1078 PONTIFICIAE ACADEMIAE SCIENTIARVM SCRIPTA VARIA - 2&
other educational aids; but scales of pay or cost of buildings
should still be kept in balance with the general level of living
of the students and the parents themselves. At the tertiary
level, still higher standards would have to be adopted for staff
qualifications and there would be need of more expensive
teaching aids; but the expenditure must be kept within the
limits of what the country can afford. It is at the stage of
advanced studies and research that standards should be really
high and comparable with the advanced countries; however, as
the number of advanced and research workers would be very
small in the beginning, this would not involve anv large total
expenditure.
7.3. The educational system should be viewed as a pyramid;
the lower the stage the wider should be the base (that is, the
number of persons under instruction) and the lower the scales
of expenditure compared to advanced countries, while at the
highest stage of advanced studies and research the number in-
volved would be extremely small but scales of expenditure may
approximate to those of advanced countries. Adoption, at too
early a stage, of standards and scales of expenditure of
advanced countries at lower levels would lead to severe restrict-
ions in numbers usually coupled with admission of students on
the basis of family income; this must have most undesirable
social and psychological consequences. When resources in men,
materials and money are inadequate, to increase the number
of students in accordance with the pressure on admissions, would
necessarily lead to window dressing and a dilution of standards
in practice. This can seriously hamper progress; the only re-
medy is to adopt a system which would be in keeping with basic
aims and yet within the means of the country.
7-4. Medical care and technical services: A similar situat-
lon can arise even more easily in the field of medical care.
Adoption of the high level of university education for physicians
in the advanced countries as the only standard at an earlv stage
1471 Mahalanobis I - pag. 10
