Science, Technology and Education in the Development of Indigenous Technological Capability

In broad comparability with the changes in economic theories and policies of the last chapter, the period 1960 to 1980 witnessed shifts in education and development theory which have resulted now in the beginnings of interest in the notion of indigenous technological capability. The critique of the 1960s’ faith in investment-in-education-and-modernisation has been sufficiently widespread that there is no cause to rehearse it here;1 equally, criticism of dependency theory, which was one of the successors to the modernisation era, has also been effective in undermining the cruder versions of cultural imperialism and of the alleged subordination of the entire education apparatus to the economic system and the international division of labour.2 The other successor to the short-lived modernisation period was the very wideranging concern for equity, employment, income distribution and basic needs, especially in regard to rural and marginal urban populations.3 This had a much greater impact on educational thinking from the late 1960s than did the dependency literature. Then finally from the mid to late 1970s, research on education and labour markets started turning up evidence of significant autonomy and self-reliance at the national, regional and community level.