Southeast Asia: An Economist's Viewpoint

Assessment of the role of Southeast Asia in American higher education will depend upon the frame of reference. Rapid expansion in area and language courses, in staff and students, and in research results has occurred over the two postwar decades. On the other hand, when assessed in terms of the national interest in area and language skills, the gap between needs and resources has not been reduced over this period. Further expansion and qualitative improvement in this important enterprise will be restrained by the basic lack of integration within the area, which complicates scholarship; by the difficulties confronting the isolated scholar seeking to maintain his commitment to study of the area; and by the dis tance, isolation, and relative smallness of the countries. Econo mists have tended to remain aloof from area- and language- specialization as the theoretical orientation of their discipline, the ready availability of processed aggregative statistical data, and the limited role assigned economists in outside participa tion in processes of modernization have combined to minimize the usefulness of area- and language-training to economists.