[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 54 (Thursday, April 3, 2003)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E679-E680]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
HONORING THE LIFE AND ACHIEVEMENT OF A RENOWNED EDUCATOR: RAJA ROY-
SINGH
______
HON. JAMES A. LEACH
of iowa
in the house of representatives
Thursday, April 3, 2003
Mr. LEACH. Mr. Speaker, I rise on behalf of the House of
Representatives to express my respects to a renowned international
educator, Mr. Raja Roy-Singh, on the occasion of his 85th birthday. As
a member of the House Committee on International Relations and as a
former Co-Chairman of the United States Commission on Improving the
Effectiveness of the United Nations, I can attest that improving the
quality of education in the world is a prerequisite to the
establishment of effective cooperation and mutual understanding in the
international community. In this context, the career-long dedication of
Mr. Roy-Singh to international education deserves the attention of
Congress.
Raja Roy-Singh was born on April 5, 1918 in Pithoragarh, a remote
town in the Himalayan foothills near India's frontier with Nepal and
Tibet. One imagines that the young Roy-Singh was inspired by panoramic
views of snow-topped mountains that framed the beautiful valley of his
birthplace. These same mountains were the source of many streams and
rivers that flowed southward onto the plains of India. Perhaps as he
walked the long mountainous paths to school he wondered where those
rivulets and mountain streams flowed and dreamed about following them
one day.
His father was a Methodist preacher who worked in a number of mission
assignments along the Himalaya territory almost 250 miles from end to
end. His mother's Rajput forbears had lived in the Pithoragarh district
for generations. His father died early leaving Raja and his mother
alone in Pithoragarh while his older sisters were away at boarding
school.
As a boy Raja Roy-Singh attended the district school by day and read
by kerosene lamp at night. Under the watchful eye of his mother and
Mary Reed, a dedicated Methodist missionary from California, he won a
series of district scholarships that sent him off to college at Agra
and finally to Allahabad--a sacred place for Hindus and Buddhists at
the confluence of the Ganges, the Yamuna and the Saraswati Rivers.
Achieving distinction in philosophy and English, with a particular
interest in T.S. Eliot, Mr. Roy-Singh took his bachelor's and master's
degrees as the convulsions of the Second World War began. Placing high
on the civil service exams, he entered the Indian Administrative
Service in 1942 and was assigned to Agra where he met his wife Zorine
Bonifacius. In the vibrant period immediately following Indian
independence his civil service postings took him to Kanpur, Bombay,
[[Page E680]]
Mathura and Lucknow. These assignments afforded him valuable experience
at various levels of government. In 1954, he was appointed state
director of education in Uttar Pradesh. Thus, he entered
the educational service, initially as a ``posting,'' but soon his
dedication to his profession took on the dimension more of mission than
occupation.
Mr. Roy-Singh was appointed education adviser at the Federal Ministry
of Education where he served from 1957-1964. In a period of changing
demands on education in India, Mr. Roy-Singh focused his energies on
developing new ways to harmonize educational activities between the
Federal and the state governments. This effort led to the establishment
of the Counsel of Educational Research and Training, a network of
educational institutions for research, training and service. Several
prominent U.S. educators were closely associated with its planning in
the founding years, notably the Teacher's College formed under the
direction of Columbia University. In the last four decades, the India
Council of Educational Research and Training, which Mr. Roy-Singh
provided such visionary leadership, has played an innovative role in
advancing education and educational opportunity in India.
Another significant program he helped to found was the Science Talent
Search begun in 1959, Boys and girls ages 15-17 with high science
aptitudes were identified through specially devised tests and awarded
full scholarships through their entire schooling, including higher
education. In its early years, there was close technical collaboration
between this India program and similar ones in the United States
sponsored by the Ford Foundation. From a modest but promising beginning
the program greatly expanded in subsequent years and substantially
increased the number of science teachers and the quality of science
education in India.
Mr. Roy-Singh was invited to join UNESCO in 1964. For the next 20
years, he served as UNESCO's Regional Director of Education in Asia and
later as Assistant Director-General of UNESCO for Asia and the Pacific.
In 1985, after completing his service with UNESCO, he retired to the
United States, taking up permanent residence in Evanston, Illinois.
At UNESCO Mr. Roy-Singh's principal responsibility was to coordinate
the educational agenda in member Asian countries. The Asian and the
Pacific region is extensive and diverse. It comprises 30 countries
extending from Iran and Afghanistan in the west to Korea and Japan in
the east, to Mongolia in the north and Australia and New Zealand in the
south. Mr. Roy-Singh's strategy was to manage this far-flung region by
focusing on common educational problems and fostering inter-country
cooperation. He carried out this strategy by recognizing the unique
cultural differences within and between countries yet encouraging each
to share educational experiences and expertise. This approach found its
full expression in the Asian and Pacific Program of Educational
Innovation for Development which continues to make significant
contributions to educational development in the Asian region.
Mr. Roy-Singh will be remembered as a pioneer in the educational
field in Asia having encouraged cooperation between national and local
governments and education ministries and with international
organizations. His life to date has spanned two major wars and several
continents. His career has brought him into contact with heads of
government as well as with educators throughout the world.
In the course of his career Mr. Roy-Singh has authored numerous
publications including Education in Asia and the Pacific (UNESCO/
Bankok, 1966), Adult Literacy as an Educational Process (Internal
Bureau of Education, Geneva, 1990), Educational Planning in Asia
(UNESCO--Internal Institute for Educational Planning, Paris, 1990).
Of particular interest to this body is his educational philosophy. In
``Changing Education for a Changing World'' (1992), Mr. Roy-Singh
outlined how we might prepare young people for life in an ever-changing
world:
There are two universes of change. One is change in the
world of objects, externality. Science and technology and
socio-economic organizations are examples of externality. The
truths of the external world are non-cumulative; a new
discovery may wipe the slate clean of all that went before.
Continuity in this kind of ``universe'' is fortuitous and
certainly minimal. The other kind of change is pivoted on the
human being, individual or group. Change in the interior
`universe' of human existence is cumulative; it is expressed
in culture, in the quest for knowledge, and in the striving
for heightened moral awareness.
What could change and what has to continue and what
continues even in change are issues of judgment and
discernment. This is where education has a role.
The Asian societies in transition have to find for
themselves a path which does not traverse the wasteland of
rootless modernism on the one hand and mindless conservation
on the other. The best in the living tradition of the Asian
cultures, their moral loftiness, their universality and their
profound insights into human nature, may provide the
continuity in the flux of change that must necessarily come
in the wake of science and technology and the liberating
human spirit.
Change is a dominating force in the world. Some welcome it and see it
as an opportunity. Others fear change because it threatens the
established order. Like a powerful rush of water crashing down a
mountainside, the force of change can wash away all living things in
its path. To survive we all need strong roots with which to cling.
Education is a life preserver. It allows us to harness the creative
energy of change by instructing us what to keep from the past, what to
undertake in the present, and what to seek in the future.
All societies have strengths and weaknesses in their education
systems. The need for self-examination and improvement is a constant.
But as the anarchy of terrorism has demonstrated, no country is an
island, invulnerable to the frustration and despair of those who are
not provided the ability that education provides to lead their own
societies in progressive directions and manage or at least cope with
the discombobulating challenges of modernity.
One of the many lessons of the international traumas of the past few
years is that Americans cannot be concerned solely with the education
of our young. If we ignore the educational inadequacies of other
cultures, we jeopardize our own security.
There is no simple or single methodology, but there must be a
singular commitment to advance the most powerful force for constructive
change in the world: a decent and universal concern for educating every
generation in every society.
For his dedication to international education and for his wisdom of
purpose we thank Mr. Roy-Singh and congratulate him as well on reaching
the ripe age of 85.
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