A Policy for Education (An Old and Rare Book)

In recent years there has been considerable development of seed pathology, particularly in the Third World. More than fifty universities in over twenty developing countries have introduced this discipline, about forty universities offering credit courses, mostly at post graduate level. Research projects on seed pathology are increasingly being taken up. This development led to the organisation of a Seminar on University Teaching of Seed Pathology in Developing Countries of Africa and Asia, which took place in New Delhi and Mysore, India, in November-December, 1976. Many contributions to the discussions of this conference have been utilised in the preparation of this book.
An urgent need has been felt for a general guideline for university teaching of seed pathology that would include discussions on principles of teaching this subject, organisation of co-operation between disciplines of science and between universities, research projects and research policy, organisation of laboratory practicals in seed health testing, etc. We hope the present book will fulfil this gap.
Dr. J. Hockenhull, Dr. A. Bennum and Dr. T. Lunds gaard have worked out the Laboratory Exercises dealing with seed structure, bacteria and viruses, respectively.
A draft edition was sent out to all participants and some observers of the Seminar and to a few other colleagues for their comments. Comments and correc tions have been received from Dr. V. K. Agarwal, Pantnagar, Nainital, U. P., India; Dr. Samir Michail. Alexandria, Egypt; Dr. Hemant C. Phatak, Bangkok, Thailand; Mr. J. R. Thomson, Edinburgh, Scotland; Dr. J. P. Verma, New Delhi, India. We are especially grateful to Dr. Mary Noble, Scotland, who critically perused both the first and second draft of the manuscript.