[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.

                          ____________________