The Role of the Professions in a Changing World, 1971

THE COMMONWEALTH FOUNDATION

OCCASIONAL PAPER NUMBER XIII

THE ROLE OF THE PROFESSIONS IN A CHANGING WORLD

REPORT ON A CONFERENCE HELD AT THE PROFESSIONAL CENTRE OF SINGAPORE OCTOBER 197'

Explanatory Note the thirteenth in a series of 'Occasional Papers' published under the imprint of the Commonwealth Foundation. The aim is to ensure that the experience gained by citizens of the Commonwealth, to whom the Trustees of the Foundation make grants, becomes freely and widely available to professional colleagues working in relevant fields throughout the Commonwealth.

THIS is

It should be emphasized that the views expressed in this Paper do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Trustees of the Foundation, either individually or collectively.

Further copies of this Report may be obtained on application to the Administration Officer, Commonwealth Foundation, Marlborough House, Pall Mall, London SW1, England.

MARLBOROUGH HOUSE,

December 1971.

TERMS OF REFERENCE AGREED MEMORANDUM ON THE COMMONWEALTH FOUNDATION* (As published following the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Meeting of July 1965) A Commonwealth Foundation will be established to administer a fund for increasing interchanges between Commonwealth organizations in professional fields throughout the Commonwealth. It will be the purpose of the Foundation to provide assistance where it is needed in order to foster such interchanges.

2. The Foundation will be an autonomous body, although it will develop and maintain a close liaison with the Commonwealth Secretariat. Like the Secretariat, the Foundation will be accommodated at Marlborough House.

3. Within the broad purpose indicated above, the Foundation will include among its aims the following objects: To encourage and support fuller representation at conferences of professional bodies within the Commonwealth.

To assist professional bodies within the Commonwealth to hold more conferences between themselves.

To facilitate the exchange of visits among professional people, especially the younger element.

To stimulate and increase the flow of professional information exchanged between the organizations concerned.

On request to assist with the setting up of national institutions or associations in countries where these do not at present exist.

To promote the growth of Commonwealth-wide associations or regional Commonwealth associations in order to reduce the present. centralization in Britain. and individuals whose activities lie outside (s) To consider exceptional requests for help from associations the strictly professional field but fall within the general ambit of the Foundation's operations as outlined above.

4. The Foundation could usefully develop informal contacts with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. To avoid the risk of duplication with the activities of existing organizations concerned with cultural activities and the Press, the Foundation should not initially seek toassume any functions in these fields.

5. The policy of the Foundation will be directed by a Chairman, who will be a distinguished private citizen of a Commonwealth country appointed with the approval of all member Governments, and a Board of Trustees who should be expected to meet at least once a year. The Board of Trustees will Consist of independent persons, each subscribing Government having the right to nominate one member of the Board. These nominees, even if officials, will be appointed in a personal capacity. The Commonwealth Secretariat will be represented on the Board of Trustees by the Secretary-General or an officer appointed by him.

6. There will be a full-time, salaried Director who will be appointed, initially for a iëriod Of not more than two years, by Commonwealth Heads of Government collectively acting through their representatives in London, He will be responsible to the Board of Trustees.

7. The Director will require a small personal staff: general office services will be pr'ovided by the Commonwealth Secretariat.

8. It is hoped that Commonwealth Governments will subscribe to the cost of the Foundation on an agreed scale. Payment of the first annual subscriptions will be made as soon as the Director has indicated that a bank account for the Foundation has been opened. It is hoped that, in addition, private sources may be willing to contribute to the funds of the Foundation.

9. The accounts of the Foundation will be audited annually by the British Comptroller and Auditor-General, whose report will be submitted to the Board of Trustees. The financial year of the Foundation will be from July 1st to June 30th.

10. The budget of the Foundation will be subject to the approval of the Board of Trustees.

11. The British Government will draw up the necessary documents to set up the Trust and take any further steps needed to constitute the Foundation as a legal charity. *Reproduced,by permission of I-I.M. Sta.eionery Office, from Command 2714.

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Introductory Note IN the course of meetings in March and June, 1971, the Board of Trustees of

the Commonwealth Foundation agreed to sanction an award of £16,950 to provide for the costs of a representative Commonwealth conference on the role of the professions in the Commonwealth. At the close of their first quinquennium, the Trustees were moved to make this award on the grounds that grants so far committed to a total of upwards of £435,000 towards the creation of national multi-disciplinary Professional Centres and of Commonwealth Professional Associations dictated the need for a comprehensive review of activities and achievements in these fields.

At the time the conference took place there were six Professional Centres in existence and six more in contemplation. Thirteen Commonwealth Professional Associations had been brought to life or supported.

Of the existing Professional Centres, that in Singapore had already proved one of the most vigorous. The Republic was, moreover, a natural Commonwealth meeting ground. The officers of the Singapore Centre having readily offered their premises and services, it was decided to hold the Commonwealth Foundation Conference at their headquarters.

The Report which follows will, it is hoped, prove of interest to all those who see merit in present and future Commonwealth co-operation across the broad professional front.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS Terms of Reference of the Foundation Introductory Note List of Participants Final Communiqué

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Introductory Addresses Main Report

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Conference Papers (edited versions) Key-note address by Professor W. H. Morris-Jones The Professional Centre of Singapore The Kenya Professional Centre The Professional Centre of Jamaica The Professions in the Developing Commonwealth (j) Commonwealth Associations and Professional Education

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Postal addresses of Professional Centres

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LIST OF PARTICIPANTS Chairman Sir HUGH SPRINGER, K.C.M.G. Foundation Trustee for Barbados: Secretary-General of The Association of Commonwealth Universities Lead Speaker Professor W. H. MORRIS-JONES Director, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London University

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Professional Centre Representatives Barbados -

Fiji 'Ghana

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Guyana -

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Jamaica

Kenya

Mr C. S. NELON, F.R.C.S. (Medical School, Univrsity of the West Indies) Mr M. MUNRO (Chairman, Steering Committee, Fiji Professional Centre andFiji Association of Architects) -Mr HARRY SAWYERR, M.P. (President, Ghana ,Institute of Surveyors) Mr L. F. DRAYTON (Representative of the Steering Committee, Guyana Professional Centre) Mr R. C. BENTLEY (Director, Jamaican Institute of Management, and Chairman, Professional Centre) Mr E. L. SPENCE (Vice-Chairman, Jamaican Society of Quantity Surveyors and member of Council of Professional Centre) Mr GRAHAM MCCULLOUGH (Secretary, Association of Professional Societies in East Africa and Secretary of Kenya Professional Centre) Mr E. P. JOHNSON

(Past President, Association of Accountants in East Africa and Chairman, Kenya Professional Centre Management Committee) Page four

Malta -

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Professor S. BUSUTILL (Royal University of Malta; President Malta Federation of Professional. Bathes) Mr R. V. PIZZUTO (Secretary, Malta Federation of Professional Bodies)

Malaysia

Dr KESHMAHINDER SINGH (Malaysian Medical Association)

Nigeria

Chief 0. I. A. AKnEMI (Director, Nigerian Institute of Management)

Singapore

Professor Dr PHOON WAI ON (Chairman, Professional Centre of Singapore and Professor of Social Medicine, 'University of Singapore) Dr GrAM CHoo Hoo

(Honorary Secretary,, Professional Centre of Singapore and Past President of the Association of Veterinary Surgeons) Tanzania

Mr K. L. JHAVERI (President, Tanganyika Law Society)

Trinidad and Tobago

Mr L. H. MURRAY (Professional Centre Committee) MrE. B. PHIPPS (Professional Association of Engineers)

Uganda

Mr P. CARASCO (President, Professional Centre and Uganda Law Society) Mr G. W: KATATUMBA

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(Honorary Secretary, Professional Centre; Uganda Society of Architects) Zambia

Mr A. W. ANDERSON (Secretary, Professional Centre Committee and Zambia Institute of Architects) Page five

Commonwealth Professional Association Representatives Commonwealth Association of Architects Commonwealth Medical Association

Mr T. C. COLCHESTER, C.M.G. (Secretary) Dr A. GILMOUR

(Deputy Secretary) Commonwealth Association of Surveying and Land Economy Commonwealth Pharmaceutical Association

Mr R. STEEL

(Secretary) Mr A. HOWELLS, O.B.E.

(President) Rapporteur

Mr JOHN CHADWICK, C.M.G. (Director, Commonwealth Foundation) Conference Administration Officer Mr R. N. DAWSON (Commonwealth Foundation) Observers Dr A. J. MARAJ (Director, Education Division, Commonwealth Secretariat) ENCHE ABDULLAH BIN ABDUL RAHMAN

(Bar Council of Malaysia) Dr CHOON THIEM TATT (Malaysian Dental Association) Mr PUE ROCHANAPURANANDA (President, Royal Council of Social Welfare of Thailand)

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FINAL COMMUNIQUE Barbados, Thirty-one delegates from fourteen Commonwealth countries Fiji, Ghana, Guyana, Jamaica, Kenya, Malta, Malaysia, Nigeria, Singapore, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda, and Zambia and from four of the Commonwealth-wide professional associations representing architecture, pharmacy, medicine and surveying today concluded their discussions on 'The Professions in the Commonwealth'.

Under the chairmanship of Sir Hugh Springer, K.C.M.G., Secretary-General of the Association of Commonwealth Universities, the meeting expressed to the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Inche Rahim Ishak, who had opened the proceedings, its appreciation for the interest shown by the Government of Singapore in the conference. Delegates also welcomed the presence, as observers, of the Director of the Education Division in the Commonwealth Secretariat and of the President of the Royal Council on Social Welfare of Thailand.

Sponsored by the Commonwealth Foundation, represented by the Director Mr John Chadwick, the conference was held at the Professional Centre of Singapore at Outram Park. During the meeting a keynote address on 'The Role of the Professions in a Changing World', was delivered by Professor W. H. Morris-Jones, Director of the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London University.

After discussing the role and achievements of the six national multi-disciplinary Professional Centres and of the thirteen Commonwealth-wide Professional Associations so far assisted by the Commonwealth Foundation, the Conference went on to examine the status and responsibilities of national professional societies and their individual members.

A conference report will be published later. Meanwhile, the broad conclusions of the meeting can be summarized as follows: Many professions in many countries were indebted to the Foundation for its initiative in bringing national Centres and Commonwealth-wide Professional Associations into being.

As experience in Singapore and elsewhere had already proved, national Professional Centres could offer their members many facilities and services, particularly to the benefit of new, small professional societies. Centres could also serve as co-ordinating points for all professions in a given country, old or new. They could stimulate environmental and other inter-disciplinary studies and activities; strengthen links and improve understanding and rapport between the professional world, government, the field of education and the community at large. For this reason Centres should be located in the heart of a capital rather than in a site remote from the day-to-day life of the community.

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The conference endorsed the value of Commonwealth-wide Professional Associations as a further means of collating and disseminating professional information and know-how; of encouraging the growth of new nation? 1 professional societies in the developing world and of advising on the adaptation to local needs of degree and diploma courses, post-graduate and mid-career training; the establishment of new professional faculties at Commonwealth universities and as to the revision of textbooks and audio-visual teaching material.

These associations were seen to have a particularly useful role to play through their member societies in given areas of the Commonwealth. These and other activities were already interlocked with some of the existing Professional Centres, not least in respect of manpower planning surveys and the evaluation of qualifications.

As regards the status and responsibilities of individual professional men and women, the conference recognized the dangers of elitism and of the ivory tower approach to life. In the newer world professional people still form a thin upper layer of society. They are in many ways a privileged minority. It was essential that they should be seen to be fully integrated into the life of the community. Their • possession of certain knowledge and skills gave them a special responsibility to their fellow-men. This should lead them to put service to the community before thoughts of personal gain.

The conference also discussed the dangers of the brain chain of professionals, particularly from the newer world. The hope was that as more higher degree courses become available in newer countries, the brain drain temptation would slacken. But, at root, this problem was more likely to be resolved through national vocational fulfilment and adequate terms of service than by the imposition of sweeping restrictions.

The conference further recognized that, as the boundaries of knowledge constantly expanded, so there would be increasing need for higher and midcareer training and re-training; as well as for the movement within the Commonwealth on short-term visits and refresher courses of qualified professionals.

In conclusion, the delegates to the conference expressed to the Professional Centre of Singapore their gratitude for the facilities and hospitality which had been so generously provided. Those delegates whose countries had not yet formed national professional centres also emphasized the great benefits which they had gained from learning of the experience of colleagues in other countries where such centres were already operating.

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Singapore, October -29th, 1971.

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Text of Message to the Conference from The Prime Minister of Jamaica, The Rt Hon. Hugh Shearer The Government of Jamaica recognizes that a great deal of a country's strength rests on the development of strong associations which serve not only their own interests but in the long run the public interest.

Effective professional organizations can provide a useful pool of expertise which is universally recognized: can enhance the concept of professionalism by stimulating the continuing development of members and can protect both the profession and the public by self-regulation based on a recognized code of ethics.

Further, professional organizations can often give collective expression to the opinion of particular sectors on vital issues, thus contributing to the evolution of public opinion which is a necessary part of the democratic process. But the effectiveness of such groups is often limited by their resources, especially their ability to effect continuity of administration which is essential to the survival and development of any organization.

For this reason we welcome the establishment of a professional centre in Jamaica and recognize that by co-operation and the pooling of resources such a centre can lend individual strength to member organizations.

This will not only be of lasting benefit to each member organization but we feel sure that it will stimulate the development of expertise and the professional spirit throughout the country as a whole.

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Speech by Mr A. Rahim Ishak, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, at the Opening of the Conference on October 25th, 1971 I wish to thank the Chairman of the Singapore Professional Centre for having invited me to open this conference on 'The Professions in the Commonwealth'.

We in the Commonwealth share a common historical tradition, a common language, similar legal systems and a common bureaucratic tradition. These links, I am sure, will enable a fruitful exchange of ideas between those of you present at this conference.

The Commonwealth has been linked by common traditions. It was the consequence of the spreading of the British flag over the continents of the world.

The ebbing tide of colonialism has left a host of independent countries freely associated in the Commonwealth of Nations. We now seek to continue and to strengthen those bonds between us in a vastly changed world.

Our leaders, it may be noted, were often men who were trained in the United Kingdom. There, they imbibed the British values of tolerance, democracy, parliamentarianism and independence. They returned home determined to remake their countries in the same image. The years since then have proved that this is a more difficult task than was first imagined. The rhetoric of independence was hollow if it was not accompanied by the benefits of economic development and social integration.

The leaders then discovered that there was a vital need for expertise if the fundamental problems of nation building, economic progress, social transformation and national unity were to be overcome. This resulted in an awareness that there was a need to co-opt and develop expertise so that governments could function in the manner in which they should. This quest has led to an emphasis on the need for education. There has also been the co-option of the newer technocratic elite into the political and economic activities of the nation and the emergence of a second generation political leadership which instead of chanting the rhetoric which moves mountains, possesses the specialized skills which instead creates mountains, builds bridges and houses, and overcomes the draconian problems of developing societies.

This necessitates an understanding of the specialized features of the professionals in our societies. Their value to the government and to their societies arises out of their importance to the modernizing process. I therefore wish to suggest that any worth-while evaluation of the role of professionals in society can only arise after an understanding of the tools with which they are equipped.

The professional role, be it that of the teacher, the lawyer, the doctor, the engineer, and so on, requires a long training period during which relevant Page ten

expert knowledge and intellectual skills are acquired. This knowledge is embodied in a corporate body with particular objectives, for example, teaching, administering and protecting the legal order, curing the sick, or building new structures.

There is an ethical standard connected with this professional role, and the profession takes steps against violations of this standard. A profession, by virtue of its specialized knowledge, normally undertakes the policing of its own rules and regulations. Professions therefore tend to expect a high degree of autonomy. Concommitant with this is the expectation of service and commitment to the society to which they belong. It is this fundamental commitment which we in Singapore are gradually building on the basis of pride in successful nation-building. It is expected that professionals have a broader role in society than mere self-seeking private interests. This necessitates an awareness of the greater public need and an involvement in the affairs of the nation in which the professional lives.

I can assure you that to us in the Government of Singapore this is not airyfairy dogma merely for the benefit of listeners. It is of vital importance to the developing nations of the world. Skilled human resources tend to be scarce.

The professionally trained are therefore at a premium as their careers imply competence based on expertise. This gives them status and authority.

The tragedy has been that in new countries professionals all too often have not been committed to their nations but have viewed themselves as free agents capable of moving at any time to the developed countries in the West. This has led to an immense brain drain in developing countries. Skills acquired at much cost have been used in the developed countries rather than in the modernizing societies where they are most needed. This lack of commitment and unwillingness to be involved in the affairs of rapidly changing societies in their homeland has been a critical defect in the outlook of segments of the new technocratic elite.

It would be useful if those of you present at this conference could consider this problem which seems to beset the professions in developing countries. You are uniquely suited to discuss this critical problem as you possess a variety of expertise. A multi-disciplinary approach is necessary if we are to discover what it is that is lacking in the technically-oriented that prevents them from having an abiding commitment to their native countries. Is it because a long period of training, often in a developed country, leads to the divorce of the professional from his environment? Could it be argued that the over-training of professionals leads to an inability to absorb their skills and to provide the tools with which they are most familiar? Are the hopes and aspirations in the social, economic, political and cultural fields not being met and fulfilled?

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For if these are the arguments, then new educational systems need to be devised which would lead to training schemes aimed not at bringing the most modern advances but at providing the capacity to innovate in situations where a lack of skill, equipment and supporting manpower are present. Some consideration should also be given to the question whether governments should bond persons trained in such fields. These persons have obtained specialized skills at considerable economic cost to their nations and it may be felt that they should repay this obligation to their societies by service to the nation and not to their petty interests.

I observe that those of you present here are mainly from countries in the third world. We must be concerned that the cycle of poverty, low productivity, parochialism and ethnic, linguistic or tribal polarization is broken. The emerging professional sector must be viewed not as an alien group but as involved participants concerned with bringing the modernization process to their countries.

I believe that consideration to the role of professionals in the task of government should also be given. This may not be possible for any organization structured by training and professional skills. However, informal groups may consider whether or not they have played a relatively insignificant role in politics and administration. They should be aware that their skills are needed to create integrated societies which are economically advanced, socially cohesive and politically stable. Professionals must rise up to the challenge of remoulding their societies. They cannot be mere passive onlookers at a charade.

We in Singapore have attempted to co-opt the technically skilled into the realm of government and administration. The new Indonesian Cabinet has a preponderance of Ministers who are technocrats. It is essential that economists, engineers, doctors and architects should involve themselves in the affairs of their nations.

The era of the professional politician who knows merely how to rouse the disaffected and to lead devastating strikes is over. The ending of colonial rule has meant that merely stringent criticism is no longer enough. Governments must be able to deliver the goods. They must be able to create new societies which are dynamic and active. Time is a pressing factor as populations rise, cities swell and opportunity lags. This mood of immediacy is coupled with a search for genuine political independence and for an equalization of opportunity through the rapid expansion of economic activity and education, health and general welfare measures.

The professionals are a new class often in the midst of old societies. Most new states are mosaic tradition-bound societies, made up of countless pieces, each distinguished and separated from the others. The technocrats are an invaluable Page twelve

linkage group and herein lies their special utility in the development process.

We in the developing nations must give a more thorough consideration to the role of the professions in our societies.

Viewing the problems from a Commonwealth perspective, I wish to suggest that our peculiar problem is that there seems to be a brain drain from the newer members of the Commonwealth to the more established members.

At the same time, well-established British traditions seem to hinder the participation of professionals in the political life of their countries. Often they seem to feel that it is not in keeping with their professional role that they should indulge themselves in the raging controversies of the day. This has meant that professional associations have been insulated from the divisive struggle in their countries in the past. They have thus become separated from the search for the new utopia on earth.

Today, it is essential that our professional associations identify themselves with their environment. The associations formed by our professionals are characterized by specifically described functions and are open to all persons who possess the requisite specialized skills. These organizations should aim to create new sets of values not identified with any particular ethnic or linguistic group. At the same time, their broader commitment to their nation enables S them to utilize their skills in the most effective possible manner.

Professional centres which form a meeting place for such professional organizations enable the newer values of the emerging technocratic elite to converge and to obtain a public hearing. The ability to look at problems from a variety of perspectives and using varied tools of analysis, would mean that such professional centres could contribute to the solving of our urgent problems.

Your meeting here in Singapore is an excellent move towards co-ordinating the activities of such centres and of ensuring that progressive developments undertaken by individual centres receive the wider hearing and broader audience which they deserve.

It now gives me great pleasure to declare this conference open. .

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CONFERENCE REPORT INTRODUCTION

The Commonwealth Foundation is now close on six years old.

This was the first conference for which it assumed direct responsibility. By a happy coincidence the meeting took place in Singapore. For it was here, nine months previously, that Commonwealth Heads of Government had agreed to increase the Foundation's income from £250,000 to £350,000 per annum.

Twenty-eight Commonwealth governments now contribute to this fund.

The fact that the creation or maintenance of Commonwealth professional associations and of national multi-disciplinary professional centres stand high in the Foundation's order of priorities, was the main reason for this stock-taking conference.

Between March 1966 and June 1971, the Trustees of the Foundation had committed close on £435,000 to support for professional centres and associations. At successive meetings over the period they had repeatedly emphasized that, with the relatively small sums at their disposal, such projects must remain high in their 'order of interests'. Having sunk so much capital in these relatively novel ventures, the board thus felt that an assessment of their worth, in which grantee and donor could conjoin, might produce some useful dividends.

The Foundation was greatly indebted to Sir Hugh Springer, K.C.M.G., for his readiness to chair the conference; and to Professor W. H. Morris-Jones for his major contribution to the discussions

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BACKGROUND

The background to the Singapore Conference was this.

The Trustees of the Foundation had so far helped into existence six multidisciplinary professional centres in the following Commonwealth countries: Uganda Trinidad and Tobago Kenya Jamaica Malta Singapore They had aroused interest in the formation of further such centres in Barbados, Fiji, Ghana, Guyana, Malaysia, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia.

They had financed the expanding activities of existing pan-Commonwealth professional associations in the fields of medicine, architecture and deafness, namely: The Commonwealth Medical Association The Commonwealth Association of Architects The Commonwealth Society for the Deaf Since March 1966, they had helped to bring to life, with the full co-operation of relevant national professional societies the following further pan-Commonwealth bodies: Commonwealth Veterinary Association Commonwealth Association of Surveying and Land Economy Commonwealth Legal Bureau Commonwealth Pharmaceutical Association Commonwealth Magistrates' Association Commonwealth Association of Literature and Language Studies Commonwealth Association of (Town) Planners Commonwealth Nurses' Federation Commonwealth Council of Educational Administration Commonwealth Geographical Bureau There were also prospects for the creation of a Commonwealth Association of Librarians.

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Originally, the Singapore conference had been conceived as a review of progress solely in the professional centre field. Later, trustees decided to broaden the agenda to include the activities of Commonwealth professional associations.

Thus the meeting eventually faced the task of examining the place of the professions in a changing Commonwealth.

But since the majority of delegates represented national professional centres, actual or potential, it is logical to open this report with a summary of the discussions and conclusions under this head.

(1) PROFESSIONAL CENTRES What lies behind the professional centre concept? To quote from The Commonwealth Foundation: The First Five Years 1966-1971: 'The first professional centre opened its doors for business in Kampala in January 1968; that in Port of Spain early in 1969. Nairobi followed in 1970. In the course of the Heads of Government Conference in January 1971, the Foreign Minister of Singapore presided at the opening of his own country's centre. A further centre came into being in Jamaica in May. The latest recruit has been Malta. Meanwhile committees have been formed in Ghana, Guyana, Zambia, Barbados, and Fiji.

'It had never been in the minds of trustees that centres should develop into costly prestige projects. The aims of the board were fourfold: to promote local professional co-operation; to offer practical facilities by way of accommodation and shared secretarial services to groups of more often than not newly formed, small and poor professional societies; to encourage a joint professional approach to problems of education, training, relations with schools and universities; and to foster collective advice to Governments in the fields of legislation, manpower and development planning.

'Three stipulations made by the board when considering awards for this scheme have been first that a majority of the professions in any given country must be seen to be ready to join in their centre's work, second that each individual association must contribute according to its means and size, and third that all must seek to raise further funds locally from other sources.

'It was thought at the outset that rented premises would be all that a national centre could or need achieve. But there are already exceptions, resulting largely from local government support for the Foundation's initiative. In Trinidad and Tobago, for instance, the Government generously matched the trustees' original grant of L12,000 and offered the professional committee a free building site in the centre of the capital. The Government -

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of Kenya has likewise allocated a central site and the centre management committee has from its temporary headquarters launched an appeal for building funds. The University of Malta has provided land on its campus free of charge to enable the Malta Federation of Professional Bodies to build rather than to rent their modest premises. The Professional Centre of Singapore has taken a slightly different route. Accommodated at a very low rental thanks to the co-operation of the Government Housing Authority in one of the city's high-rise buildings, the centre's committee of trustees has encouraged individual societies to establish their secretaries in permanent one-room offices within the centre. So rapid has progress been in this respect since January 1971, that the board agreed only six months later to make a further capital grant to this centre of £10,000, thus enabling it to double the size of its accommodation.

'From this brief description, it will be seen that there is no stereotyped pattern for the development of these centres. Some will rent; some build. A few will attract matching financial support from their Governments; others may hope for help in kind from both the public and the private sectors. But in every case, the prerequisites remain the immediate appointment of a permanent and energetic co-ordinating secretary, followed by increasing support from the professions themselves as and when grants from the Commonwealth Foundation taper off.

'To date the board has invested close on £130,000 in this experiment.

Once trustees have received a report from the seminar to be held in Singapore in October of this year, they will be in a better position to assess the value of the project overall, the desirability or otherwise of expanding it, and its strengths and shortcomings.

'Risks there are and the Foundation has consciously accepted them. The oldest centre, that in Kampala has gone through lean and perilous times because of its inability to date to attract funds from outside sources. Progress in Port of Spain has been slowed by temporary political upsets.

'But viewing the project overall, some clear benefits emerge. In the first place, the creation of national centres has without question developed a new habit of professional co-operation. Individuals from seemingly quite unconnected walks of life have found through use of their centre as a collective meeting place how many problems they in practice share. The efficiency of small societies, which could not otherwise afford the services of a paid secretary, has materially improved. Educational leaders on the one hand and government departments on the other will gradually discover the benefits of a central point to which they can turn for collective professional advice. Centres have been used for inter-disciplinary seminars, as Page seventeen

advice and reception points for oversea visitors and, last but not least as a facility for Commonwealth professional associations in search of a convenient forum for one of their council or regional meetings.

'The enterprise is still a fragile one. Foundation grants cannot continue indefinitely. Nor should it be assumed that the creation of centres will become a ritual exercise to the automatic benefit of each applying country.

In the last resort everything must depend on the value which the various professional groups attach to their own centres; and on their ability so to increase their membership and to expand their collective activities that governments, educational bodies, and the private sector come to look upon the centres in their countries as long-term assets to the community at large.

'Even should the next five years produce some casualties, there is now evidence enough to show that others stand ready to step into the ranks.'

Against this background, each of the fourteen national delegates at the Conference presented a factual paper on the origins and activities of his centre or on current plans for its creation. A reading of these documents (three of which are reproduced as appendices to this report) shows how many aims and problems all these centres share.

They can be summarized as follows: Scepticism, at least at the outset, on the part of older established professions which often enjoy premises and a full-time secretary of their own, for the professional centre concept.

By contrast, enthusiasm among smaller and newer professional bodies for the secretarial and other facilities and services which they lack and which a professional centre can offer.

The question what constitutes a profession and how far 'down the line' eligibility for membership of a centre runs, not least when the auxiliaries or 'sub-professionals' are involved or when certain societies, e.g., Associations of Teachers include an important trade union element in their day-to-day activities.

The difficulty of devising a fair and adequate scale of membership fees which neither unduly favours nor penalizes small but relatively wealthy or large but poor (nursing being a case in point) national societies.

The siting of a centre in relation to the needs of professionals, academics and students.

The question what type and size of permanent staff a centre needs.

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The question whether to tent existing premises or to build from scratch.

The related question of the size of a centre, and whether it should start merely as a common meeting place or aim to offer a range of services, including office space, to individual societies.

Such matters as the need for a comprehensive reference library, as well as for minimum reception facilities, e.g., bar and kitchen which could produce additional revenue.

The problem of achieving financial viability by the time grants from the Commonwealth Foundation run out.

The related and urgent need for government and other local financial support and for national appeals to the private sector for help in cash or kind.

Finally, the issue of relations between professional centres, governments, schools, universities and the public generally.

All delegates to the Singapore Conference felt able to endorse the following definition, offered by the representative of Guyana, of the broad aims of a national professional centre: 'The aims and objects shall be: To set up in the Republic of Guyana a professional centre (hereinafter referred to as "the centre") which will serve as a headquarters of the guild. Such headquarters are to provide a permanent office and such other facilities and amenities as may be necessary.

To promote and enhance the status of professional bodies in Guyana.

To encourage and assist national professional bodies.

To encourage and assist person desirous of acquiring professional qualifications.

To encourage high standards of professional conduct. discussion of subjects f) To encourage the interchange of ideas on and interest. common of inter-disciplinary or To provide a professional library.

To provide premises for meetings of member associations as approved by the board.

To ascertain and declare the corporate opinion of member associations in such quarters as it is deemed from time to time to be desirable and to make or support representation to government and other appropriate bodies on questions affecting member associations or public interest.

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To encourage good relations and understanding between member associations and the public.

To develop and maintain co-operation with other similar professional centres in the Commonwealth and neighbouring countries.

'The centre's main raison d'être must be to promote the common good.

It must therefore provide guidance in the educational field to the university, technical institutes and schools, offer career guidance to students, stimulate such surveys as are likely to result in the assessment of community needs and give constructive advice on how those needs could best be satisfied.

It should assist government in the formulation of development policies and assist in their implementation within the boundaries of its competence and its constitution. By maintaining close relationships with other Commonwealth centres it will provide international co-operation at a level which is nongovernment but no less essential to the Commonwealth community.'

After each delegate had spoken briefly to his paper, the conference opened a general debate under the headings outlined below: To Rent or to Build?

Of the six centres so far in existence, three had firm plans for purposedesigned buildings. The remainder, whether of their own volition or from lack of sufficient funds, operated from small rented premises. Of the centres in contemplation some might receive from their governments the gift of an existing building or of a building plot. Others might be obliged to rent their premises.

While it was generally agreed that there could be no Commonwealthwide solution to this problem, it was noted that rents tended to escalate alarmingly, whereas the financing of a capital outlay could usually be arranged on a basis that enabled a centre to know with greater certainty what its future expenses would be. There were, however, other complicating factors, including tax; and each centre must act accordingly to its own national needs and resources. But whichever the solution, it was the view of most delegates that a centre should be sited in the heart of a capital and not on a remote university campus or in some residential suburb. Centres and the individuals who used them must be seen to be closely involved in the day-to-day life of the community.

Professional societj/ contributions to centres Here again discussion showed that there could be no single formula acceptable to all. Attention was drawn to the reluctance of some of the older established professional bodies, which already had headquarters of Page twentjy

their own, to contribute towards the running costs of a centre. Difficulties regarding the scale of contributions also arose when societies large in membership (nursing was a case in point) were made up of more than usually poor individual members. One thing seemed clear: namely, that however great the effort to increase membership fees, revenue from this source alone would rarely if ever lead to total viability. On experience gained to date this source of revenue could barely be expected to cover more than 50 per cent of annual running costs.

There was thus general agreement with the proposition that in addition to a basic annual membership fee per society or individual member, centres must also charge for services rendered. Indeed this aspect of a centre's work might gradually expand to include, e.g., the installation of a small printing press for the production at less than the local commercial rate of professional journals, seminar reports, etc. Here the conference noted with interest the list of services which the Singapore Centre was now offering its members viz: Permanent offices for member associations.

Meeting rooms/hall and related arrangements for meetings of member associations.

Secretarial assistance such as stencilling of draft minutes and newsletters, duplicating, addressing envelopes and posting them to member associations.

Liaison between one member association and another or with other organizations.

Assistance to professional organizations in formation so as to facilitate registration of such organizations.

Supply of routine information as required to interested parties.

Assistance to the public on questions of professional qualifications, training, etc.

Assistance in the organizing of international, regional or local conferences.

Publication of career booklets on the professions.

Possible printing facilities to cater for the needs of all member associations.

In addition to the services outlined above, the Singapore Centre was also exploring the possibility of providing insurance cover for its members at highly favourable rates in respect of, e.g., professional indemnity.

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Against this background, delegates agreed that every effort must be made by centres to increase and to charge for a broadening range of services. Further revenue might well be earned from the provision of regional conference facilities.

Criteria for membership of centres Here again it was agreed that each centre, actual or potential, must work out its own criteria in the light of local needs and susceptibilities. Yet two particular shared problems were emphasized. The first was the eligibility of sub-professionals for membership and the second whether to admit societies (of e.g., teachers), which were registered as trade unions or which had a large trade union element in their day-to-day activities. For the Foundation it was emphasized that the sub-professionals should be encouraged wherever possible to take up full or associate membership of all centres. On the other hand, organizations discharging the narrower function of furthering sectional interests should be excluded.

While some delegates drew attention to the conservative attitude of their older societies towards those newly formed; and others suggested a form of associate membership to cater for possible border-line cases, the conference agreed broadly to be guided by the following proposition namely that eligibility for membership of a centre should depend first on whether a particular society was bound by a code of ethics which placed service to the community before personal gain: and second, on whether its members enjoyed training at higher than school level, both tests being classical yardsticks of 'professionalism'.

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Prospects for financial viability Among the problems mentioned under this head were those of the failure of some wealthier national societies to co-operate, at least at the outset: of meeting recurrent costs once a building had been completed, and of the constant escalation of local rents and rates.

While some delegates urged that it should not be beyond the means of individual societies to increase their contributions, others pleaded the poverty of their associations, the competing calls on them for subscriptions to international and regional professional bodies and the sometimes onerous levies imposed by governments on individual professionals.

The general conclusion was that the accent must be placed increasingly on payments for services rendered rather than on fees. Some centres would clearly need help for longer and on a higher scale than others. Meanwhile Page twenty-Iwo

every effort must be made to obtain help in cash or kind from governments and from the local private sector. Apart from assistance over buildings, plots of land, peppercorn rents on existing premises or outright financial aid, one further contribution which governments might be persuaded to make would be through the loan, cost-free, of junior staff at, e.g., typist level, at least in the early stages of a centre's life.

Governments might also in time be persuaded, as and when centres were able to give a good account of themselves, to reduce the burden of levies (e.g., through registration fees) on professionals; or perhaps to feed back a proportion of the funds raised from this type of tax into the national centre concerned.

The conference accepted that Foundation grants to professional centres could not indefinitely continue. It must, therefore, be the prime responsibility of committees of management to make early and vigorous efforts to raise funds from other sources, bearing in mind that centres would be providing services which the local professions had not previously enjoyed. This in itself should justify members of those professions contributing more towards the costs of the services from which they benefited collectively. (e) Creation of further centres The representatives of Barbados, Fiji, Ghana, Guyana, Malaysia, Nigeria, Tanzania and Zambia, where the creation of centres was now being actively examined, expressed their appreciation for the helpful guidance which they had received from colleagues in countries where such centres already existed. Each described the progress made to date in his particular field, laying emphasis on such dangers as professional exclusivity; or of losing sight of the ethical wood in the trees of administrative detail.

One country, Zambia, pointed to problems arising from the fact that professional people and their headquarters were not always concentrated in a country's capital.

The representative of Nigeria presented a new concept of professional centres. This he described as 'a centre within a Square'. In his country there were upwards of fifty thousand professional men and women. It was now hoped to concentrate many professional society headquarters on a selected site within the capital. In the middle of that complex there might be a centre which could offer common facilities and services such as an auditorium, rooms for smaller professional societies, a dining hail and larger and smaller conference rooms.

The Nigerian concept led on to a discussion of the possible need in Page twentj'-three

larger Commonwealth countries for more than one centre. In India or Nigeria itself, for instance, there might eventually be room for such facilities in large cities outside the capital. Even in Britain it was not a mere pipe-dream to envisage the creation of a co-ordinating centre for the professions in the London area. But there must be limits and they were fast approaching to the spread of the Foundation's grant-making activities in this particular field.

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(f) Legal 1iabi1i0 for centre buildings It was accepted by the countries directly concerned that since grants received for building purposes came through the Foundation from its twenty-eight subscribing governments, some safeguards must be sought by the trustees in the unhappy event of a centre going into liquidation.

While it was agreed that such safeguards could only be formulated within the framework of the local law, the experience of the Council of the Kenya Centre which had taken legal advice in the matter, offered helpful guidance. As the delegates from Kenya explained, their own centre's articles of association included, subject to formal ratification by the Council, the following passage: 'If upon the winding up or dissolution of the company, there remains, after the satisfaction of all its debts and liabilities, any property whatsoever, the same shall not be paid to or distributed among the members of the company, but shall be offered to the original donors as shall have by donation or otherwise contributed to the capital funds of the centre, pro rata to their contributions, and subject to such donors having been satisfied shall be given or transferred to some other institution or institutions, having objects similar to the objects of the company, and which shall prohibit the distribution of its or their income and property among its or their members to an extent at least as great as is imposed on the company under or by virtue of clause 4 hereof, such institution or institutions to be determined by the members of the company at or before the time of dissolution, and if and so far as effect cannot be given to such provisions, then to some charitable object.'

The above-mentioned clause 4 reads: '4. The income and property of the company whencesoever derived, shall be applied solely towards the promotion of the objects of the company as set forth in this memorandum of association, and no portion thereof shall be paid or transferred directly or indirectly, by way of dividends, or otherwise howsoever by way of profit, to the members of the company.'

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Problems of national associations Apart from the issues described above, there was broad agreement on three further points: that to attract and to retain an adequate membership, all centres must offer an expanding range of services; adequate conference and (within reason) reception facilities; and above all a small but efficient secretariat. It was repeatedly emphasized that the key to the success of a centre was its secretary and/or manager. Such an officer must be a person of both energy and tact: a good administrator with the qualities of a businessman-cum-banker and with a flair for fund-raising. If the momentum of a newly formed centre was to be maintained, payment for the services of such officers must not be stinted.

One final point made was that before drawing up their long-term plans, centre management committees should take comprehensive advice from professional colleagues in the fields of, e.g., accountancy, surveying and architecture.

Closer co-operation between professional centres On the initiative of the delegation from Uganda, representatives of some of the existing centres met informally to study ways and means of improving communications between themselves. Among the recommendations put forward were that: Existing centres send to one another at least two copies of all publications issued by their member societies and that these be retained in the centre library for at least a month before being either given to the appropriate local society or to the university or to the national library; Existing centres send to one another newsletters or other centre organs issued periodically; Existing and future centres exchange copies of their constitutions, lists of services and charges, lists of member societies and their postal addresses and annual reports.

A fitting conclusion to this discussion on the administrative and financial problems facing professional centres is the following passage, contributed by the delegate from Fiji, on the wider benefits which a centre can eventually offer: 'For Fiji, the value of a centre has yet to come. The field of possible progress and benefit is so large that only an outline of the possibilities follows: Page twentjy-five

(a) To the professions by closer understanding of each other's work and contribution to the community and economy; by "educating" local people in the value of a bigger proportion of school leavers embarking on tertiary education for professional and sub-professional (or technical) training; by better liaison with overseas professional organizations, national, Commonwealth or international as needed by Fiji; by fostering support for mid-career training and refresher courses; by improving our collective professional skills and making them more readily understood by the public at large. (b) To the Dominion and its government by helping to influence the choice of well-selected aid in many fields in accordance with the country's requirements; by assisting with confidential statistical information to assist in projecting areas of needs or over-supply of skills, including manpower planning; by assisting with information on local/overseas education best suited to the country's needs; by assisting in upgrading skills in industries with which the professions are associated; by interchange of professional staffs with other countries willing to share in this; by creating a better understanding of the role of professions in a "developing" country, for the good of the country, its professions and its labour force; by setting up "fidelity funds" where needed for protection of the public; by better service to and protection for the public from professions where this is needed; by assisting with realistic planning for development plans. (c) Selfishiji by easing the work load on the honorary officers of the professional bodies; by improving legislation relative to the professions; Page twenty-six

by establishing a first-class professional reference library; by obtaining taxation relief for professions; and by searching for the professions new roles and more up-to-date codes of conduct for the late twentieth century in the light of commercial practices and pressures.'

(II) COMMONWEALTH PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS As stated at the start of this report, there now exist thirteen such Commonwealth-wide associations.

To quote once more from The Commonwealth Foundation The First Five Years, the origins, aims and achievements of these bodies may be described as follows: 'On December 1st, 1970, the chairman presided over a one-day meeting at Marlborough House of representatives of the eleven Commonwealthwide professional associations which had since 1966 been brought into being by the Foundation or had received financial help. Six further professions which had shown interest in this aspect of Commonwealth co-operation were invited as observers.

'The size of this gathering gives some indication of the impact already made by the Foundation on the professional community and of the support which it is receiving from professional societies and their leaders.

'The Commonwealth associations present at the meeting represented architecture, medicine, the veterinary sciences, the law, surveying and land economy, pharmacy, the magistracy, town planning, geography, literature and language studies, and die deaf. There were observers representing nursing, accountancy, public administration, engineering, librarianship, and educational administration. Of the latter, the educational administrators have since formed a Commonwealth Council based on the University of Armidale, New South Wales, and are now in receipt of a three-year Foundation award. Nurses representing twenty-three national societies have now formally voted to create their Commonwealth association. The librarians, who held a Commonwealth-wide meeting in London in September 1971, seem set on this same road. At the last moment, museum curators throughout the Commonwealth have begun to give thought to this concept.

'As the second five-year period opens, the board finds itself supported by twelve active Commonwealth-wide associations, with three others soon likely to seek entry to the "club".

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'This achievement, which owes much to the pioneering efforts of the Commonwealth Associations of Medicine and of Architecture, each created prior to the Foundation's birth, requires some fuller explanation.

'Having from the outset concluded that the Foundation must spend its limited income to the greatest multilateral benefit, the trustees next considered how they could best stimulate professional co-operation between the old world and the new. Just as political independence had created a new relationship between London and the earlier empire, so the professions in new States were increasingly severing their "branch" bonds with their parent societies in Britain. At the same time there seemed (with rare exceptions) to be a genuine desire on both sides to maintain, under a new "brand label", the old-established professional links; to uphold existing standards, codes of discipline and ethics, and indeed to strengthen exchanges of skills and knowledge asbetween equal partners.

'The majority of the professional bodies in Britain and the same may be said for Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have shown much sympathy for the problems faced by many of their colleagues in the newer world.

They have readily recognized the need to encourage the growth of autonomous national societies. They have generously responded to appeals for advice, not least in respect of training, education, and the introduction of new university, technical college and other courses adapted to local needs.

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'But, as the architects had shown in creating their own pan-Commonwealth Secretariat and Association, more still needed to be done to stimulate long-term as opposed to sporadic professional collaboration. It was from their experience that the Foundation developed its own programme.

1966, therefore, the British Veterinary Association was approached with the suggestion that representatives of veterinary bodies throughout the Commonwealth might be invited to Britain to discuss the possibility of creating a Commonwealth-wide Association. The proposal was accepted.

Late • in 1967 delegates from fifteen countries came together; discussed the advantages of closer professional co-operation and unanimously approved, ad. referendum to their national societies, a charter for a Commonwealth Veterinary Association. Encouraged by the prospect of a three-tear grant from the Foundation, the great majority of the societies represented quickly ratified the charter; agreed to contribute within their financial means to the Association's funds and requested a fact of some significance the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association to assume responsibility for running the Association's secretariat from its professional headquarters in Ottawa.

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'The broad aims of this Association are worth quoting since they provide, mutatis mutandis a pattern for all other Commonwealth professional associations since formed.

'Briefly they are: to promote within the Commonwealth the interests of the veterinary and allied sciences; to maintain the honour and traditions of the profession; to effect the closest possible links between member associations; to facilitate the dissemination of professional knowledge and information; to encourage the creation of a national Veterinary Association in any Commonwealth member country where none exists at present; to promote the interchange of veterinary surgeons and students.

'To these aims other more recently formed associations have, through experience gained, added references in their several charters to the need to foster appropriate standards of education; "to evaluate educational standards with the aims of co-ordinating rights of professional practice, and of facilitating reciprocity of qualifications", or again to foster an appointments advisory service and the development of research and technical information services.

'By the close of its fifth full financial year, the Foundation had committed £149,000 of its funds to this particular venture. On average, awards have initially been spread over three-year periods at the rate of £10,000 per annum.

'Such grants have for the most part gone towards the maintenance of the small, central secretariat required by each association; to the financing of occasional meetings of its peripatetic board of education, executive committee, and full council; the promotion of regional seminars, and towards advisory visits, occasional travelling fellowships, professional interchanges, and the circulation of newsletters. Today seven of the existing secretariats are housed in London; three in Canada; and one each in Australia and Uganda. In time the concentration of activity in London may diminish. This at least is the hope and aim of the Foundation.

'With so high a percentage of its funds sunk in a single enterprise, the board must of course constantly ask itself is this worth while? Could awards not be made to better purpose? Over what period should they continue? What prospect is there of the majority of these associations ever being able to stand on their own financial feet?

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'There are of course risks. They have been deliberately accepted. One hoped-for association has failed to materialize. Most, since they depend in the last resort on the willingness of the members of often very poor national societies to subscribe, will be hard put to it in the foreseeable future to achieve financial independence. This will be truer still in respect of nurses as and when they join the fold.

'There was, however, no doubt as to the feelings of all those who took part in the London meeting referred to in the opening paragraph of this passage. Their discussions ended with the adoption of a resolution to Commonwealth Heads of Government, shortly to meet in Singapore. In part this read: ,,We agreed unanimously that these associations have an increasingly important part to play in the field of practical Commonwealth co-operation.

Accepting the major financial contribution which the Commonwealth Foundation is making to our efforts to improve training and the interchange of skills and experience throughout the Commonwealth, we remain conscious of the need to make our pan-Commonwealth associations self-sustaining at the earliest possible date.

"Each of us is making determined efforts to obtain funds from other sources. Meanwhile, national contributions received through local membership fees to our various associations are bound in the short term to be small.

"We thus express the hope that, in the interest of maintaining this valuable form of co-operation, Commonwealth Heads of Government will, at their forthcoming meeting, feel able to augment the Foundation's current income so that the activities of the Commonwealth professional associations may continue to be sustained."

'As to practical achievements to date, it may seem invidious to single out particular professions. But some examples are worth quoting.

'The Commonwealth Association of Architects, for instance, has pioneered new textbooks suited to the needs of schools of architecture in the developing Commonwealth; has launched a scheme for the Commonwealth-wide accrediting of such schools with a view to increasing professional interfiow; created a Commonwealth Board of Architectural Education, and initiated studies between deans of architectural faculties, particularly in Africa.

'The pharmacists have devised a Commonwealth code of ethics and a national reception system to assist those travelling within the Commonwealth on professional business. Long-term studies have been launched on drug Page thirt'y

control and into the standard and content of a degree course in pharmacy which might eventually be recognized throughout the Commonwealth.

'The surveyors for their part have displayed great energy in organizing seminars in Africa and the Caribbean, at which considerable progress has been made in ironing out common problems of training and education.

Thanks to the efforts of this Association, seven new national surveying societies have been brought to birth in the developing Commonwealth.

The Association has also made studies of manpower requirements and recruitment problems in individual countries; published a handbook on the surveying professions throughout the Commonwealth; collected information on the form and operation of statutory and other controls regulating the practice of the surveying professions, and established an educational advisory service under which visiting boards can be appointed to advise universities and other educational bodies.

'Thus, the concept of pan-Commonwealth co-operation through a steadily growing number of professional associations has already made its mark, not least in the education and training fields. As the following excerpt from an article in the Round Table for November 1971 suggests: "Local needs, including those of pride, called for decentralization which when well managed could preserve from elimination or even from erosion In the the legacy of standards as established in the United Kingdom. s last few years a host of new Commonwealth professional association have come into being. This manifests the classic model of basing closer association on recognition of independence; it also has the effect of reinvigorating London's organizational role. Each of the new bodies has actively concerned itself with the question of reciprocal recognition of qualifications, aspiring explicitly or implicitly to agree a 'Commonwealth standard'." .

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'At their latest meeting in June 1971, trustees reviewed the achievements of the Commonwealth associations. In their opinion some could hope to achieve short-term viability thanks to the natural wealth of their membership and to their influence with Governments and industry. Others might well need financial support for a long time ahead. The conclusion reached was that no rigid cut-off date to grants could be imposed at this stage of development. Each case would have to be judged on its merits.

'Whatever the future holds, trustees can take some pride in these achievements. For the momentum they have stimulated, the goodwill and the desire to co-operate, can never be entirely lost.'

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and T. Johnson.

The Round Table, November 1970, p. 393.'A Commonwealth of Learning', W. H. Morris-Jones

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To all of which 'it might justifiably be added that the pan-Commonwealth Associations themselves further, one. of' the general aims of governments that is to promote the efficient working of their, national professional societies.

To ensure that the views and experience of the,Commonvrealth professional associations were adequately represented at the Singapore conference, the President of the Commonwealth Pharmaceutical AssociationS and the secretaries of the Commdnwealth Medical Association, the Commonwealth Association of Architects and of-the Commonwealth Association of Surveying and Land Economy were invited to attend. Each presented an illuminating paper.

Reasons of space alone dictate the reproduction at the close of the report of two only of these documents..

When introducing their papers, the four delegates emphasized the following main points: Professions throughout the commonwealth were in a constant, state of , evolution. Older established societies could learn increasingly frohi the new.

As one means of 'defating -the brain-drain'-there must be ever increasing emphasis on locally available undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate courses geared to local conditions and needs.

Fargreater attention must now be paid to the changing patterns óf postgraduate -education and to the grbwing -need for mid-career training and re-training.

Thdre might ell be a case for conVerting some existing senior travelling fellowships into home-based sabbatical periods of 'reflection leave' , More attention should be paid to the use of audio-visual techniques in teaching in undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing education. This in itself would involve a new hard look at basic teaching methods.

One of the most promising activities' of the Commonwealth professional associations to date had been in the- educational field through such vehicles as boards of architectural and surveying education. The work of these boards was both supranational and disinterested: They encouraged the adaptation of 'western' degree and diploma courses' to suit national' aspirations and resources.

Indirectly they helped the emergence of new national professional societies.

At .the same time it was emphasized that different professions, and in conseqience professional asdciations, had widely differing responsibilities in teaching, examining and maintaining official registers of their members. In medicine for example, none of these functions was performed by national bodies- or by the relevant Commonwealth association.

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The developing experience of Commonwealth-wide professional associations already showed that they had a 'plus mark' when judged against their international counterparts. The latter often suffered not only from size of membership but from a lack of that cohesion in educational techniques on which the smaller Commonwealth grouping could still pride itself.

When the time came to put recommendations into practice the operations of a professional board of education might admittedly prove costly. But this was a service actively sought by national organizations. Such boards had, moreover, already proved to be an excellent means both of bringing the academic world into closer and more continuing contact with the practitioners: and of promoting professional mobility.

A further task lying ahead for the Commonwealth associations was to help in finding solutions in each developing area to the problem of increasing the supply of fully trained sub-professionals and technicians.

The associations also looked on it as one of their duties to make more widely known to the public throughout the Commonwealth the skills which each profession had to offer. For it was on the quality of the professional sector of the community that sound economic development largely depended.

It was axiomatic and fundamental to the purposes of the Foundation that the associations should encourage the birth and development of strong national professional societies. From a supranational stance, their influence could be brought to bear to secure appropriate recognition of the need for professional skills. This, in turn, involved the assessment nationally of professional manpower availability and needs, and the promulgation of standards as guidelines in a continuously evolving situation. Without such data educational programmes could not be adequately planned.

As new skills and techniques were constantly emerging, it must also be a task of the associations to do all in their power to maintain professional competence. This in turn re-emphasized the need for programmes of mid-career training and re-training, which were often difficult to set up in countries where the professional body concerned was small.

In many of the areas of operation referred to the associations must work closely with national professional centres.

No Commonwealth-wide association could find the answers to all these problems. Moreover, conditions varied widely from one country to another.

Such indeed were the infinite gradations in the processes of development in varying professions that each association must work out its own long-term programmes. All, however, would hope that the Foundation's generous Page 1hir1y-three

support to date would not be cut off at a point in time when their work was beginning to show positive returns.

In a general discussion questions were raised as to how the Commonwealth associations married in with the activities of regional professional groupings, Commonwealth or international: and whether there was not in practice considerable over-lapping into the fields of relevant international organizations.

Answering this criticism the Commonwealth Association representatives emphasized the value of regional as opposed to Commonwealth-wide and international conferences or seminars, not only because they cost less, but also because problems could be more rapidly identified against a regional background.

The regional representatives of a Commonwealth association were, moreover, often in a better position than its central secretariat to take on the task of 'progress chasing', often in co-operation with one or more professional centres in their area.

As to possible conflicts of activity with international organizations it was worth quoting, as applicable across the board, the comment from a senior international civil servant that 'Commonwealth educational conferences start where UNESCO conferences end'. There was no desire on the part of the Commonwealth associations to take the bread out of the mouth of international professional organizations. Indeed, full-scale international co-operation must be the final goal. Meanwhile one must work with the tools at hand. The Commonwealth offered a practical framework for co-operation. For within it could be found a wealth of shared experience. Commonwealth countries could, for example, get to grips with common professional problems far more rapidly than was the case in an international context. Land tenure systems in Africa offered a good example. The Commonwealth countries concerned could discuss their problems from a common base: but once discussions broadened out to include countries formerly under French control, differences of law, education and techniques at once lessened the chances of achieving practical results.

The conference also noted the increasing tendency for Commonwealth delegates at international gatherings to meet separately as a group in the course of such conferences. This is in itself underlined the advantages which the functional Commonwealth enjoyed over the international comity in terms of speed of action and instinctive understanding.

The conference also discussed the role of professional associations in collating and disseminating knowledge and in organizing mid-career training courses in third world countries. Delegates noted with interest the terms of reference of the recently created Commonwealth Fund for technical co-operation. They expressed the hope that some support might now be offered by the Fund in such areas as the exchange of teaching staff between university faculties: Page thir1y-four

the printing and distribution of career pamphlets, and the production of booklets describing the availability and standards of technical and mid-career training courses at establishments in various regions of the Commonwealth.

Above all the conference was preoccupied by the uncertain financial future of the Commonwealth associations. As in the case of centres, the revenue gap might gradually be narrowed by all-round increases in national membership fees. But many of the national societies were desperately poor and even some of the supposedly wealthy ones were in deficit. In addition there were competing demands for contributions to local and international organizations which, more often than not, had preceded the birth of the pan-Commonwealth bodies. No other trust or agency would be likely to assist the professional associations so long as the Commonwealth Foundation survived. Thus, however hard the associations strove to diversify their sources of revenue it seemed inevitable that new sources of funds would never wholly replace the support currently offered by the Foundation. Delegates thus expressed the strong hope that the Foundation would find it possible to continue its support to Commonwealth professional associations for some years ahead. They felt that it would be a grievous loss to the professions throughout the Commonwealth if, for want of continued backing, the encouraging and practical achievements which could even now be seen to be following the birth or growth of so many of the associations were to lose momentum, thus dashing the hopes for still further Commonwealth co-operation in a period of continuing change.

Meanwhile, there was clearly scope for close and increasing co-operation in many fields between national professional centres and pan-Commonwealth associations.

(III) THE ROLE OF THE PROFESSIONS IN A CHANGING WORLD At the mid-point of the conference, Professor W. H. Morris-Jones presented his keynote address under the title 'The Role of the Professions in a Changing World'. The edited text of his paper is reproduced below.

While the address merits reading in extenso, the author will perhaps not take it amiss if an outsider lights on the following passage as the centrepiece to the arguments advanced.

'This', as Professor Morris-Jones put it, 'is the stage as it is set for us: changing sets of professions changing their situation in relation to societies in change. This is universal; no country is exempt, no profession is unaffected.

Here already is one basis for the associations and centres alike: even if there Page thirty-fiv

were- no developing countries or newer states, there would be a case for acoining together .both of several professions within a country and of men of a single profession drawn from several countries. How are you adjusting: your educational syllabus, your training methods, your entry qualifications, your registration: procedures? Or again, the other set of problems: how 'are you handling .that "side-shoot" occupatidnal 'group stemming out from. the parent body? How do rou avoid internecine war ith- that neighbouring professional body? How has the argument with government over, professionál representation on this or, that advisory council been resolved? How do you come to terms with the changing forms of professional pradtice or, more widely, with the changing structures within which professional work takes place? On all this there are notes to be ,usefuJ.ly compared, lessons usefully.to be learnt though of course since there are also features specific • to each profession and specific to each country there cannot be identical solutions.'

Discussing as an example the position of academics in relation- to-the process of 'professionalism', the author urged that sociologists should pay increasing attention to the study of professionalism, particularly through cross-country comparisons. The professions were in an increasing state of evolution .due to the widening technological explosion. Knowledge, and hence :skills, were growing faster -than ever before. All this raised serious problems, particularly in the newer world where-clashes seemed inevitable between the owners of special knowledge and the community at large. How to manage a 'knowledge monopoly' was a problem alike for governments, individual prbfessionals and professional centres and associations.

The device of the charter, added Professor Morris-Jones, was no longer the sole answer in new states. Here the government was often the initiator of new codes of conduct and -standards and of the shaping of,new professional societies simply because it was as often the sole or major employer of professional labour. Professional man in short was tending to become 'organizational man'. But the danger remained that he was still privileged and stood far above the conditions under which lived the rest of the community. It would be a calamity if, through failure to ally the possession of skills to the needs of the community 'the baby of special knowledge is thrown out of a society along with the bathwater of detested privilege'and resented monopoly'.

The role of the older national professional societies, of centres and Commonwealth-wide associations alike must therefore, in the author's view, - be 'to drop the ideology of traditional professionalism and confront without either prejudice or cynicism the facts of change'. The English societies should beware of recommending their institutions unchanged as desirable export models. Centres should not merely rely on 'lines of supply by air-drops from -

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indigenous needs. Far from the old world endeavouring to dictate standardized practices; the form which new professional societies should take, or the content of their educational programmes, every effort was being made to provide advice, where sought, on how to adapt training and education to the local situation.

The delegate from Nigeria further questioned the suggestion that politicians brought pressure to bear on the professions, or that reforming initiatives affecting the professions had to come from governments. This might be true of some countries. But in Nigeria professional men, even within the government machine, did not look upon themselves solely as bureaucrats. They gave visible proof of their loyalty to their professional associations and would resist any attempt by government departments to interfere in matters of professional ethics. In short, professional man in Nigeria was not 'organizational man'.

For the Commonwealth Association of Architects it was urged that there must be a distinction between resisting a government for resistance sake and taking a conscientious stand whenever a professional ethic was threatened.

While agreeing with the speaker's warning of the dangers of elitism, professionalism could be looked upon as the leaven to authoritarianism. Whatever the form of government, professional men and women should be in a position to stand up and speak for private and ethical rights. As regards references to nineteenth-century professional outlooks lingering on in Britain, it was paradoxically the case that the liveliest and most imaginative thinking on professionalism seemed to be shared between the old and the very new countries of the Commonwealth. It was in the 'middle layer' countries that conservative attitudes still held.

Further points made in the general debate were that it would be dangerous to assume that the professions in the Commonwealth tended to become inwardlooking. They had their part to play in advising on national development.

They were also concerned that, with so many students now receiving their basic qualifications in an ever-increasing number of countries, governments should pay closer attention to the question of devising and recognizing a basic standard.

Later the conference considered in more detail some of the issues affecting professional centres and associations to which Professor Morris-Jones had referred in his address viz: (a) Education and training A plea was made that professional men must in future be better educated in the social sciences. This meant that schools must be geared to help at the lower levels.

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outside'. Commonwealth associations should show, a willingness to understand the problems of theirmember societies in the political and social context within which the, latter had to operate. It was as important, if not more so, that information and ideas should circulate among all the member, countries as it was to disseminate it from a single centre to the periphery. Associations and centres should conjoin as generating stations pumping their ideas and experience into a common pool.

The tasks, concluded the author, were difficult and complex. .But the Commonwealth framework imperfect though it might be, was still the best vehicle available for mutual help, hard thinking and plain talking on an international scale.

In a general discussion on the key-note address the Chairman of the Professional Centre of Singapore drew attention to the fact that his university, already encouraged its teachers to offer their consultancy services to the private sector, thus helping to bridge the gap between the grass roots and the ivory tower. He supported the speaker's plea that there should be comparative studies of the role and behaviour of 'various professions. Such studies would help professional men in, the newer world to, find their own place in an evolving society.

Some critical comments were, however, voiced. From Guyana, for instance, it was emphasized that the'professions themselves rather than government had often brought about 'changes in the professional structure within the community. It was indeed the duty of the professions towards their own societies that pressure should from time to time be exercised on' the administrative machine. Another speaker referred to the possible danger' of a degree of 'de-professionalization' should professional organizations, when dealing with government about terms and conditions of service of their members, come to regard themselves or come to be regarded by government as occupying a purely trade union position. This could well lead to the destruction of their influence as a professional body advising on wider 'matters affecting not only the profession but the community 'it served.

From the Commonwealth Association of Surveying and Land Economy, there was strong criticism of the suggestions in the address that British professional bodies still clung: to nineteenth-century,concepts, and that they were seeking to export British models' of organization. In fact, nearly all professions in Britain had taken positive steps in recent years ,to gear themselves to the needs of modern society, and were far less conservative than similar bodies in some other countries. In any event, the governing body 'of CASLE wa drawn mainly from developing countries and included only ,a minority of British representatives; and the Associationhad a positive policy of helping the profession in developing countries to evolve in a manner that best suited .

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It was also suggested that smaller developing countries stood in need of three types of postgraduate training: full postgraduate courses overseas wherever local facilities were lacking; re-training courses of up to six months within the country or in neighbouring countries; short, annual, locally run vocational classes.

On all these matters, professional centres should be well geared to offer advice to governments.

It was further urged that either the Commonwealth Foundation or the Commonwealth Fund for Technical Co-operation should investigate the need for mid-career training and re-training facilities in those countries where such facilities were not yet available in local universities or colleges. The problem should be viewed in the light of the needs of the professions generally.

At this point the representative of the Commonwealth Secretariat briefly described the ambit of operation of the newly created Commonwealth Fund.

To date its officers had been unable to consider ways and means of assisting the professions through centres and associations. But under their terms of reference there would be no barrier to oversea experts advising on or conducting training courses in the newer world. One of the basic purposes of the Fund was to promote training and exchanges between Third World countries. Thus, many of the suggestions made in discussion would fall within its ambit. As centres and associations developed and sought to embark on new projects which might prove beyond the Foundation's resources there might well be a role for the Fund to play in their support. In return both centres and associations could assist the Fund by drawing attention to the availability of local experts.

After the conference had noted this statement with satisfaction, the further suggestion was advanced that both centres and associations might influence governments to provide training courses for artisans. In, for instance, the field of engineering this type of training could bring about a marked increase in skills and thus in output. The proposal could be seen as one means of helping to upgrade the status of workers at the lower technical levels. Another point repeatedly emphasized was that, wherever possible, education and training should be provided locally against a man's own social background.

This in turn would help to reduce the brain drain threat. It would also avoid the need for a professional man, after receiving his basic qualification overseas, to sit a local examination on his return home in order to make his skills marketable within his own country.

An interesting development mentioned by the delegate from Tanzania was that arrangements had been introduced recently at the University of Dar-esPage thirt'y-nine

Salaam under which a senior professional representative sat on the board of each relevant faculty as an administrative adviser. The university also laid great emphasis on the marriage between academic and practical experience.

Thus law students in the first year of their degree course spent a month's vacation working in private chambers. In their second and third years they were attached to the chambers respectively of the Attorney-General and of a High Court judge. By these means older members of the legal profession were themselves being indirectly re-trained thanks to the experience they gained from direct contact with the students.

In further discussion on training and education problems it was suggested that some of the Commonwealth professional associations might be able to organize refresher courses through the national societies in membership. One present drawback was that the private professional sector rarely got a look-in when the opportunity arose for a member of a particular profession to take up a training place overseas. As things stood, such offers were almost inevitably reserved for the professional civil servant. On this latter point, the delegate from the Commonwealth Association of Surveying added that his association had already created a fund to enable younger surveyors in developing countries to obtain further training overseas.

One further problem referred to was the need for governments, whose students still had to go abroad to obtain a basic qualification, to show readines to recognize a foreign degree subject to its being of a reasonable standard.

It was also suggested that centres might have a role to play by educating the public about professional education, e.g., through lectures to senior classes at schools and to students at universities.

Nor, it was emphasized, should the sub-professions be neglected. Professional associations could well advise governments as to sectors in which further training was required. A corollary of this was that the professions themselves must then be ready to recognize the fruits of such training, e.g., by creating a class of membership and a special status for sub-professionals so trained; or, as in Britain, by fostering the formation of affiliated bodies. The question of the nomenclature of auxiliaries was also raised. The avoid confusion in the sub-professional field it was suggested that Commonwealth countries might wish to think of adopting the United Nations device of referring to 'professionals' on the one hand and to 'technicians' on the other. This, at least, had the merit of simplicity. (b) Equivalence of standards The delegate representing the Commonwealth Association of Architects spoke of his Association's experience regarding the inter-recognition of qualifications.

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He agreed with his colleaguein the pharmaceutical and medical fields that a distinction must be drawn between the phrases. 'equivalence of standards' on' the one hand: and the 'identity of content' of standards on the other.

To 'this comment,, the Chairman of the Commonrealth Pharrnaceutiéál' Association added that tli term 'reciprocity', which had in the past, meant reciprocal recognition by two countries of their qualification without impediment, 'was no longer applicable. Due to varying standards of pharmaceutidal education and practice throughbüt the Commonwealth itwas-more appropriate td refer to the recognition df pharmaceutical qualifieation with or without conditions. The procedure of 'his Association would be to set up an Adjudicating Cornuitte'e consisting of three or four specialist pharmacists represeniing as far as possible the three thain branches of pharmaceutical practice. An applicant for registration who possessed a degree or diploma obtained in another country would first submit documentary evidence for preliminary consideration. The Adjudicating Committee would study the content of the course and the standard of the examination to decide whether the first degree in pharmacy held by the applicant provided an adequate 'basis for registration either 'as• it stood or when supplemented by examination and possibly by a further course of study in the country in which the applicant wished to practice.

If satisfactory, the applicant would be invited for interview. At the oral inquiry the Committee would assess the general pharmaceutical knowledge of the applicant, his knowledge of pharmacy in the country concerned and, where applicable, his fluency in the language of the country. The applicant would then be informed what further studies, examinations or practical experience were necessary, before his registration. .The Secretary,' C.A.A., endorsed this apprbach to reciprocity. A free movement of acceptably qualified professional people between Commonwealth countries, based on known arrangements for accrediting qualifications was preferable and more liberal than reciprocity in the narrower sense of negotiations agreed between countries for acceptance of one another's qualifications: Free trade in short was better than reciprocal treaties. The habit of using British recognition lists had historically served a valuable purpdse in facilitatitig professional mobility-but it was axiomatic with the C.A.A. and: probably with similar organizations that, each country should fix its own standards according to its own needs and resources. At the same time the C.C.A. had published a list of accredited examinations and schools reaching an agreed Commonwealth standard. The standard served as a target for countries which wanted an internationally known standard, facilitating professional r obility and was of help to individuals, institutes, universities and. governments.

But the preparatioii and monitoring of a Commonwealth list of accredited qualifications touched on controversial points as to the nature of professional .

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standards and how they could be defined. It was also a point for debate whether, even if a standard could be defined, the act of definition might tend to impose uniformity contrary to national views and interests. Where professional qualifications rested on university degrees and diplomas this also impinged on academic freedoms. The Commonwealth Association of Architects had published a statement on the objectives of setting standards and how Commonwealth recognition should be approached. This, it was considered, left national discretion unfettered and teaching institutions free to evolve new approaches and new ideas in professional education. Even within a single country, local standards of degrees and diplomas in a particular subject might vary quite widely within certain limits and yet still be acceptable for national registration or Institute membership. This flexibility was also possible Commonwealth-wide.

The delegate representing surveying added that his Association's experience had been very similar. There was clearly a need for some system of evaluating qualifications. Thus, the Association had worked out a reasonable Commonwealth standard against which individual qualifications could be tested. But there still remained the need that a man, who had qualified in one country and then wished to practise elsewhere, should become familiar with local laws and practices (and this might involve passing some local examination or test) before being accepted as competent to practise in a new country. This was moreover consistent with the general practice in the professions of, e.g., architecture, engineering and surveying that academic qualifications must be augmented by practical training and experience before a person was fully qualified in the professional sense.

For the Commonwealth Secretariat it was suggested that the professions had an obvious role to play in this field. Among other things they might wish to examine the experiment of the International Baccalaureat; the work of the University Academic Board and the studies being undertaken by the Commonwealth Secretariat on request from successive Commonwealth Educational Conferences. (c) Centres and the communitj Among the suggestions made were that professional centres could play an increasing role in the inter-disciplinary field, acting above all as catalysts and educators of the community in regard to such matters of moment as the environment and human ecology. While self-advertisement by individual professions was still generally regarded as improper, centres could well educate the public on collective professional problems and activities. To this the delegate from Barbados added that his government already encouraged professional men and women to lecture to school leavers. More might be done by others in this field.

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(d) Manpower planning It was generally accepted first that plans for expanded education and training programmes would be worthless unless they were justified in manpower terms; and second that most current manpower planning surveys were still very hit-and-miss affairs. Clearly such surveys would be useless unless revised and updated at least every second year. This was primarily a task for governments.

But professional centres and associations could assist from the information on their files since this was often far more detailed than the statistics held by government departments.

Final Session of the Conference Press release Subject to a number of amendment the conference approved a press release which had been submitted to it by a drafting committee. The text will be found at the start of this report.

Concluding remarks On behalf of all the representatives present, the delegates from Guyana and Tanzania expressed thanks to the Commonwealth Foundation for its initiative in convening what had proved to be a highly successful meeting. The discussions had shown the value of contacts between professional men within the Commonwealth. The thanks of the Conference were also due to its Chairman for his skilful steering of the discussions, as well as to the Director and Administration Officer of the Foundation. Last but not least a warm tribute must be paid to the Chairman and the hard-working staff of the Professional Centre of Singapore for all their help and generous hospitality.

For the observers present, Dr Maraj added his congratulations to the Commonwealth Foundation for a conference which had been both excellently organized and fruitful in results. The representative of the Royal Social Welfare Council of Thailand added that although a silent participant he had greatly benefited from the discussions and would now be in a position to draw up proposals for the possible creation of a Professional Centre in Thailand.

Finally, the Chairman of the Professional Centre of Singapore, Professor Phoon Wai On expressed his pleasure at the honour done to Singapore by the Commonwealth Foundation in selecting his centre as the site for this important meeting.

In bringing the discussions to a close the Chairman, Sir Hugh Springer, expressed his personal thanks to all concerned for their co-operation. From the delegates themselves to those of their colleagues in Singapore who had so hospitably received them, all had worked hard to make the Conference a notable success. ,

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APPENDIX I The Role of the Professions in a Changing World*

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Keynote address by Professor W. H. MORRIS-JONES Director, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Universitj of London

I am honoured to be here to address you today and at the same time somewhat puzzled. Is the academic invited 'td talk to a conference of professionals as the pure 'outsider', seen hopefully as the dispassionate observer, uninformed about the intimate mysteries of. the special professional world, expected only to describe the view from the ivory tower, or perhaps also, as a bonus, to utter exhortations that you should lift your eyes to some ralige of inspirational hills for guidance?.That is one possibility; the cap does not fit too badly and I shall in part wear t. The role of the academic in speaking about the role of the professions must have in it an element of the socratic, must focus on the raising of questions which, if they turn out to be the right ones, will cause the prac•titionefs to see Their situation and its problems in some fresh lights.

The situation is, however, more complicated,, and more interesting than that.

It would be a foolish pretence which placed universities, where academics have their homes, at a great distance from the professional world. We are not strangers to each other- and our virtually symbiotic relations go back to the birth of each of us. Some part of the education and training- of most professional men is carried out in universities though it is true that from this may flow tensions as S well as some mutual understanding. More than that, there are in some faculties, notably those of medicine and law, men who beloiigmore or less, equally to both,worlds. So in this, sense theaademic cannot be wholly an outsider.

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Nor is this all. The picture of the academic as an innocent visitor from a remote world of his own requires modification from another point of view.

The business of the scholar is' with knowledge and understanding, and a key instrument in the making of maps of knowledge is the formulation, and refinement through testing, of theory. ('Theoretical' is a pejorative word in our *I wish to acknowledge the help in preparing this address which I have received from the criticism of Mr Terence Johnson. He has saved me from certain errors and ambiguities and I have profited from several of his suggestions. For the imperfections which remain as well as for the argument as a whole and the use made of his comments I bear sole responsibility. Mr Johnson as Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies is engaged- in a substantial inquiry into the nature and significance of Commonwealth professional links. This study, whose findings will be published about 1974, will answer many of the questions raised here. .

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culture and tends with tedious regularity to be set in contrast to 'practical', a term of approval. In fact, of course, to act effectively without understanding is difficult, to achieve understanding without some elements of theory is rare.

The practical man is not so much one without theory as one whose theories are seldom articulated and examined and are therefore blunt and crude.) The particular scholar who works in the social sciences has his laboratory wherever there is human social activity. Normally he cannot imitate his natural science colleague by setting up experiments, but he can collect specimens and make observations. The activity of the professional man is part of human activity, indeed an increasing and increasingly significant part. As such it comes under the microscope of the social scientist. The suggestion of this additional link between academic and professional, connected as investigator and specimen, will cause no offence, not even unease, to sophisticated men; for we are all specimens some of the time and we live in the period of the opinion pollsters.

The unease is all on the investigator's side: men differ from rocks, plants and animals in being able to alter their behaviour when they know they are being observed. (Pollsters try to allow for errors coming from hoodwinking respondents. I have often wondered if those who study the antics of the chimpanzee concede that he may put on an act just for the fun of making inaccurate that chapter on, say, the sexual behaviour of primates!)

It would be quite wrong to say that systematic investigation of the professional man is of long standing, but the study of the professions has been for about three decades a recognized though small branch of sociology. I can scarcely claim more than a cursory acquaintance with patches of the literature but it is, I think, fair to say that, in relation to the puzzles facing this conference, it does not take us very far. Those who are assembled here to consider the working of Commonwealth professional associations and the newly created professional centres in certain countries are engaged essentially in probing how far the problems of professional men are similar and how far different as between one country and another (in the associations), as between one profession and another (in the centres). But most of the academic work has consisted of studies of individual professions in individual countries. Crossprofession comparisons have been developing but cross-country comparisons are few. Of course, some comparative view emerges, if only because the scholars who write about the ethos or culture of the American doctor or about the organization of the legal profession in Turkey will have read about the British medical man or the Inns of Court. This is just as well, for the making of comparisons is the highway to the kind of questioning which can produce theory.

Without comparisons, observations (in any science) remain meaningless; only through them can we begin to perceive regularities and relations and move towards constructing or map of patterns. It is, mercifully, not my task to undertake a total invasion of the subject today, only to point out some features Page forty -five

of that largely unexplored territory. Experience is running, as it often does, way ahead of reflection upon it. The associations and the centres are already conducting probing patrols, experimental and tentative, into this territory; we could all do with an aerial photograph or two. I do not intend to imply that the organizers of these patrols are operating blindly, having no idea what they are doing. My hunch in fact is that in the absence of systematic theory it is an ideology that furnishes the impulse to action an ideology of professionalism.

Such an ideology selects certain features of professionalism as approved and beneficial, constructs from them a model and becomes wedded to the aim of shaping reality everywhere to conform more closely to the model. This is rather a different exercise from the aerial photography approach.

• It so happens that it is convenient to take off by examining yet another qualification to the picture of academic-professional contrast. Could we not say that the academic so far from being an outsider is really a member of the team? Are not academics themselves a professional group? I believe the usual description of university scholar-teachers is 'semi-professional' and the question arises as to why, as to precisely which criteria of full status are not met. I must ask you to take it on trust that I am in no way concerned to make out a case for my kind. I wish rather to underline the point that in some respects definitions do matter. We ought no doubt to be free and able to use different definitions for different purposes but there is a danger that we become prisoners of one view and committed to furthering a cause in its terms alone. By raising the question of the status of academics as a profession, I can make an entry into two large zones of our subject, one fairly familiar, the other much less so. The first is the story of professionalization and the main forms it has taken, the second probes its meaning.

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It has been urged in a good deal of recent writing that it is less important to achieve a definition which distinguishes neatly between which occupations are professions and which are not than it is to recognize the tendency for one occupation after another to claim, and usually after a struggle to secure recognition for, the status of a profession. The process is similar to that which takes place, in India's caste system. Lower castes aim by imitating the lifestyles of the twice-born to gain acceptance as groups of high status. The process is called Sanskritization and there are many instances where the upward leap with all its attendant benefits has been achieved. (It is true that government offers of special concessions for the lowly 'backward castes' have led to a rush in the opposite direction through claims to be among the depressed and helpless. With supreme political skill it may be possible to have it both ways, winning the concessions given to the deprived in one arena and the status of the Brahman in another. Perhaps that is like obtaining recognition as a profession and simultaneously organizing as a labour union!) Jhe point to note is

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that while Sanskritization teaches us the folly of a static view of caste it does not remove the caste categories though it may cause us to redefine them. Likewise with professionalization: it reminds us that there is little point in trying to determine for all time which job goes into the box labelled professions, but it cannot absolve us of the duty to look closely at the box. The fact that there is movement taking place does not permit us to dodge definitions, for we still have to say what precisely is entailed in becoming more professionalized.

It may be worth mentioning at this point, with a view to illuminating the process of professionalization, that its opposite can also be found. One of the favourite examples of deprofessionalization is the case of the scribe; here we have a certain knowledge and skill, originally the possession of a few, becoming so diffused in the community that all have the power of writing and no one needs to purchase the service of a special group. Similarly, I suppose, if cases could be found where regular armies were replaced by citizen militias or by rival bands of guerilla fighters, one would have the deprofessionalization of the soldier. In this instance, as with the scribes, what happens is that the gospel of 'do it yourself' has become established practice. (There is, however, the difference that the professional soldier was not normally employed by individual clients for fees.)

What, then, brings about a tendency towards professionalization? A number of factors seem to be at work, some more important than others in particular instances. On occasion it appears that a technological break-through creates a virtually new body of knowledge and the need for a fresh set of skills; one thinks of space engineers or computer engineers. Sometimes it is a slightly different factor, when within a perfectly well-established field a knowledge expansion takes place on such a scale as to render the field as a whole beyond the grasp of a single undifferentiated group. Division of labour, specialization, that Newtonian type of principle which occupies in the organization of human society the sort of place that the principles of gravity and relativity have in the natural order, is in operation. A profession becomes fragmented or at least federalized as special groups break away from the previous compact fold.

(There may, of course, be fusions as well as fragmentation, as the pieces regroup themselves in fresh ways.) Examples of this kind may be the psychiatrists or the cost and works accountants or the quantity surveyors. In a third set of cases what appears to stand out is less a knowledge-factor than a status-factor.

Members of an occupation, already in existence and with an established role, come to feel strongly for a variety of reasons that their position is unfairly prejudiced by lack of professional status. They then seek to match up to their models by formalizing and lengthening the period of education and training, by establishing firmer controls over channels of entry, standards and certification, by erecting a code of conduct (backed by sanctions if possible) in support -

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of a service ideal and indeed also by reinforcing, elaborating and making distinctive the body of theoretical knowledge and special skills on which eventually they will say their profession rests. It may not be unfair to associate this third pattern with cases such as those of nurses and social workers. There is finally a fourth curious type of movement towards professionalization. It is much vaguer than the others and I can only refer to it by speaking about academics. Several rather distinct things have been happening in recent years.

First, there are more frequent references to the academic profession as such.

I can only think that this is a consequence of some general heightening of corporate sense resulting in turn from the growth in numbers of academics and possibly from threats, real and imagined, to university autonomy. But secondly, alongside this there is a new willingness to apply 'professional' to teachers of certain subjects; 'professional economist' is now customary and one wonders if this is simply the result of his services being in demand as a consultant in the business world. Finally, I have to report that the term professional is in increasing use to describe with approbation attitudes of serious dedication to one's subject and rigorous methods in the pursuit of knowledge presumably in contrast to the notion of the gentleman scholar of the past.

That analysis of the process is certainly incomplete, but one point which emerges rather clearly leads straight in to my second zone of incursion. It is noticeable that in speaking about professionalization one has to talk of a set of very different phenomena as well as of a set of very different causal factors.

This umbrella term conceals, I would suggest, a confusion and merging of what are properly three quite distinguishable levels of a social problem. At one level, the most general and universal of the three, we have the preservation, cultivation and development of a body of knowledge with its accompanying related skills. It is possible to compare different societies and different periods as to their effectiveness in this respect. Some have added more to the human store than others. When civilizations are described as declining, one meaning which may be intended is that they are failing to augment knowledge; there seem to have been times when societies even managed to lose knowledge previously gained. On the whole, however, the stock has grown, is now at unprecedented levels and is growing faster than ever before. To cope with the rate of knowledge growth is a basic challenge in the modern world. It poses special problems for new states: they have to try to counteract what would be the natural tendency for the areas already rich in the knowledge and skill to become richer, for the gap to widen rather than narrow.

At the second or middle level we find something almost as general but rather less absolute in nature, namely, the technique for the social exploitation of the store of knowledge. Those who maintain and increase the knowledge-skill stock are a minority in any society so far known to us, albeit a growing minority.

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Now knowledge has always been, if not power itself, at least an important source of power; likewise skills, those techniques for the application of knowledge. But whose power? Inherent in the situation is a tension between a group and the whole. In one sense the resources of knowledge and skill belong to the community but in another sense they are owned by those who create them. The parallel with property is close, even alarmingly so. Remember how John Locke wrestled to reconcile the two propositions to which he adhered that property belongs to each individual for it is that with which 'he hath mixed his labour' which in turn is only an extension of himself, and second, that 'God hath given the world to men in common'. Knowledge and skill exist in the minds and hands of their creators and these are, on a loose but valid definition, the professionals of the society. But in some manner the resources have to be made available for exploitation for the benefit of all. I say 'have to be' but I recognize that this has not always been: in some societies the owners of knowledge have kept it to themselves with the result not only that the society is deprived but that the knowledge itself atrophies from a constant turning inwards. The healthy relation is symbiotic but this still allows different societies and periods to arrange matters in quite contrasted ways. The institutions of the mandarins or the medieval clergy or the temple priests indicate the range. From this second level we begin to discern the outlines of the problem of autonomy, so prominent and now pressing a concern of the professions. How could we expect it to be less of a problem than the social control of individual property? The owner of special knowledge is no less jealous of his possession, no less tempted to establish a monopoly and guard it from invasion; society is no less interested in open access, no less concerned to exploit the wealth of learning for public good.

At the third level professionalization refers neither to the process of building up the stock of knowledge nor to the development of techniques for the social exploitation of the stock but rather to one particular set of arrangements characteristic of Western Europe (together with its extensions in places like North America) and matured mainly the course of the nineteenth century.

At this level we are dealing not with universal tendencies inherent in the nature of knowledge and society as such but rather with a set of conventions specific origin to one period of one civilization. These conventions provide us with our everyday definitions of a profession; they describe one particular to the autonomy problem and its twin, the problem of how to manage a knowledge monopoly. At the same time it is a particular answer which has spread by influence and imitation to other cultures. Hence some of the problems before us today. These conventions may be traced back, in idea at least, to the device of the charter, that curious instrument which served in many respects to facilitate the transition in Europe from feudalism to the laisse-faire capitalist society. It was a treaty between a group and the whole and had, appropriately, -

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a number of double characteristics. It was sought and secured by a group for the furtherance of their own purposes, but it had to be granted by the ruler as the head of the whole community who might be persuaded to give it by bribes or political pressure or possibly by a realization that it was in the indirect interest of all. It guaranteed for the members of the corporate body certain freedoms and a degree of equality among themselves, but it entailed restrictions and inequalities for those outside. It represented a kind of relaxation and decentralization of political power, for the corporation was allowed an area of self-government wherein it made its own rules, but it also placed some citizens under an additional set of masters with a second set of taxes to pay.

The merchants and the cities were first and professional bodies followed, but the conventions were essentially the same. The corporate body controlled entry, established standards and tests, licensed individual traders or practitioners, dealt with interlopers all necessary steps for the preservation of the monopoly.

Intelligent management of the preserve even entailed rules against misbehaviour, or codes of conduct, for the black sheep could be a danger to the flock by lowering its prestige or even in extreme cases angering the outsiders to the point where the corporation is broken. Moreover, the professionals in this particular European model followed the traders in another important sense: skill based on knowledge becomes a commodity, something to be sold, as goods are to customers. That is, the typical or pure professional comes to be seen as the seller of a specialized service to an individual client. (He also had to buy before he could sell buy knowledge from his seniors, through apprenticeship, buy his practice, in some cases buy his start with university education.) In these ways in one culture was the deal between society and the owners of skill settled. Things have changed somewhat in Europe since the nineteenth century but the model set up then remains to shape approaches to the different problems of today.

'The sin of the academic', said a distinguished philosopher towards the end of a lecture more famous than this one, 'is that he takes so long in coming to the point'. But he went on to say that although 'what he has to offer may in the end be no great matter, at least it is not unripe fruit, and to pluck it is the work of a moment'. In more prosaic terms, it is worth getting the conceptual structure clear because only then can the right questions be put. By disentangling somewhat the mixture of strands within professionalization we have moved nearer to a grasp of what is the essential branch of the tree and what is no more than the encompassing undergrowth of a particular season. This I take to be important because everywhere, in new states even more than in old, there are challenges which cannot be simply resisted, which have to be met, but met with care and discrimination if much of value is not to be lost.

Before I come any closer to the problems of associations and centres or, -

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more precisely, to the considerations we need to have in mind in trying to assess how far they are successful in meeting real needs I should say a word on another set of changes. For the changes which we have glanced at under the name of professionalization come mainly from within the professional world itself, expressions as it were of its internal logic. This is true even if we have to acknowledge that sometimes, perhaps more particularly in new states, professions have come into existence or at least had some of their conventional features enhanced as the result of government initiative. For instance, where government has been the first to feel the need for surveyors, it has developed training and standards within its own departments, instituted vocational training in educational institutions and so on. Whether the impulse has come from within or from outside, these professionalization changes furnish some of the issues which must concern those assembled here and to which I shall allude shortly.

The other set of changes comes less from the internal logic of the skillbuilding industry than from society itself. Briefly, the world of the nineteenthcentury European model has been fast disappearing, not only in the poor South of the world but also in the rich North, not only in the socialist East but also in the capitalist West. Even in Europe the private practitioner, operating in a market economy but buttressed by the protection of a charter, is no longer the typical professional man. That mode of arranging for the use by society of the skills of a few is now a diminishing part of the picture. The charter is modified and the market economy is confined. In many of the newer states, charters scarcely existed anyway, the range of skilled occupations is narrower and 1aisse-faire has never been widely regarded as the key feature of the good society. What we see now is not a bankrupt king selling charters for cash and peace and quiet but governments acting in the name of the people bringing into existence a new set of arrangements. There seem to be three prominent types of government action. One is the direct intervention of the state in the area hitherto reserved for professional self-government; the licence to practice is more subject to governmental endorsement, as when doctors are bonded to government and provided with only partial or temporary registration. Second, the state can affect professional autonomy indirectly, by its general controls and influence over educational institutions and programmes and by the imposition of its own checks and regulations for protection of the public which often in practical effect replace the professional rules. Finally, and most decisively, the state has so expanded the area of its own activity that it is becoming if it has not already become the key employer of professional men.

The private practitioner is becoming the salaried employee, the chartered corporation (where it exists) is less a separate power outside the government than an integral and vital part of the governmental organization.

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from the outside. This is as true as that the professionalization changes come from within. But as we had to note exceptions in the first case so we must also in the second. For in so far as society has sought to remould its relations with the professions it has on occasion found allies from within the professional and, even more, the near-professional world. From the point of view of the entrenched established professional organizations the latter would appear as traitors within the gate; they would see themselves differently, as men entitled to use government help in opening establishment doors against which they have been pressing for so long. Here I begin to talk the language of politics and this I am bound to do more and more as I move towards my conclusions. I see no reason why we should pretend to be innocents about the politics of the professions. Organized human behaviour is never without its politics and the professionals have been more organized than most. Since politics is the business of moving others to courses of action they would otherwise not undertake, it is omnipotent this side of Utopia. This being so, there is everything to be said for making it clear and explicit unless of course one is a politician. When we look at the professions in society we see a series of relations of any given professional group with other parallel professional groups, with its own government, with its opposite numbers in another country, with its own semi- and sub-professional fringes, with educational institutions, with the direct consumers of its services, with wider publics on whom it depends for recruitment to its ranks or general political support, and so on. Each relation generates its own politics, its own game of manipulation and influence. Nor are there external relations alone; as well as foreign policy there are home affairs; in other words, each organized professional body with its heads and its rank-and-file members is a power-and-influence that is, a political structure.

We are now in a position to join together our two sets of changes as indeed they are joined in real life and see what we are faced with. The combination of professionalization changes with changes in the social and political position of professional bodies creates a formidable set of problems and it is against the challenges of how to respond to change that we have to assess the success of the associations and centres. We have seen that the whole 'trading' or exchange relationship between the professionals and the rest of society is substantially altered. On the one hand, knowledge has grown and become more vital than ever before to a society's competitive survival. In so far as the professionals are the guardians of knowledge and one must note some questioning of this as research becomes more remote from application they become more valuable to society. Moreover, knowledge has not simply accumulated, it is also expanding at an unprecedented rate; the professionals are among those who can push back the frontiers. As a society becomes more complex, as it changes with increasing rapidity, the greater becomes its dependence on men -

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with special knowledge. On the other hand, during the past half-century most societies have become more aware, more critical. They may not always have become deeply democratic in their political structures, but the combination of educational advance and the development of the media of communications has almost everywhere enhanced both qualitatively and quantitatively the capacity and inclination of people to perceive and judge what is happening around them. With this change has also come a wider appreciation of things possible in contrast to things as they are. Change breeds change and the settled order is a mirage. In the new climate tradition alone is seldom sufficient justification and legitimacy has to be worked for. Every privilege is a provocation, guilty until proved innocent and with the burden of proof most heavily on that side.

This, then, is the stage as it is set for us: changing sets of professions changing their situation in relation to societies in change. This is universal; no country is exempt, no profession is unaffected. Here already is one basis for the associations and centres alike: even if there were no developing countries or newer states, there would be a case for a coming together both of several professions within a country and of men of a single profession drawn from several countries.

How are you adjusting your educational syllabus, your training methods, your entry qualifications, your registration procedures? Or again, the other set of problems, how are you handling that 'side-shoot' occupational group stemming out from the parent body, how do you avoid internecine war with that neighbouring professional body, how has the argument with government over professional representation on this or that advisory council been resolved, how do you come to terms with the changing forms of professional practice or, more widely, with the changing structures within which professional work takes place? On all this there are notes to be usefully compared, lessons usefully to be learnt though of course since there are also features specific to each profession and specific to each country there cannot be identical solutions.

But indeed there are developing countries. I have spent much time talking about those aspects of both professionalization and societal change which are virtually universal. I believe this to have been justified for the reason that although the situation in the newer states is different, it is so largely by being, so to speak, so much more of the same. It is quite tempting to say that the essential difference between the position and problems of professionals in new states as compared with established states is one of the time-scale, that new states are those where processes are being pressed in upon each other in a much narrower span of period. To put it thus does, however, over-simplify, because from the fact of time-span difference flow so many others. Components in the equation which are missing in new states are present in the others and vice-versa.

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If we consider the professionalization changes, it is at once clear that the emergence of new professional groups is a phenomenon found also in newer states. But at once there are differences. For one thing the set of traditional professions is less developed and less entrenched. Indeed, since in many countries the leaders among the traditional professions have been expatriates, one can almost say that all professions are new professions. This will not necessarily make for harmony; if even the older professions feel insecure they will not welcome complications and rivalries. Again, the specifically expatriate role is probably quite important. Expatriates might be expected to be particularly bound to the practice and ethos of their profession as they know it in their home country. It may be that the very form and style of professional organizations in new states has been shaped by expatriates using the only model available in their minds and their experience. A further difference I have already mentioned in passing: in new states the very coming into existence of several professional occupations has happened less by natural growth and initiatives from within the professional world than by the direct action of government. Already we see that where new states are concerned, even when we are looking at professionalization changes we are perforce carried over to the other side of societal change.

This is certainly where we perceive most clearly the differences caused by the compression of processes into limited time. (And it is here that we must note with regret and astonishment that the position of professionals in developing countries has been seriously neglected in the whole body of scholarly literature.) New states are, by definition one might say, states in a hurry. Their potential resources in material and human terms may be great but in effect of present availability they are much more limited than elsewhere. In relation to what is needed to secure rapid development the shortage is often grave and alarming. If this is true of resources in general it is especially true of those resources of knowledge and skill which are associated with the professions.

These are professions of great value and their owners are few. I know that there is often said to be an 'over-production' of some professions and that there is frequently graduate unemployment, but overall it would be true to say that if there were a pure market economy the professionals of developing countries would be 'sitting pretty'. However, circumstances are different, the economy is political rather than market and they are often more like 'sitting targets'. For the tension between the private ownership of skill and the need for it to be socially available is considerable. In this situation, the role of government becomes dominant. The ways in which government impinges on the professions are not dissimilar to those already mentioned as universal tendencies, but the scale and significance is markedly different. It is no longer a matter of the state nibbling away at the effective autonomy of a corporate body or a question of the proportion of salaried employees rising a little within the total Page fiftj'-four

body of professionals. The differences of degree approach differences of kind.

(Let me interject at this point the recognition that the category 'newer states' is so crude as to be sometimes misleading; some new states Singapore? are on certain tests less like other new states and more like old states. If time permitted I would make the qualifications, even perhaps attempt a more refined typology of states with reference to profession problems.) In the extreme cases, we would find the 'free practitioner' virtually non-existent, the whole profession born, brought up and nourished by government. The poverty which means that there can hardly be a class of individual clients also prompts government to direct and manage economic development including the creating of professions if none already exist. And as poverty is conquered it is unlikely that the process will be simply reversed. The bureaucratization of the liberal professions may, of course, be seen as the liberalizing of the bureaucracy but only if professional sentiment is able to keep alive.

The consequences are important. The images, the language, the style of the old world look quaint and do not quite apply. The professional man ceases to identify himself primarily as such; rather, he is a special kind of government servant. He may work alongside others of his profession but what may matter more is the department in which they serve. Professional man becomes in some measure organization man. The recognition he seeks is not the one which will give him the right to practice but one that will put him on an appropriate salary scale, secure rapid promotion and good service conditions. His professional association is for him a lobbying instrument more than a defender of a monopoly. Indeed, the chartered monopoly scarcely works: professionals command a scarce resource but if government fails to pay the expected price, to whom shall they sell? The traditional monopolist is now monopolized or, in the economist's term, 'monopsonized'. For some, emigration is one way to beat the sole employer until government brain-drain controls, aided by foreign immigration bans, close the exits.

In all this governments are not wicked destroyers of the professions, for in many respects without government they could not exist. Nor are they acting Out of line with their societies. The professionally qualified of the new states are few and are highly privileged in relation to the great bulk of their fellowcitizens. The western professional certainly enjoyed, and continues at a more modest level to enjoy, a fairly high status, but except at the career peaks he is not pre-eminent in either status or income or influence. He has his place in the deep and variegated 'middle class' layer of society. Such a layer is awkwardly thin in new states and the gap below to where the vast majority stay is awful in width. Pre-eminent and visible privilege is a comfort and a danger. It is a sign perhaps of his value but it is an invitation to envy. Moreover, he is a novelty in his society, his power is of a newer kind than that of ruler or -

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soldier, he rests on little indigenous tradition: He hag to win and retain legitimacy in the eyes of the public.

The old model of the àui'onomoiis profesioti cannot help in this situaion.

The pressures are on at all points - at the job in the gävernmént departmeiit, at the fixing, of standards,- at the recruitment check-point. where the g.tes are besieged by the clamouring aspirants. If the 'professioiial, associations. try to hold to traditional ground; they may be swept into limbo. -Individuals no doubt try to take care of themselves .in a variety of ways and perhaps 'above all by cultivating private lines of influence both inside the bureaucracy and outside it towards its political msters. More important'thn 'the profCssionalizing of everyone' becomes 'the politicizing :of everything'. But in its total impact this cure may be worse than the disease. For one thing a 'new gap will open up between the professionals of influence and the ret. No, if the old autonomy model is finished this does not inêan thait we have to throw away all that went with it. New codes of relations with publics, and governments must be sought and these must be such as match the, changed situation of professionals in society. The task before the leaders of: professionals is not one of. pure destruction nor one of total defence of old ,ways. It is the more difficult job of discriminating: what need not survive are .the patterns of a particular period and culture; what must be retained or re-created are rules and institutions that render unto knowledge and skill conditions under which they can flourish and unto society the benefits of their application. Dedication to this is what I should regard as the core integrity of a profession' as opposed to the trappings of a period in which it has so often appeared. Failure in this task could mean nothing less than the calamity that the baby of special knowledge is thrown out of a society along with the bath-water of detested privilege and resented monopoly. While the professionals are not to hold a society to ransom, society cannot be allowed to cut its own throat.

Now, at least, the fruit is ripe and the plucking shall indeed be the work of a moment. The -associations and centres are to be judged in relation to the awesome task just indicated. What, then, are they to do? Essentially they are to drop the ideology of traditional professionalism and- confront without either prejudice or cynicism the facts of change: This can be spelt out by sounding a few cautionary notes on what not to do and by making a few highly tentative suggestions as, to what should be done.

The cautionary hotes follow readily from what has already been said. Many of the Commonwealth associations are, not in intention perhaps but in working, London-centred. In some associations, the United 'Kingèlom element is 'by far the most important, for so many of the other member-associations are drawn from small countries with small national bodies. This is understandable but none the less unfortunate, and there should be further attempts to make the •'

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Commonwealth associations more universal in membership by securing the participation of the 'middle-power' national associations. I repeat that it. may not be London's aim to be predominant but in an unequal partnership the conceptions and predilections of London's professionals will tend to prevail and to that extent what is local and contingent becomes confused with what is universal and essential. In the meantime, London should seek to work under self-denying ordinances. It prides itself upon being more adventurous and innovative than its younger brothers overseas, and this may be true on a whole range of relatively technical matters; it will readily agree and even propose that Asian doctors should spend more time studying Asian diseases, that African lawyers should skip such parts of English law as have no relevance for their countries, that any non-British architects should be freed from any syllabus limitations related to British climatic conditions. So far, so good; I would, however, take some persuading before I would be convinced that they are equally self-critical and imaginative when it comes to matters of professional organization and views on the proper relations between the professions and society: can they really identify in their own constitutions and their own codes and conventions those features which take their form from peculiar English nineteenth-century experience and can they bring themselves to put a warning notice on the packet before they export it? As for the centres, these are not to be garrison communities relying on lines of supply by air-drops from outside. They are generating stations whereby a group of professions can together work out what parts of received doctrine do not apply in their country, can together come to terms with their own society in ways appropriate to that society's needs and their own long-term survival. Mere transplanting of institutions will not do: it is a tree-grafting operation that is required. Do not look for a Marlborough House model: they probably, and properly, do not make one and if they did it would be the wrong one for you.

From these negative cautions it is only a short step to more positive suggestions. The associations have to become as serious about politics and sociology as they are about the technicalities of their own business. This means at least two things. There must be a willingness to understand the problems of member associations in their full local political and social context. There may be good reasons why professional bodies in some countries are developing relations with government along lincs quitc diffcrcnt from those in the United Kingdom.

In doing so they may depart sharply from such notions of professionalism as derive from the local conventions of the British professional world. This is to be welcomed and not frowned upon so long as the core integrity of the professions is not being impaired. Again, there is the thorny problem of common standards. It is a good first step that common standards is no longer seen as entailing identical syllabuses. But perhaps 'common' itself needs re-examination. If common means equivalence, if the point of equivalence is reciprocity, -

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if the outcome of reciprocity is facilitation of a brain-drain from the poorer states, is this long-run practical politics and is it really what is sought? The line has to be broken at some point though at the same time it cannot be the job of a professional body to bring about dilution of standards. It is easier to help each other to become the same: it is more worthwhile to help each other to be different. New states will not be served by lower standards certainly nor by reciprocal standards necessarily. To be a qualified professional must everywhere signify an equal level of attainment in knowledge and skill, but the areas of knowledge need not be identical because in addition to the common core of theory there will be varying local applications. There can thus be mutual recognition of qualifications which in themselves are not the same. The point of such recognition should be to protect standards. The actual mobility of professional men is a different matter. Since qualifications can be equivalent and mutually recognized without being identical, transferability should not follow as a matter of course. This indeed is a political question and one on which the voice of the professions as one group cannot be final. Professional bodies are perfectly entitled to press for conditions that would limit the urge to emigrate; they may also point out the general advantages of some degree of international mobility. But governments will properly have other considerations also to bear in mind in reaching their policy decisions. Also, it may be noted, a local government, while it should be warned against lowering standards, is perfectly entitled to invest more of its scarce resources in producing technicians and sub-professionals than on increasing further its ranks of fully qualified men.

Being serious about the political and social context means, in the second place, structuring the associations to facilitate multi-way flows of information and ideas. In several ways the associations should seek to exploit the advantages of variety among the member nations. That variety is to be seen as a resource, not a nuisance. The associations' headquarters should be great circulation pumps, drawing in fresh ideas from the members and distributing them to all.

Their greatest success could almost be to make themselves unnecessary by having ensured a general habit of multilateral exchange of information and ideas. There is also room perhaps for study groups arranged along regional and/or functional lines, digging out new developments and fresh ideas about professional roles and organizations. Innovations need not be expected only from advanced countries; sometimes necessity in a poor area may prove the mother of an invention from which developed areas can profit. Is it not the case that Australia has been learning from developing countries about involving doctors in community medicine and adapting the hint to her own medical training? The individual professional centres, as generating stations, must for their part also help in these study tasks, feeding their ideas and experience into a common pool from which others can draw. Each centre has to find in -

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the end its own way of coming to terms with its government, its universities, its publics. The public relations job is vital, otherwise professional legitimacy will be lost; the professions have to be 'sold' in new ways to their societies; the recruitment base must be widened by making information available to parents outside the professions. The centres at the same time have to learn from outside, not only from London but from Bombay and Sydney. And when they do look to London they may be well advised to study closely not the older professions in Britain but rather the new boys. It may be better to swallow pride and examine the various social work professions: by virtue of their involvement in government and local authority employment, by virtue of their very newness which means that they are concerned with problems like defining concretely the role of the specialist in a department for these and similar reasons their experience and style may be more relevant to new states than those of Bar and B.M.A. I have finished and I have not mentioned the Commonwealth. It is scarcely necessary that I should talk about it because in these days of our meetings we are doing a better thing living it. The problems of which I have been speaking are difficult and complex. They will not surrender to solution without mutual help, sensitive understanding, hard thinking and plain talking on an international scale. Quite simply, I do not know of any other framework within which these can be found. They are not always found in the Commonwealth framework, but if the job of using an international pooling of minds and materials to solve the problem is to succeed anywhere, it will be here.

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APPENrIx II

(i) Singapore Professional Centre Paper presented by the Chairman of the Centre Professor Dr Phoon Wai On Late in 1968 the Director of the Commonwealth Foundation visited Singapore and had discussions with a wide range of professional leaders in the Republic.

During a general discussion, the Director referred to the creation of professional centres in other Commonwealth capitals, emphasizing that this multiprofessional experiment was one which the Foundation's Board of Trustees looked upon as one of its most fruitful activities. As the Director then explained, professional centres had been established in Uganda and Trinidad.

Having heard this, interested members of a number of professional bodies in Singapore decided to form a Project Committee under the Chairmanship of Dr Lee Kum Tatt, Chairman of the Science Council of Singapore to examine the prospects for the creation of a professional centre in Singapore.

Responses to a questionnaire sent out by the Project Committee established wide scale interest in the proposed centre. The Government of the Republic of Singapore has shown interest in the project. Official support from the Government came in the form of providing a block of flats at Outram Park at nominal rent. After careful study, the Project Committee recommended that steps should be taken to establish the professional centre.

The Centre received an initial grant of S $90,300.23 (L20,000) from the Commonwealth Foundation for the organization and operation of the Centre.

The proposed floor layout was discussed at length and agreed upon. The Centre was completed in January 1971.

Membership and staff There are sixteen member associations. The following is the list: Association of Singapore Radiographers Institute of Building, Singapore and Malaysia Centre Institution of Engineers, Singapore Pharmaceutical Society of Singapore Singapore Association of the Chartered Institute of Secretaries Singapore Dental Association Singapore Institute of Architects Singapore Institute of Surveyors Page six*

Singapore Medical Association Singapore Physiotherapy Association Singapore Society of Accountants Association of Veterinary Surgeons Singapore Association of Social Workers Singapore National Institute of Chemistry Singapore Institute of Planners Association of Consulting Engineers.

The Centre is staffed by a registrar, a receptionist, a typist/clerk and a messenger boy. With the increase in member associations, it is expected that more staff will be employed.

Three member associations The Institute of Engineers, The Association of Consulting Engineers and the Singapore Institute of Surveyors have offices in the Centre. It is anticipated that more member associations will use this facility. Besides this the Centre is also the postal address for the Singapore National Institute of Chemistry.

The premises of the Centre are used for the meetings of member associations.

The services of the Secretariat are available to member associations at cost of stationery and other materials used. This facility is particularly useful to member associations that cannot afford full-time staff because of smallness of membership.

In mid-1971, the Centre already found it necessary to double the size of its premises. For this purpose a further grant of L10,000 was secured from the Commonwealth Foundation.

Against this background, I shall now discuss some of the problems the Singapore Centre has experienced, and delineate some of the directions our development may take in the future.

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The concept of inter-professional co-operation Almost everyone will give lip service at least to the opinion that there should be closer co-operation between the different professions. What in concrete terms does this closer co-operation mean? It is true that the doctor works with the nurse, pharmacist, physiotherapist and social worker in the care of patients in hospital. Can the existence of a professional (or more correctly, an interprofessional centre) further enhance the team-work and mutual understanding between these professional men and women? It is true that in the construction of a building complex architects, surveyors, engineers and town planners have to work together, but are they not already doing so? It may be argued that Page sixtj/-one

discussions may be necessary from time to time between representatives of the various professions, but as almost all the associations representing each profession are already in existence in Singapore, cannot they just meet together as the occasion demands, rather than be tied up in a formal sort of way?

Some of these questions which constantly come to mind cannot be refuted easily. However, although it is true that the medical and the para-medical professions worked together as a team, they seldom held joint discussions together. Perhaps the very hierachy-conscious hospital staff were afraid that authority might be undermined in the process. While it is also true that individual architects did discuss matters with other related professions about a specific plan to construct a building complex, they did not seem similarly inclined to discuss together matters affecting a whole district or the entire country.

The term 'professional centre' Perhaps, in the Singapore context, the term 'professional centre' is not entirely adequate to describe our particular institution. Probably more accurate terms would be 'Inter-professional' (implying it is shared by various professions), or 'Professionals'' (implying the institution belonged to the professional people). The word 'centre', by connotation, puts perhaps rather undue emphasis on the physical building. The majority of the present sixteen member associations do not use the centre as their office. Especially during the early days of our Centre, many associations declined to join because they thought they did not need space there.

The definition of 'profession' The origin of the word 'profession' appears to have come from the vows and the 'I profess' of the lay monk in medieval Europe. The lay monk unlike his 'religious' counterpart, who was ordained for specifically Church tasks used his trainings and skills in law or medicine or administration, for only the monks, apart from the universities, had any higher education. Lord Cohen in a Lloyd Roberts Lecture on Medical Ethics and the Public Weal said 'The essence of business is the financial return it offers its shareholders. The essence of a profession is that though men enter it for the sake of their livelihood, the measure of their success is the service which they perform and not the gains they amass'. In practical terms, it seems to me that the professions are generally characterized by the possession of a code of ethics and a training at a higher level than the school level.

Because of the inherent difficulties of defining what a profession is, we have deliberately omitted doing so in our constitution, and invested the decision to -

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admit or reject potential member associations at the absolute discretion of the Board of Trustees. We have also allowed ourselves greater flexibility by the creation of a new class of members 'Associate Members'.

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The large and small member associations Much debate has centred around the argument whether the larger or smaller associations stood to gain greater benefit from the existence of our Centre.

The larger associations often complain that they pay the largest fees, but as they have their own premises and staff, they stood to gain the least. The smaller associations equally vehemently complain that they are the ones least able to bear the annual subscription charges. The ideal solution should perhaps be the levying of only a nominal subscription fee for all associations, and the recovery of income from specific services rendered.

The rapid turnover of management among member associations It is sometimes rather frustrating to have to deal with successive crops of new leaders among the member associations and to have to 'brainwash' them into supporting the Centre. We look rather apprehensively towards each annual general meeting of member associations, in the fear that 'anti-professional centre' elements may get into power and effect the withdrawal of their associations from membership.

The need for mass support For the long-term survival of the Centre, the rank and file of the membership of affiliated associations should be convinced about its usefulness in order to obviate the fluctuations in support which will be inevitable otherwise. The problem is how to win such mass support. Most professional people in Singapore are extremely busy, and they will not come in large numbers to hear too many philosophical discussions on the virtues of inter-professional co-operation. Individual membership is being considered, but we are not sure yet what privileges will be attractive enough for people to join.

The organi<ation of professional conferences It is very taxing on the limited resources of most associations to organize a conference of significant dimensions. Often highly-paid, extremely busy professional people have themselves to attend to the many trivialities associated with such conferences. Employment of paid staff for the few months before a conference is difficult, as those available have generally little relevant experience.

The other affairs of the association often grind to a halt because everyone is busy working on the conference.

I think this is one sphere of service which the Singapore Centre can cover very effectively. In May this year we helped to organize the First Symposium Page sixtj-thre

•on Occupational Health in South-east Asia, which attracted more than 160 delegates from a dozen countries. Now we have the present Foundation conference, which we have assisted in organizing. Next year we hope to organize still more conferences.

The sharing of printing and publishing facilities There is a fairly large sum paid to commercial printers for work done for professional bodies in Singapore. Many associations have their own journal, newsletter, annual report, etc., printed. I think that there is enough work for a modestly-priced offset machine to do. We should be able to save printing costs for our member associations, and in the process earn some income for the Centre. Later on, we should be able to take over the canvassing for advertisements for periodicals and the publishing as well.

The pooling of other resources It would improve efficiency if all the major member associations pooled their secretarial resources. Much of the work done in any professional association

is very similar.

The danger of over-activit'y

The Centre has in general, avoided being involved in matters which, in its view, should be properly left to member associations. Such matters include ethics, practice and service conditions and academic matters pertaining to single professions. On the other hand, it has rendered advice and assistance, even in such matters, when requested to do so. It would, however, be disastrous both for the professions and the Centre if all professional activities were left solely to the Centre. It is far better for the Centre to help in specialized activities and with general professional co-ordination.

Service to the communit'y Many people in Singapore have all sorts of misconceptions about what the various professions are doing. Early next year our Centre, in conjunction with the Vocational Guidance Unit, will be mounting an exhibition on the various professions, thereby helping schoolchildren to make up their minds as to what they want to be and educating the public on various professional matters.

The need to maintain objectiv4y To date we have scrupulously kept both national and trade union politics out of the Centre. Our policy has been to comment or various issues according to their intrinsic merits. We feel we shall no longer be able to do this with objectivity if we let national or trade union politics into the Centre.

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The need to work out a common calendar offorthcoming events There are far too many similar events in Singapore taking place within a short space of time of each other. This tends to diminish support for each.

Funds may be difficult to find. I think that our Centre can serve a useful function by co-ordinating the timing of such activities, which will benefit all parties concerned.

Its growth as an information centre I envisage that the Centre will grow as an information centre for those who want to pursue undergraduate or postgraduate education overseas, those who do not know whom to turn to in their problems, and those of us who want to know more about inter-professional subjects such as ecology, transportation, housing, etc. Moreover, Singapore is serving more and more the various needs of the people in this region. Our Centre can be the means of promoting regional co-operation by the exchange of information on various professional matters.

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At the crossroads Our Centre has overcome its initial troubles. Imagination and hard work are still required to bring us through the next two or three critical years. If we can weather the storms during that period, I think that we will be firmly established and successful in bringing the professions both in Singapore and the rest of the Commonwealth closer together and in serving better our fellow-citizens.

If the Centre is asked the question 'Quo vadis?' at this stage, I do not think that we can give a definite answer, but I would like to think that we are heading upwards and onwards.

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(ii) The Kenya Professional Centre Paper presented by the Chairman and Secretarji of the Management Committee Introduction The Association of Professional Societies in East Africa was established in December 1961, to 'maintain and advance the highest standards in the public interest' and to 'promote the interests of member societies and the professions generally'.

Constitution and membership The Association is a legally constituted organization and its membership is divided into two classes, namely, corporate and private.

Corporate membership Corporate membership is open to societies, associations and other organizations representing a particular profession or branch or section of a profession in East Africa. At the present time the corporate members are as follows: The Law Society of Kenya The Kenya Medical Association The Association of Accountants in East Africa The East African Institution of Engineers The Architectural Association of Kenya The Kenya Association of the Chartered Institute of Secretaries The National Nurses Association of Kenya The East African Dental Association The Institution of Surveyors of Kenya The Association of Land Surveyors of Kenya The East African Section of the Institution of Structural Engineers The Pharmaceutical Society of Kenya The East African Association of Physiotherapists The Association of Radiographers The Uganda Society of Architects.

Private membership In addition to the corporate membership enjoyed by the member societies every person who is himself a member, fellow or associate of any such member Page sixty-six

society is automatically a private member of the Association and may enjoy the facilities which the Association is able to offer to individuals.

The Kenya Professional Centre The Commonwealth Foundation At a meeting in 1968 with the Director of the Foundation, a suggestion emerged that there might be scope for establishing a professional centre in Kenya which could serve as headquarters for various professional organizations with provision for a secretariat and meeting rooms.

The need for a centre A committee was appointed by the Association to investigate the matter and it studied the problem through a series of questionnaires and interviews with the officers of member societies. The committee's report reflecting the enthusiastic support of the member societies for the idea of a professional centre to be inaugurated immediately even in temporary premises with limited facilities, was adopted by the Association in January 1970.

Phase I By courtesy of the Law Society of Kenya, the Centre was opened in Nairobi in May 1970 in premises which, until then, had been occupied by that Society.

The Centre has been staffed by certain of the larger member societies seconding employees against reimbursement of their salary costs. In this way, the Centre has a chief executive, secretaries and subordinate staff without carrying longterm commitments although it is recognized that this can only be a temporary arrangement. Similarly office equipment has in the main been provided without charge by some of the corporate members and in consequence the Centre is adequately equipped to provide secretarial and administrative services. A small committee room is also available without cost.

The Centre operates under the direction of a management committee comprising representatives of the main corporate members patronizing the Centre which has been provided with an interest free loan of L300 for that purpose.

Because the Centre is non-profit making, working capital requirements additional to the loan are found by delaying the return of periodical surpluses to the member societies who are charged monthly for the services rendered.

In the period of some sixteen months' operations, the Centre has been proved to be viable in spite of some disappointments of withholding and withdrawal of support due in some degree to the restricted space available.

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Phase II A development committee was also established to open negotiations with the Kenya Government for the allocation of a site suitable for permanent building, to raise the necessary funds, and to superintend and arrange the design and construction of a building. By the beginning of 1971, the committee had concluded negotiations with Government for the allocation of a suitable site.

Future management Having examined several possibilities, the development committee has recommended that a 'company limited by guarantee' should be promoted by the Association to own and provide management of the property. The latter requirement will be met through the company's council of management, the members of which will not be less than seven nor more than fourteen and will be appointed only by the governing body of the association.

Proposed building Site The site is situated in Nairobi's central area close to Parliament Building and principal Government offices. The site is 75 x 50 ft.

Design proposals A design has been prepared for a scheme comprising a basement and three floors above ground level. The building will incorporate sufficient accommodation to meet the needs of the Centre for the foreseeable future, but does not allow for any future expansion on this site.

Accommodation The accommodation is to be as follows: Administration areas: Five offices at 150 sq. ft General office area Area for archives and storage Meeting rooms: Conferenée room to seat fifty Two committee rooms to seat thirty at 360 sq. ft Two committee rooms to seat twenty at 240 sq. ft Lecture theatre for 180 ..

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carried forward Page sixty-eight

750 1,200 1,200 600 720 480 1,920 6,870W

Areas of common use: Entrance hail and reception Bar

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brought forward 6,870 400 :: 600 900 200 300 400 200 '150 ..

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10,020 1,230 11,250

Furnishing and equipment It is intended that furnishing and equipment shall be allowed for as a part of the capital cost of the project which shall include the following: furnishing; office machines and aids; sound and slide projectors and visual aids; bar and kitchen equipment.

Consultants The architect, quantity surveyor and engineers have been selected from experienced local firms who support the objects of the centre and have kindly agreed to give their professional services free of charge.

Capital finance Estimates of cost These have been put forward by the consultants and are intended to be comprehensive and to include all capital expenses which will be incurred until the building can be handed over ready for use. The provisional estimates are as follows: Page sixt)/-nifle

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Site costs including stand premium, development and rent for one year

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2,850 50,000 10,500 2,000 1,870 2,780

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The figures given above do not include the professional work which has been donated free of charge and which is estimated at approximately KL6,000.

Finance now available The finance which has been already contributed or promised consists of a donation from The Commonwealth Foundation of KL20,000.

From the sum which has already been made available the committee intends to proceed with the scheme to contract stage, by which time it is hoped that the balance of the funds necessary for the project will be available.

Self-help towards capital Although the members have limited funds, it is intended to open an appeal for self-help towards the capital expenses on the following basis: that all professional work in establishing and building the Centre be provided free of charge; that societies and private members participate in an appeal for materials and equipment at reduced cost such as furnishings, office equipment and building components; that societies endeavour to obtain capital assistance for the project from commercial bodies with whom they are regularly associated.

Revenue finance Overhead expenses Assuming that the necessary capital is found so that running costs are not burdened with loan interest and repayments, then apart from having to replace Page seven*

furnishings and equipment from time to time, the main overhead expenditure will comprise salaries and wages. To encourage utilization of the Centre's services they must be of a reasonably high standard and to build up confidence in their continuity, the services of the senior staff must be secured by contracts of two or three years' duration with reasonable prospects of renewal and periodical increments.

Prospects of viabilit'y With no expectation of having initial working capital or obtaining subventions from Government sources or subsidies or increased subscriptions from corporate members, who alone contribute for the Association's expenses, the risks of losses in the first few years and how to finance them will require careful consideration.

Until the Centre develops into the fulcrum of professional activity, it is improbable that the likely gap between overhead costs and income from services rendered would be bridged by revenues from hiring out accommodation and profits from the members' club room.

It will probably be necessary therefore to find aid perhaps in the form of a guarantee to underwrite the risks of losses in the first five to seven years of the new Centre's existence.

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(iii) The Professional Centre of Jamaica Paper presented by the Chairman of the Centre Mr R. C. Bent/c3 Establishing the centre It was at the annual dinner of the Jamaica Computer Society in 1968 that the Hon. G. Arthur Brown, guest speaker, Governor of the Bank of Jamaica, mentioned the idea of a professional centre as it had been conceived by the Commonwealth Foundation. A member of the Society, Anthony Ireland, who at the time was consultant to the Jamaican Government in Data Processing and his guest, Ray Bentley, Director of the newly formed Jamaican Institute of Management, were very interested in the possibilities and decided to investigate further. Their first step was to call a meeting of representatives of a number of professional associations. Notices were sent to ten or eleven associations whom it was thought might be interested and in January 1968, a small working group was formed to gather information from the associations and to establish what facilities they might require from such a Centre.

Later that year the two original members of the working group made visits to London and had discussions with the Director of the Commonwealth Foundation. He explained the Foundation's concept of a professional centre and what financial support might be available. Copies of the Commonwealth Foundation's first Progress Report were obtained and circulated and after their general discussion, the two members felt that the Commonwealth Foundation might assist in establishing a Centre along the lines of the recently established centres in Uganda and Trinidad and Tobago.

It was confirmed from the earlier meetings and from questionnaires that the lack of meeting, administrative and secretarial facilities were the greatest problems facing the professional associations and the following appears in the minutes of the first formally convened meeting.

'It was agreed that a principal difficulty experienced by most professional associations in Jamaica was that of consistent and continuing administration.

A professional centre would facilitate such administration by the provision of a permanent secretariat.

'A further difficulty was the availability and, again, consistency of accommodation for meetings by the several associations (present accommodation being provided through the good offices of commercial organizations directly or indirectly connected with the professional body). It was felt that the professional centre could include such permanent accommodation as would be required to facilitate meetings of this kind without the uncertainty of tenure presently experienced. The preparation of newsletters, Page seventy-two

broadsheets, etc., by most associations, was presently at least a voluntary service by an otherwise engaged member and, at worst, a pure imposition on such a member's personal time. A further difficulty is commonly experienced with the physical production of such papers again depending on the good offices of a sometimes not related organization with its own printing facilities. The professional centre, could, therefore, provide a central printing facility. The meeting agreed that within these initially stated objectives the idea of a professional centre would be of the greatest attraction to all the associations represented at the meeting.'

By the end of 1968, approximately nineteen associations had been canvassed, interest expressed and a nominee from each association had been appointed to the 'Professional Centre Committee'. It was also pointed out to the associations that the Commonwealth Foundation had allocated a grant of L50,000 for the years 1968 to 1971, towards the establishment of professional centres in those Commonwealth countries that showed more than passing interest in the idea.

In March 1969, the Committee reported that the annual cost of establishing rental and providing limited secretarial facilities would such a Centre including * be approximately $16,720 per annum, for a total of 1,800 members or $9 per member per annum. If there were only 1,000 members enjoying the fullest range of secretarial facilities and owning premises, the annual cost would be increased to $19,266 or $19.27, per member per annum. A number of members were unwilling to go ahead at that cost and interest waned for some months.

As a result of further meetings and discussions held early in 1970, renewed interest was registered by some nineteen societies, having between them an estimated membership of approximately 2,300. A second sub-committee was formed to continue the work and to make a revised feasibility on the requirements of interested associations and the costs involved. It was decided to work on the basis of $5 per member per annum and the use of rented premises.

A budget dated May 1970, was prepared, which together with a brief, was forwarded on February 27th, 1971, to the Commonwealth Foundation. copies were circulated to the prospective member associations. The budget showed that the Centre would have accumulated a deficit of close on $43,000 at the end- of the third year of operations, and a grant to cover this deficit was applied for.

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Following the submission to the Commonwealth Foundation, further detailed work was done to set up the Centre and with ten associations as founder mem*

$ Jamaican.

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bers (representing approximately one thousand eight hundred members) the Centre formally came into existence on September 1st, 1970. The Professional Centre Council has had regular monthly meetings since then.

The ten associations and their membership are: Association of Chartered Secretaries Association of Consulting Engineers Institution of Engineers, Jamaica Jamaica Dental Association Jamaican Institute of Management Jamaica Society of Architects Jamaica Society of Quantity Surveyors Jamaica Veterinary Association Medical Association of Jamaica Nurses Association of Jamaica

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Members 29 16 168 85 152 76 40 31 300 807

Since then the Bar Association of Jamaica with 215 members have also joined.

Budget preparation Our budget was prepared after examination and collation of answers submitted by member associations to a detailed questionnaire. Initial plans called for budgeting and staff to cope with the secretarial requirements of the annual general meetings and Executive Committee meetings of all member associations, as well as for providing meeting facilities for Executive Committee meetings.

On this basis we budgeted for an Executive Secretary and two assistants, during the first year of operation. In fact, the Secretary has been employed since June 1st, 1971.

Constitution and contributions We have recently completed and approved our Constitution in principle. It was drawn up based on the Singapore Professional Centre's Constitution by a Constitution sub-committee comprised of the representatives of the Bar Association, and the Consulting Engineers. Before this was finalized, however, considerable discussion took place over the question of membership fees. The original proposals and draft budget were based on each member association paying $5 per member per annum, with associations of over five hundred members paying $2 per member. It has now been agreed to change this Page seventy-four

for a flat annual fee of $100 for each member association and for associations to pay for work required to be done by the Professional Centre Secretariat. A scale of charges for these services is presently being drawn up.

Premises The Centre is at present housed in a building leased to us by the Jamaica Industrial Development Corporation at a moderate rental. So far we have established in this building a small meeting room (capable of seating about fifteen people) together with the Secretary's office. The long-range view is that the Centre should own its premises but our present position of renting was governed by our own limited financial resources and the fact that the Commonwealth Foundation specified that their grant could not be used for building, and we consider it fortunate that our landlord is a statutory body of the Government of Jamaica.

Foundation grant In June of this year the Commonwealth Foundation approved a grant of * $40,000 over a three-year period towards the setting up of our Centre. This figure represents the cumulative deficit that was envisaged over the three-year period. The deficit at the end of year 3 still appears large but our Council is aware that more detailed long-term planning and budgeting will soon have to be done in order that we can establish viability as soon as possible.

In fact, of immediate concern to us is the attracting of more member associations and the fullest use of the Centre's facilities in order to boost our income.

Achievements and Influence Our Centre has to date obviously been concerned primarily with setting itself up on a proper practical basis. The amount of actual 'secretariat' work that has been performed is not yet commensurate with the volumes that are ahead.

We can, however, claim a measure of success in that we have brought together some eleven professional associations, the representatives of which form the first Council of the Professional Centre of Jamaica, and who meet regularly to develop its concept and operation along lines that will be appreciated, understood and accepted by all.

The Council's policy in regard to seeking Government co-operation with the project has been to keep the Government informed of developments. It prefers to be able to report greater achievements and progress before requesting the material help it feels it will eventually need for it to become a viable and *$ Jamaican.

Page seventj'-five

vital entity in the development of Jamaica. Nevertheless, the Prime Minister has expressed his interest in developments to date.

As mentioned before, discussions have started on enlarging the membership of the Centre. This needs to be done to ensure a stronger Centre as well as to increase revenue. There are at least six associations to which immediate approaches can be made, including the Law Society with nearly two hundred members and the Land Surveyors Association with eighty members.

The problem of projecting our image and influence on the private sector and in the public and Government sectors still looms very large. Considerable discussion has taken place on this topic but here again much detailed planning remains to be done.

In conclusion, it is worthy of note that one of the objects of our constitution to represent, express and give effect to the views and opinions of professional associations and their members on matters of all kinds could be considered as an all-embracing statement of the reason for the establishment of a professional centre.

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APPENDIX

III

(1) The Professions in the Developing Commonwealth Paper prepared by Robert Steel, B.Sc., F.R.I.C.S., Secretarji, Commonwealth Association of Surveying and Land Economy (C.A.S.L.E.) Introduction The purpose of this paper is to discuss: why the professions need to be developed; the ways in which this development can be assisted by Commonwealth professional associations; the contribution which local professional centres can make in the developing countries; and how the roles of Commonwealth associations and local professional centres form complementary parts of a concerted strategy for assisting the professions.

i.

From the outset, the Foundation has adopted a flexible attitude regarding the range of professions it seeks to assist; and the potential scope is very wide.

This paper concentrates primarily on those professions that have roots in private practice, as well as in the public service, and which have the characteristics of consultancy.

In this context, the main professions are law; medicine, dentistry and pharmacy; accountancy; engineering, architecture and town planning; and the various disciplines of surveying and land economy. Although the author is most conversant with those professions that are concerned with land use and development, it is hoped that the ideas put forward will be relevant, in whole or in part, to all professions that fall within the ambit of the Foundation and of the professional centres it is helping to sponsor.

For the purpose of this paper, it is assumed that each centre is supported by all (or a substantial proportion) of the professions in the country concerned; that it provides accommodation for a secretariat and for meetings, etc.; and that it supplies, inter alia, secretarial services for all or some of the participating professions.

2. The role of the professions Before discussing the role of the professions in developing countries, two important points must be emphasized. First, the scope of professional activities and the pattern of professional organizations that prevail within the Corn-

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monwealth as a whole are not necessarily applicable, without adaptation, in every individual country. Secondily, the scope and organization of the professions are evolutionary, and the stage and pace of evolution varies from country to country. Commonwealth collaboration, therefore, does not aim at uniformity; and the need for flexibility must always be kept in mind.

There is, nevertheless, a consistently vital role for ihe professions to play in all countries, and especially in the developing countries. The manner in which they play their part will be shaped by national needs and resources, and by national tradition and predilection. But national variations are not of fundamental importance, so long as they are recognized and understood. We are concerned here primarily with the basic skills the professions practise, and with the application of those skills in promoting public health and welfare, in the fulilment of national programmes for economic growth and development, in good government and administration, and in successful industrial, commercial and business enterprises.

It is probably safe to assume that, in every'Cornmonwealth country, there is general recognition of the need for lawyers, without whom none but the most primitive of constitutions or legal systems could be made to work; of the need for accountants, to ensure efficiency and trustworthiness in business administration; and of the need for the medical, dental and harmacutical professions in the maintenance and improvement of health. With a little less confidence, one assumes that-'the public also understands the functions of the engineer, architect, surveyor and town planner. Certainly, one of the first professionals to move into any developing country is the land surveyor, for surveying and mapping are essential to the identification of natural resources and for planning and executing a1mst every form of development and construction project. Surveyors and lawyers are also required to authenticate land titles, and to deal with a variety of land problems that lie at the heart of social, economic and 6ven political progress. Equally, engineers, drchitects, surveyors and town planners make their several contributions to the harnessing or development of natural resources, to the construction of buildings and the quality of the built environment, and to the planning and execution of national development programmes. It. is perhaps in some of these activities, concerned with the ownership, use and development of land, that the potential value of the professions is not yet fully recognized in some countries, and where more could be done to develop indigenous skills for the benefit of the countries concerned.

In the past, most developing countries relied to a large extent on expatriate professional services, but in more recent times it has become a natural ambition of every independent country to establish its own institutions and to develop its own skills. The transition to self-sufficiency howevercan only be gradual if Page seventj-eight

serious problems are to be avoided. The scale of the manpower requirement, especially, must be recognized. C.A.S.L.E., for example, has pointed out that, in nearly all developing countries, there is an acute shortage of indigenous skills in all the three disciplines of land surveying, quantity surveying and land economy. As an indication of this, there are about twenty-seven thousand chartered surveyors in Britain serving a population of about fifty-five million, and only about six hundred qualified surveyors in the whole of Commonwealth Africa, covering about one hundred and fifteen million people. It is a fair assumption that every developing country needs to increase its indigenous manpower in every profession (with the possible exception, in some countries, of the legal profession).

To achieve that goal, it will be necessary to assess potential manpower requirements in all the professions, to establish educational programmes for developing the relevant skills, and to strengthen (or, where necessary, to form) indigenous professional societies that can foster the advancement of their respective professions.

3. Some typical problems In the more developed countries of the Commonwealth, some professions like law and medicine are old established and have a long tradition of academic learning and qualifications. Of the other professions, some have been practised for centuries, but were only 'institutionalized' as the result of the industrial revolution and subsequent scientific progress which led to the need for more formal education and qualifications. Others are of more recent origin, being either new activities or specializations of older skills. In the developing countries, this process of evolution started later, and has been greatly accelerated as each country has sought to become self-sufficient and to match the achievements of those that are more advanced. The 'late developers' can learn much from the experience of others, and can possibly avoid their mistakes; but it will take time to fulfil their ambitions.

In some countries, for example, educational programmes have not yet developed to a stage where the schools produce a sufficient output of advancedlevel students to supply the needs of all the professions. Without agood academic foundation, students will experience difficulty in attaining professional competence, and there will be a temptation to establish lower qualifications of inadequate standing. The solution, in some cases, will be to concentrate initially on technician qualifications, and for the country to continue with the use of expatriate professional services until its own supply becomes adequate. As a step in that direction, however, it will be important to ensure that the more able students who qualify initially as technicians can advance later to full professional status, if they wish.

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Even where the supply of students is sufficient to meet a profession's present needs, two situations may arise where they must be sent to other countries for their professional education. The first is where the needs of all professions place too great a total burden on local university resources; and the second is where the volume of demand in a particular profession is too small to sustain a viable university course of the necessary quality. In the latter case, on the other hand, the problem may be solved by neighbouring countries co-operating in the provision of a course that meets their needs collectively.

The disadvantages of training outside the student's own country should not be under-rated. Students who go to Britain to learn about architecture or surveying, for example, will necessarily learn about practice in Britain. When they return home, they may have to apply their knowledge to different situations; and, although their training in fundamental principles should equip them to adjust themselves to local needs, this is not so appropriate as being taught (from the outset) the essentials of professional practice in their own country. Where local educational facilities do not exist, therefore, it will be desirable to train in a comparable environment, and this is a strong reason for collaboration on a regional basis, in preference to the procedure of sending all students to Britain or some other developed country. There will always be merit in a proportion of students gaining acquaintance with a different environment, but this is not an ideal arrangement for the generality of students.

Local education and training also reduce the risk of precipitating a professional 'brain drain'. This can become a serious problem if students who go abroad for training are tempted to stay abroad after qualifying; and this risk is increased if the qualification they obtain equips them better for work outside their own country rather than at home. In response to a request for advice on how to deal with this particular problem in one developing country, C.A.S.L.E. suggested that the best safeguards seemed to be (a) to accord appropriate status, responsibilities and conditions to the indigenous profession; (b) to reduce to a minimum the dependence on expatriate professional skills where adequate indigenous skills were available; and (c) to ensure the provision of local educational facilities at university level.

Progress in education and in the development of the professions undoubtedly varies between one country and another and even between one profession and another. Some developing countries already have a reasonably well-established indigenous profession, local educational facilities, and independent professional societies. Some other countries are in an intermediate stage of producing their first indigenous graduates and have not yet had the opportunity to establish local professional societies on a sound footing; and there are others which have not yet produced any professional skills of their own and may not even have a local society.

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Appendix A to this paper (which contains a list of dates on which national societies for twelve leading professions were formed in thirty-two countries or territories of the Commonwealth) indicates what a high proportion of indigenous societies are of comparatively recent origin. Many of these are small and consist of a high proportion of younger men and women who may not have had opportunities to participate in corporate professional activities. They are in a state of transition and their resources are often inadequate to meet the many demands upon their modest organization. They may desire guidance in the planning and implementation of educational programmes; or in such organizational matters as drafting constitutions, codes of conduct and schemes of registration; or in establishing library or information services; or research or other activities to foster the development of their professional skills.

Instinctively, new societies turn to those that are well established when they need guidance of this kind. Occasionally one observes in developing countries a reverence for the status quo in the professions of the more advanced countries to which those professions themselves would not subscribe. It should not pass unnoticed, for example, that nearly all the leading professions in Britain have recently been engaged in self-examination, in redefining their objectives, and in redeploying their effort in order to keep pace with social, economic and technological developments. But at least the older professional societies are evolving from established positions, and can do so with greater assurance than newly formed organizations.

It is interesting, too, to note the impact on nearly every profession of the rapid growth in world population, the rapid advances in technology, and the rapid growth in knowledge. We are told, for example, that of all the people ever born, one in every twenty-two is living to day; and half of those, or one in every forty-four, were born in the last twenty years. There is authority, too, for saying that three-quarters of all man's knowledge of the natural world was produced by people who are still living. The rate at which knowledge is accumulating is constantly accelerating. For professional men and women, this dictates a need for sound initial education and training, and constant refreshment of the mind in later years if the problems they have to solve are to be tackled effectively and if the peoples they serve are to gain maximum benefit from the skills they can provide.

And yet, the professions cannot be isolated from the hard economic realities that will circumscribe their rate of development and the scope of their day-today activities. Every country must cut its coat according to the cloth available.

It can only deploy the human resources at its disposal, and it can only develop professional skills in balance with all other competing demands. What the professions themselves must seek to ensure is that the value of their own contributions to human progress is fully appreciated by those (usually governPage eighty-one

ments) who are charged with the allocation of resources and with the determination of priorities.

Long-term national objectives For the purpose of our present deliberations, we may assume that every independent country which has the necessary resources will have three prime objectives: to become self-sufficient in providing the professional services it needs; to that end, to provide its own facilities for professional education; and to develop professional organizations that are locally-based and locallyorientated.

These objectives will be more immediately attainable in some countries than in others; and for the latter there remains a need to consider how best to sustain professional activities in the meantime.

The first objective rests on an adequate appreciation of the professional resources that are needed and the country's ability to supply them. Because the Commonwealth Foundation was established by Commonwealth governments, and has so far been wholly financed by them, it may be assumed that governments collectively do appreciate the value of the professions. As I have indicated, however, it might be imprudent to make the further assumption that individual governments necessarily appreciate the full scope of each profession, or the full extent of its potential manpower requirements. On the other hand, in my limited experience, these are matters on which governments are disposed to welcome advice, either from a local professional society or from a more detached Commonwealth association; and each profession should ensure that this advice is available if needed.

The advice is essential not only in assessing the manpower demand, but also for the provision of appropriate educational facilities, to which the demand gives rise. The assessment may be relatively easy to make where a profession is fairly homogeneous, as in a national health service or an integrated legal service, and where the scope of the service is already well defined. The task is more difficult where the profession is more dispersed between private practice and the public service, and even within the public service itself; and where the functions of the profession as a whole may not be comprehensively understood. I-fete is a situation where outside advice may be helpful; and such advice has already been provided in a number of cases. A related study may also be necessary in regard to the structure of a profession, to determine the relationship between fully professional persons and those who can operate under their direction either as technicians or as auxiliaries. These are not, of course, oncefor-all investigations, and they may have to be repeated from time to time; .

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but it is particularly important that reliable appreciations should be made at the outset.

Once the need for educational facilities has been established, some developing countries have been able to give them a reasonably high priority. Indeed, some are already on the way to being self-sufficient in this respect; and others, where individual national requirements are relatively small, may be able to meet their needs by acting in collaboration. In the surveying field, Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya are in the former category; the Caribbean countries are investigating the possibility of establishing joint facilities; and a similar arrangement may also be the solution for some of the smaller countries in Africa.

In step with the development of educational facilities for the professions, it will be necessary to ensure the development of the professions themselves.

There can be little doubt that, in order to become fully effective, every profession needs to develop a corporate spirit and to harness corporate effort for its advancement. This postulates a need for a strong professional society which can (i) sponsor the provision of educational facilities; (ii) provide a professional home for local graduates; (iii) provide a source of supply for teachers (which may itself be a problem in the early stages); (iv) stimulate research and development; (v) organize the exchange and dissemination of information; and (vi) tender collective advice to governments, universities and other organizations.

In Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Britain, most professions have been well organized since the nineteenth or early twentieth century. In some cases, professional societies based in Britain have functioned on a Commonwealth scale organizing examinations and conferring qualifications, and sometimes have established branches of the parent body in countries where their members were sufficiently numerous. The tendency in more recent years has been to form local societies, either by transforming an existing filial organization or by establishing an entirely new society. Although these bodies initially are relatively small and lacking in resources, they do have strong local roots and are well placed to determine local needs and standards and to fulfil local aspirations.

Consequently, a high priority should be given to the strengthening of local professional societies in the developing countries, and to forming new societies where none yet exists but where numbers are sufficient to make one viable.

The membership need not be large; and it is interesting to note that, in the Commonwealth Association of Architects, 4 of its 27 member-societies have fewer than 15 members and 16 societies have fewer than 200; while, of the 30 societies in C.A.S.L.E., 6 have fewer than 25 members, and 23 have fewer than 200. The creation of Commonwealth associations has, in itself, stimulated the formation of several new indigenous societies which (as small organizations) might have achieved little by themselves, but which feel fortified by being part Page eighty-three

of a larger group. In those countries where members really are too small to form a society, Commonwealth associations can appoint correspondents through whom they channel whatever help they may be able to provide.

There is thus emerging a fairly comprehensive network of national societies in Commonwealth countries representing most of the professions. Through them, each profession can evolve its local standards and qualifications, and establish its professional status; while also striving to develop its skills and advance its usefulness in the ways already mentioned. On the other hand, the creation of independent indigenous societies has tended to loosen the ties between the professions in different countries, and the co-ordination now being achieved through Commonwealth associations has been a timely move to put this right. Participation in the work of such associations does not detract from national sovereignty, and yet ensures that each country can have recourse to outside help and advice whenever necessary.

5. Commonwealth collaboration Collaboration on a Commonwealth scale, therefore, benefits all who take part and widens their horizons. In this respect, collaboration within the Commonwealth is usually more effective than collaboration on a world scale, because the similarities of training, traditions and objectives that characterize many of the professions within the Commonwealth provide a closer identity of interest.

The fields for profitable collaboration will vary between different professions. But one that probably affects all professions is the cultivation of a better public understanding of professional functions and a better appreciation of their potential contribution to the public well-being. In this endeavour, any profession has a formidable task at the best of times; and the problem is all the greater for small societies. A Commonwealth association can therefore help by producing appropriate literature for use by its member-societies, and can help in improving contacts with governments and universities. In the C.A.A. and C.A.S.L.E., the officers and committees have done much to support their member-societies in making their professions better known; and the breadth of their collective experience enables them to advise on the wider aspects of professional education and the justification for public investment in developing the relevant skills.

Most of the developing countries actively seek advice on educational problems. Through these consultations, a country can draw on a wide range of experience, and can gain access to academic advice which may not be available locally in the particular discipline concerned. This activity complements the work of bodies like the Inter-University Council for Higher Education, which also provide advice on manpower and training requirements.

Page ezhtJ/-four

Other subjects or opportunities for help and co-operation which have come to my notice include: the definition of 'standards' in education, professional practice and codes of conduct; and their application to local circumstances; recruitment to the profession; the role and qualifications of technicians, and the 'ladder' of advancement from technician to professional status; the supply of teachers for professional education; refresher courses in mid-career; reciprocal recognition of qualifications (and whether this is a good thing, in assisting mobility; or a bad thing, in facilitating a brain drain); statutory registration of the profession; the scope of professional activities; the development of information services; and the provision of books for libraries and the exchange of professional journals.

These are only some of the fields where the exchange of information or experiences can be very helpful. Individual associations can no doubt cite other examples of fruitful co-operation.

Some associations are also actively fostering collaboration within their professions on a regional basis. This is particularly apposite for dealing with problems that have a regional flavour, or to which solutions may have to be evolved in a regional context. The scope for collaboration in education has already been mentioned; and other fields might include (i) the study of technical problems that are common to neighbouring countries (like the 'land' problem in Africa); (ii) the sponsorship of research; (iii) the production of a professional journal or news-sheet; and (iv) the local standardization of codes of good practice and codes of conduct.

One constraint that always arises in co-operative enterprises, at both Commonwealth and regional levels, is the problem of finance. Those Commonwealth associations that have embarked on the kind of programmes I have mentioned inevitably incur substantial expenditure that is difficult to finance out of voluntary subscriptions from their member-societies. Indeed some associations do not levy subscriptions at all; of those that do, C.A.A. and C.A.S.L.E. both raise more than L5,000 a year, but this meets only a fraction of the cost of their activities, which would have been impossible without the help which the Foundation has generously provided. The associations are very grateful for the help they have received.

Page e:gh1y-five

It is important t0 remember, however, that most Commonwealth associations have only recently been formed and are still consolidating their work.

At the outset of any programme for Commonwealth development, fairly intensive effort is essential in order to identify the problems and to enable an association to decide how best it can help in solving them. In time, it may be possible to reduce the number and frequency of Commonwealth-wide meetings, and to concentrate effort at regional level. But some activity at Commonwealth level will still be necessaiy, if benefit is to be derived from the exchange of information and experience, and from acquaintance with the advancing technologies of other countries.

Both C.A.A. and C.A.S.L.E. make some prbvision in their modest budgets to support regional activities. Even this small provision outstrips the total subscriptions accuring from the developing countries, and is subsidized from the other income of each association, which (up to now) has included an annual grant from the Foundation. If, as is contemplated, the Foundation's grants are gradually reduced and ultimately withdrawn, the total incomes of the associations are likely to be substantially curtailed. The U.K. members of the two associations already contribute about 65 and 85 per cent respectively of their total incomes from subscriptions and donations; and it would be expecting a great deal of those members to suggest that they should make still higher contributions.

There is no obvious solution to this problem, but a solution must be found if the work on which these and similar associations have embarked is to be continued for the general benefit of the Commonwealth as - a whole.

-

6. National professional centres However fruitful Commonwealth collaboration proves to be, the extent to which it benefits a profession in a particular country will depend on the vitality of that profession itself. It is essential that the profession should be well established, and ideally, it should have its own premises and permanent staff and have the resources to promote its own activities, provide its own library, produce its own publications, and promote essential research and development.

In the developing countries, very few professional societies are yet in this position. The only, courses open to them are either to struggle on in a modest way with the resources they have, or to co-operate with other professions so that together their combined efforts and resources can be more effective. The latter is clearly the -preferable arrangement; and a local professional centre will often provide the best means of achieving it. For that reason, Commonwealth associations have actively supported the initiative of theFoundatioh in sponsoring local centres to serve all the professions, or such of them as choose to participate. In some cases, the more affluent professions have preferred to stand alone, which creates difficulties for the others and may result in a loss of -

Pate ighty-six

-

advantage to all because some of the potential activities of a centre will have the greatest impact if all the professions take part.

On the basis of my observations in a number of countries, and from my knowledge of what the centres have been able to do for professions with which I am acquainted, I should like to emphasize the importance of their role in providing each profession with a base from which to operate. Among the beneficial services which a centre can provide are (i) a secretariat which can deal promptly with correspondence and with the servicing of committees; (ii) a programme of publicity and public relations activities; (iii) a place for meetings; and (iv) a home for a library. Above all, it provides a continuity of administration that is difficult to achieve if a profession has to rely entirely on the voluntary work and enthusiasm of its members. By these means the centre can help each profession to make maximum use of its resources in developing its own activities.

On a wider plane, the centre can also be a force for bringing the professions together and for sustaining and promoting the professional concept. There are many national problems in developing countries, such as the control and improvement of the human environment, which spread across professional frontiers and in which many professions have a contribution to make. Professional centres provide a forum in which collaboration between the professions can be fostered whenever it is necessary or beneficial. Equally, the maintenance of the professional concept is essential if the individual professions are to maintain their status, attract the right kind of recruit, provide the right level of education and training, and maintain high levels of competence and integrity all of which are necessary to produce the quality of service that this paper has suggested every country needs.

Professional centres therefore have a dual role to play. They can act on behalf of the participating professions collectively, in all matters of common interest; and they can provide invaluable administrative support for each participating profession in the conduct of its own affairs. But individual societies retain their own separate identities; they are primarily responsible for the development of their respective professions, and they will normally look to any Commonwealth association of which they are members for advice on matters pertaining to their own particular skills.

The activities of Commonwealth associations and local professional centres are therefore complementary parts of a single strategy for fostering the growth of the professions; and each local society is the catalyst which harnesses, for the assistance of its own profession, the support of the two organizations to which it belongs. In turn, the local centre is the catalyst which co-ordinates the endeavours of all its participating professions, for the benefit of the local community as a whole.

-

Page eigh&-seven

Conclusion I realize that the general propositions of this brief discourse may not fit the circumstances of every profession, nor reflect the attitudes of all Commonwealth associations. Nevertheless, they do represent my expectations of what such associations can achieve and my faith in the concept of professional centres as a means of reinforcing the local efforts of individual professions in those developing countries where the professions are not yet able to stand on their own feet.

There is a great wealth of professional knowledge and experience in the Commonwealth. It. is also noteworthy that the standards of competence and integrity in most professions are higher in the Commonwealth than they are elsewhere. There are many historical reasons for this, including long-standing traditions of education and training, and in the case of the landed professions, for example the legal framework within which they operate and the general attitude to the use and development of land. Indeed, this has resulted in the emergence within the Commonwealth of particular skills for which there are no precise parallels in other countries. But the scope and standard of individual skills are not uniform in all countries, and one of the main benefits to be derived from Commonwealth collaboration is the exchange of knowledge and information about professional activities, which enables each country to develop the full potential of its own professional resources. .

-

-

Page eighty-eight

Appendix A

THE GROWTH OF NATIONAL PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES This Appendix has been compiled from information published 'in Professional Organizations in The Commonwealth, edited for the Foundation by Sir James Currie, ICE.E., C.M.G.

(5 >,

..

>4

1961 1907

1919

1933

-

1961

1954

-

-

-

1954

-

-

-

-

1928

1002

1887

1914

..

1959

1957

1931

1906

1947 1888

-

CYPRUS

..

-

1956

-

1956

1955

-

Fiji

..

.. ..

CEYLON

. .

-

-

-

1963

1957 1954

1953

-

1968

1957 1940

GHANA

..

GIBRALTAR

..

GUYANA

..

HONG KONG

..

INDIA

..

1949

1917

1946

..

1965

1957

1928

1959

1943

1946

..

1949 1967 1969 1967 1920 1942 1920

1935

MAURITIUS ..

NEW ZEALAND

1938 1959 1908 1910

1905

1948 1957 1914 1869

NIGERIA

1965 1961

1960 1957

1965 1948

1959 1948

..

JAMAICA KENYAj MALAWI MALAYSIA MALTA

.. .. ..

..

..

PAKISTAN PAPUA and NEW ..

GUINEA

-

-

-

SIERRA LEONE

1960

SINGAPORE SOLOMON Is. SWAZILAND

1963

TANZANIA TRINIDAD TOBAGO UGANDAI UNITED

..

-

1966 1957 1947 1956

-

1948

-

-

..

-

-

1958 1943

KINGDOM ZAMBIA

.. ..

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

1907

-

1877

1950 ?

-

1926 1967 -

-

1969

-

1960

-

1961

1961

1967

1961

1969

1964 1882 1890 -

-

1955

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

1969

1950

-

-

1970

1950 1959 1967

1964

-

-

1950 1928 1946

-

1923 1947 1953

1953

1940

-

-

1969 -

1961 -

1970 1970 1970 1888 1943 1938

-

1963

-

1922 1940

-

1966

1951 -

-

-

1939

-

1966

-

-

1951

1928 1940

1969

-

1951

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

1960

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

i

1948

1959 -

1946

1958 1965

-

1906 -

1966

1959

1897

1831 1925

1943

1946

1914

1913

1880t 1834 1954

1890

1818

1825t 1832 1841

1957

1970

-

1961 1955

1955

-

1919

-

-

1949

1955 1966

-

-

-

1960

*

1949 1949 -

1926

1959

*

1948

-

1882

*

1949

and ..

-

-

1920

-

-

-

1947

-

-

-

-

1958

1966

-

-

-

1963 1938

1956 1931

1948

-

1949 1965

-

1926 -

-

1907

1953 -

-

1890

-

-

-

1952 -

-

1953 1967 1958 1935 1970

1928

-

1966

1867

1958

-

1926

1950

1919

1920

-

-

..

1958

1968 1947

-

-

..

-

1966

..

B

l.i2,

.,i

1928 1930

z

-..

1968 1966 1967 1962 1902 1907

..

0(5

0

.,

° .

AUSTRALIAj BAHAMAS BARBADOS BERMUDA CANADAlf

E

(5

u

1964

-

-

1934

1969

-

1964

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

1967 1968

1967

1967

1948 1962 1968 1968

1968

1868

1868

1868

1958

-

-

1914 -

1882

1949

earlier and ¶ Dates are for Federal bodies in Australia and Canada; state and provincial societies were formed still exist. In Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda, Some societies are national and others are regional. t England and Wales. * Represented in C.A.S.L.E. by the Hong Kong Branch of The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

Page ezgbty-nine

(ii) Commonwealth Associations and Professional Education with Special Reference to the work of the Commonwealth Board of Architectural Education -

Paper presented by The Secretarji of the Commonwealth Association of Architects (C.A.A.), T. Colchester, C.M.G. There is probably no professional Institute or Society in the Commonwealth which has not re-appraised its education policies in the past ten years and which will not do so again in the next. Education and training to a necessary level being classically the principal hall mark of professional status in an age of advancing standards of school and university education and of rapid obsolescence of technological and professional knowledge, equipping members for their duties is a natural, pre-occupation with professional bodies everywhere.

This common concern with education and training and the value of cooperation anl mutual -help was almost cthainly the strongest predisposing influence amongst national Institutes of architects in promoting the Commonwealth Association of Architects in 1964. Since then the C.A.A. has found that education is the service which members institutes put first among activities suitable for a Commonwealth organization and it is also probably where a Commonwealth organization stands the best chance of breaking out of the stage of merely holding conferences and 'up on to the level of giving a positive service to member bodies.

Commonwealth-based professional organizations are favourably placed to work in the education field. By contrast the professional international bodies corresponding to the Commonwealth organizations (for example the International Union of Architects as compared with the Commonwealth Association of Architects) are believed to have disappointingly little to their credit in the education field. The world-based organizations have usually been in existence longer than their Commonwealth counterparts and periodically declare an objective of mutual help in professional education. Money, language, politics and wide diversities of resources and types however usually undermine the hopes built up., Rather similarly neither the United Nations nor UNESCO have gone far with positive education projects for the needs of the professions or to help new nations create professional resources except possibly for teaching and medicine, and eicluding Ofcoufse thëimthene help of international aid in promoting higher education generally. In our particular field of housing, building and planning, UNESCO took no particular initiative until 1970 and then in a very limited way. There is no need to recite the advantages ComPage ninetj

monwealth organizations enjoy in educational co-operation or theextent of the record.

• A Commonwealth Board of Architectural Education was mooted in '1965 and its establishment was the main plank in the C.A.A. application for help made to the Commonwealth Foundation in 1966. Education is obviously, a, distinctively expensive activity to embark upon and the C.A.A would not have been able to run a board of education or to exploit its potential without Foundation help and if dependent solely on income from subscriptions.

The duties and operations of the Commonwealth ;Boad of Architectural Education are contained in a directive from, the Association of which copies can be made available but any professional association would have little difficulty in enumerating a list of suitable and desirable activities. We emphasize that its primary duty is tohelp our membei Institutes to cárrydut their national educational objectives and policies a possibly over-simple statement but a wise one against a background of widely divergent needs and resourde's and the fact that the agencies for education in the Cômmonw&alth are more usually universities jealous of their rights and independence and governments who provide the money.' Our 'Board of Education proceeds by recommendations thade to our Main Conference, to our Exe'cutive Committee or to institutes direct t their request. We advise and help Schbdls of Architecture but would never go over the heads of the professional bodies which make up our membership and are at pains not to cut across their rights.

The Bard of Architectural Education of the C.A.A: has from, six to eight members and this is necessary to cover each of the five main regions of the Commonwealth and to achieve a balance between teachers and practitioners.

There is considerable mobility in the architectural profession between practice and teaching. I do not know if this is so in other professions and whether 'as with us committees and conferences tend to be dominated by the practitioner interest but we' find that any education board must have teachers on it if it is to secure the confidence of schools and education bodies. Universities are in any case always sensitive on the issue of professional intervention in teaching. and education policy. The Board meets once a y' ear in Ia different part of the Commonwealth and is served by the C.A.A. Secretariat: By meeting near to the same time and place as conferences, costs cati be 'kept down. The Board tries to make accessible collective resources to the benefit of single members by promoting joint investigations, exchange of information, movement between schools, visits and studies by experts and conferences. Everything points towards the most promising contacts being at regiorfal 'or group level, sometimes meetings purely of heads of schools of architecture, 'but more cbmmonly also with representatives of institutes in a reasonably 'homogeneous region such as the Far Page ninetjv-one ,

-

East, Middle Africa or the Carribean. Non-Commonwealth countries have taken part in these regional activities and we welcome it.

It has been our experience and also that of C.A.S.L.E., that discussions and material opportunities to get results from such discussions come most alive in regions or in areas of broadly comparable resources and basically similar needs.

If, for example, other professions like us think there is a lack of the right textbooks and technical publications, this is best dealt with by a regional group.

From the C.A.A. Asian Regional Conference in 1968, there emerged a most promising project for starting an Architects Regional Centre for Environmental Studies in Asia. The main purpose of the Asian Regional Centre projected is to start services and facilities which individually no one of our Asian architectural institutes could sustain yet which all need.

Perhaps other professions can make a contribution in the seminar on the best way to service regional activity. We in the C.A.A. are finding we may have reached a crucial point. So far the work has been done either from London or by local volunteers or from the office of the institute hosting the conference.

There is a need for something better to chase progress, follow up on recommendations, keep momentum going and prepare for the next stage. We think we may pay some local national secretary's office to take on the regional job but there may be no such office. Asia is the best run of our regions. Africa has enthusiasm but no core. The Caribbean waxes and wanes. Europe and Australasia are still abstractions.

One cause which our Board is often invited to argue or re-inforce is the case for more schools of architecture or perhaps the establishment of the very first such school in a particular country. A Commonwealth organization can do this well. It knows its way round the world of professional manpower requirements in the light of population and G.N.P. and in our experience it is more progressive about the form which education should take than the local profession. It can also steer half way stages where, for example, the first part of professional courses take place in the home country and the final years or diversified stages take place overseas. We find our Board is often called in to meet ministers or university authorities on such questions or we can prepare the case for the local institute to present.

The C.A.A. publishes a Commonwealth List of recognized schools and it is sometimes a criticism made against the Board of Education that it has been pre-occupied with recognition of schools and a Commonwealth standard for recognition, where it should have been giving more time to helping the achievement of a national standard. It is fair comment that this recognition list has absorbed a lot of time but not in our view to the detriment of other objectives. This question of Commonwealth standards or Commonwealth Page ninet'y-two

validity of qualifications can be argued in different ways. Most professions at some time or other went through a stage of using British professional exanimations and qualifications as their own national yardsticks for membership or registration and most countries have found it useful to exploit lists of qualifications or examinations originating in London as guides for professional qualifications in their own country, but found it less and less acceptable as they developed their own views and their own resources. With us, and I suppose with all of us, it is now axiomatic that each Commonwealth country aims at standards and patterns of national qualifications appropriate to its own needs and resources. It is a latent danger in a Commonwealth professional organization that it tends to preserve professional typings and concepts not necessarily sacred for all time and to be guarded against. Nonetheless, the majority of member institutes in the C.A.A. have after affirming the priority of national objectives agreed on the general value of a Commonwealth list and Commonwealth standard of architectural qualifications. The Commonwealth list gives a target to aim at and assists the free movement of architects between countries. It helps smaller national institutes which lack the resources themselves to deal with unfamiliar qualifications and also enables graduates from a wide range of institutes in different countries to accredit themselves outside their own country.

We have developed an interesting system of visiting boards to schools with Commonwealth membership which is well supported and welcomed, and we have published a statement on objectives and standards of recognition which can be made available to anybody interested. The visiting board system has been successful in bringing new ideas and contacts to a school or institute.

With us it has been a force countering insularity and entrenched interests and attitudes. One recent board to Hong Kong consisted of an Indian, a Pakistani, a Canadian plus the Hong Kong members. It reports jointly to the C.A.A. and the local body. We try to keep down costs by making it coincide in time with some other activity in the region and we have had help with fares from the InterUniversity Council. Participants at the Seminar may remember that Mutual Recognition of Qualifications has twice been on the agenda of Commonwealth Education Conferences and proved obdurately difficult. We still find it so but are making fair inroads. On the other hand, some critics assert that it starts a brain drain where a brain drain might not happen.

Two topics where our Board would like to do more and where it has not been particularly successful are, first, the problem of continuing education and mid-career courses for the already qualified architect, and, secondly, subprofessional education.

It is a familiar comment that professional knowledge can be technologically out of date after fifteen years or so. We have found that there is not much that Page nine1y-three

can be done collectively except to exchange information. Everything rests on the resourdes of the profession at national level. The work is nonetheless important. Our second field of interest in which we would have liked to have done more is in influencing the right kind of education and proper role of technicians, auxiliaries, sub-professionals as they are variously known. Here we have found a cleavage of views between countries. A third field where any Commonwealth board can try to be in advance of opinion and where it can be very important is in the promotion of inter-disciplinary education going outside established professional boundaries and in stimulating a re-thinking of changing professional roles in response to social and economic change.

On the question of money our Board costs on average about L5,000 a year, of which approximately half goes on annual meetings and travel and the rest on grants and minor schemes of co-operation. Organizations like ourselves cannot get into the aid field but a board of education can sometimes act as a broker in locating a source of finance for a particular scheme but otherwise it has to leave a national institute or school of architecture to find the money as best it can for schemes it wishes to promote. We and all Commonwealth organizations will be particularly interested in the development of the Education Division within the Commonwealth Secretariat and in the establishment of the Commonwealth Technical Aid Fund with funds disposable on a multi-lateral basis. The C.A.A. has for some years been looking for a fund to sustain a triangular arrangement whereby a student from say, Malawi, could get money from, say, Canada, to be educated in, say, Ghana, and this may now be possible.

Page ninety-four

Postal Addresses of Professional Centres (as at November 1971)

-.

BARBADOS

c/o Secretary (Mr C. S. Nelson, Queen Elizabeth Hospital Bridgetown, Barbados

Fiji

Fiji Professional Centre P.O. Box 1015 (Sabrina Building, Gordon Street, Suva) 'Suva

GHANA

The Secretary The Association of Recognized Professional Bodies P.O. Box, 916 Accra

F.R.c.s.)

.

GUYANA

do Secretary Guyana Association of Professional Engineers Peter Rose and Anira Streets Georgetown

JAMAICA

The Professional Centre of Jamaica 5 Rekadom Avenue Kingston 10

KENYA

Kenya Professional Centre P.O. Box 12643 Nairobi

MALAYSIA

Dr Keshmahinder Singh 34 Jalan Campbell Kuala Lumpur

MALTA

Malta Federation of Professional Bodies do The Exchange Kingsway, Valetta

NIGERIA

Working Group on The Nigerian Professional Centre do P. I. A. Akinyemi Director Nigerian Institute of Management P.O. Box 2557 Lagos Page ninetji-five

SINGAPORE

Singapore Professional Centre Bik 23, 2nd Floor Outram Park, Singapore 3

TANZANIA

Tanganyika Law Society P.O. Box 2148 Dar-es-Salaam

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO

The Professional Centre Trinidad & Tobago Group of Professional Associations Room 8, 2nd Floor 14 St Vincent Street Port of Spain

UGANDA

Professional Centre of Uganda Box 3216 Kampala

ZAMBIA

Professional Centre Investigation Committee do A. W. Anderson P.O. Box 263 Lusaka

Page ninety-six

*No.

I.

*No.

II.

*No. ifi. *No. IV. No.

V.

No. VI. No. VII. No. VIII. No. IX. No.

X.

No. XI. No. XII.

PREVIOUS PAPERS IN THIS SERIES 'Social Work Training Needs in East Africa.' Report on Regional Seminar in Uganda, December 1967.

'Medical Education in Papua/New Guinea (with special reference to the Teaching and Practice of Obstetrics).'

Professor J. Lawson, F.R.c.O.G., November 1968.

'Professional Managers in Indian Industry.' G. J. West, F.C.C.S., F.R.S.A., General Secretary, British Institution of Works Managers, December 1968.

'Mental Health Problems in the Developing World.' Report on Mental Health Workshops in Edinburgh (1968) and Kampala (1969).

'Quality in Education.' Report on a Conference of Inspectors of Schools from the Asia/Pacific area of the Commonwealth, Singapore 1969.

'Speech and Hearing Problems in South East Asia,' 1969.

'East Coast Fever.' Final report of Edinburgh/East African Veterinary Expedition, 1969.

'Conference of Librarians from Commonwealth Universities in Africa.' Report of Proceedings at Lusaka, August 1969.

'Work Study Practice.' Report on a Regional Commonwealth Work Study Seminar, Singapore, May 1970.

'Orthopaedic Problems in the Developing World.' Report on a Commonwealth Lecture tour by Professor R. L. Huckstep, Makerere University Medical School, July— September 1970.

'Manpower Planning in the South Pacific.' Regional Sciences in Fiji, July 1970.

'Communications and University Teaching with particular reference to the Caribbean.' Inter-University Research Unit, Cambridge, November 1971. *jVow out of print.

First Major Publication 'Professional Organizations in the Commonwealth' (detailing upwards of one thousand professional and learned societies and Commonwealth-wide associations). Published by Hutchinson of London, June, 1970. 511 pp.

Price L450.