1957 considered, among other agenda items, the role of Education in the Cooperative Movement; and the Second Conference on Home Economics held at Trinidad in April 1958, which was again cosponsored by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, included home economics education and teacher training among the subjects considered.

Other Education Activities

Among the educational activities with which the Caribbean Commission has been associated must be mentioned the regionwide Caribbean Training Program of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the United States Government's International Cooperation Administration. The Commission has assisted in the processing and selection of recipients of these training grants. This program has been of special interest because of the concern of West Indian Governments and leaders with vocational educational and training opportunities. Designed specifically to afford such opportunities for citizens of the European affiliated Caribbean areas, the Caribbean Program was originated in 1950 as a separate part of a larger program of technical cooperation and training in Puerto Rico.

5 Caribbean Commission, Education in the Caribbean, p. 95.

6 Caribbean Commission, West Indian Conference, Sixth Session, 1955, p. 79.

From 1950 through 1958 almost 800 persons from British, Netherlands, and French Caribbean areas received training in Puerto Rico. Fields of specialization included trade and industrial education, vocational teacher training in agriculture, community education, home economics, cooperatives, social work, public health, and others. In 1959 a new agreement extending and expanding the Puerto Rican training program as a whole, including the Caribbean Program, was concluded between the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the ICA. The Caribbean Training Program has thus helped to meet a need caused by a deficiency in vocational and specialized educational and training facilities in the European affiliated Caribbean areas.

Activities of the Caribbean Commission Secretariat in educational matters since the 1955 Session of the West Indian Conference have reflected some of the interests in this field expressed at this and other meetings of West Indian leaders. From January 1957 to April 1958, there was assigned to the Caribbean Commission Secretariat the UNESCO expert recommended by the Sixth Session of the West Indian Conference. He assisted in the establishment of a Clearing House within the Commission for instructional materials with Caribbean relevance and advised the Secretary-General and the Governments of the area on various educational problems. The Secretariat has also developed an extensive library of publications on various subject specialties, including education, and is an official depository for UNESCO publications. In 1958-59 it was preparing a bibliography on education in the Caribbean, which was to include sections on general education, instructional material, education serials, and annotations of laws dealing with education.

In addition, the Secretariat was receiving an increasing number of requests for materials to be used in schools and adult extension work, particularly in nutrition and health education, as well as for information on education in the area generally. It prepared a booklet, Opportunities for Study Abroad, and replied to inquiries for information and guidance from students interested in this subject. The Secretariat's Research Secretary, in charge of its Education and Home Economics work, provided consultative services in 1959 to Government of the West Indies Federation in connection with the latter's Conference on Social Development in the West Indies. The same type of assistance was accorded the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, through service by the Research Secretary on its Committee on General Education inquiring into and advising on that territory's educational organization and curriculum in 1959.

Of particular note has been the attention given by the Commission Secretariat to the matter of instructional materials related to

the Caribbean environment. In line with recommendations of the aforementioned 1954 and 1955 Conferences dealing with education, the Secretariat has devoted itself to studying instructional materials produced in the Caribbean territories and elsewhere in fields where there is a dearth of textbooks, with a view to adapting or translating them for use in various Caribbean territories. For example, it translated into English and French and distributed for adult education purposes several publications on nutrition produced in Puerto Rico. It was also engaged in 1958-59 in producing and distributing, in cooperation with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, a series of home economics booklets related to the Caribbean environment for use in schools and adult education extension programs, as well as a group of health education booklets known as the "Healthy Living Series" designed for the same use, in cooperation with the World Health Organization and the Government of Barbados. The latter series was being prepared in large easy-to-read type in English, French, and Dutch. In 1958-59 the Secretariat was also compiling a list of instructional materials with Caribbean relevance for use in schools and in adult education.

It was noted in a Commission publication early in 1959 that there is now a considerable amount of instructional material related to the Caribbean in use in schools, and to a lesser extent in adult education, in British and Netherlands territories. Materials for use in the schools are chiefly in reading, geography, history, and arithmetic. Nevertheless, it was observed that much remains to be done in many aspects of this work. In this connection, the Commission-sponsored Conference of Government Information Officers held in Surinam in March 1959 recommended the preparation of a geography textbook for the Caribbean as a whole, and the Commission Secretariat as a preliminary step requested governments to supply information on geography textbooks in use in elementary schools in the area."

In 1959 with the impending demise of the Caribbean Commission as organized, the future of regionwide consultation and cooperation in educational matters among the Caribbean areas retaining their affiliations with outside powers appeared to depend upon the materialization of the projected plans for its successor organization and on whether and how they would decide to use it in such matters.

7 Commission activities in the matter of instructional material related to the Caribbean is discussed in V. O. Alcala, Research Secretary, Caribbean Commission, "Instructional Material for Healthy Living," The Caribbean, 13: 34-35, 44, February 1959.