§ Dame Joan Vickersasked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what steps he is taking to increase aid to developing countries in the fields of management education, industrial training and technical education.
§ Mr. WoodMy Department recently published a Review "Education in Developing Countries" which established a strong case for increasing aid in the closely allied fields of management education, industrial training and technical education. I have therefore decided that the Council for Technical Education and Training for Overseas Countries, under the Chairmanship of Sir Frederick Pedler, should be reorganised and strengthened in order to take on additional executive responsibility in those three fields. One of its main tasks will be to develop working relationships with interested organisations in Britain.
The operations of the Council will be initially financed from Government funds, but the Council will be constituted as a corporate legal entity and will therefore be able to receive funds from other sources. I hope it will increasingly do so. My Department will also make a grant of £61,000 over three years to the Overseas Students Advisory Bureau so that it can increase its efforts, which supplement those of other agencies, to find industrial training places for students from developing countries.