Organization for economic cooperation and development Partnership for progress, part 6
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Partnership for progress. A special series of reports from the recent
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Washington policy conference on education in the advancement of economic development.
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This series is brought to you by the National Association of educational broadcasters.
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The conference was sponsored by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
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the organizational outgrowth of the one time Marshall Plans organization for
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European Economic Cooperation. Now writer and producer for this series of
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reports is the end E.B. radio network's Washington analyst John F.
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Lewis.
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The wind up of the policy conference on education as an instrument of economic
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development was climaxed by a news conference briefing for the Washington press corps.
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The summary of conference discussions was provided by Assistant Secretary of State
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for Cultural Affairs Philip Kuhn.
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There have been two underlying premises worth noting and I think it's fair
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to say there is a substantial consensus on these premises first
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that the economic and social needs of the next decade will
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lead to major expansion
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and major changes in education throughout the world
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in the more developed countries and in the underdeveloped countries alike.
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And the second premise and this I might say is one
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which has only lately come fully into the consciousness
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of a good many policy makers and planners
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that education. In addition to its very
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important cultural and social functions also
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has a major role to play in the
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economic growth and development both of
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developed and of underdeveloped countries and viewed
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in this light expenditures on education
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are an investment in as true an economic
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sense as expenditures on physical plant.
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At the same time however it has been recognised here that
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expenditures on education also satisfy
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important consumption demands and
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so education has the peculiar characteristic.
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Being both a good investment and a good consumption
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expenditure there are seven particular
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conclusions which struck me as being
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especially pertinent with respect to the developed countries meaning here.
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The members of the OEC date first
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that there clearly is room and need for
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a considerable increase in educational activity and
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effort. First because there is in all our
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countries considerable underdeveloped human talent
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which without adequate education will go to waste.
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And this would be a needless sacrifice to the individuals
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concerned and to their societies. But secondly
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considering the economic trends of our time it is clear that the
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needs for manpower to serve all purposes in our economies
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is shifting rapidly toward greater emphasis on relatively
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well educated and trained manpower and away from unskilled
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manpower so that in the future the average
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amount of education that a person must have to be effective will be
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higher than in the past. And quite apart from these economic
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considerations there is also a potent democratic demand
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by the populations for better educational opportunity.
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A second conclusion is that the meeting of these
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educational needs will in most countries require an
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increase in the percentage of the gross national product invested
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in education. It is difficult to measure with precision the percentage
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now going in to education country by country
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because of some of the technical problems of what it is you're measuring. But
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roughly speaking that percentage in Western Europe today
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ranges from 3 percent to 4 and a half percent according to our
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expert papers with variations by countries
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and the corresponding percentage in the United States and the
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Soviet Union would fall somewhere between 4 and 5 percent.
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Taking into account the anticipated economic growth of all these
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countries in future years that is the only C-D countries.
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It would appear that something on the order of a doubling
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of outlays on education will be required in
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the decade of the 60s. That is by 1970 and
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that given the growth anticipated this can
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be accomplished without severe strain or sacrifice.
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It can be largely finance indeed entirely financed from the
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increase in national output. Bringing the
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total percentage of gross national product going into education
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to something like 1 percent above its present
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percentage level. A third important conclusion therefore
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is that the principal bottleneck. By and large
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the needed expansion and improvement of education is probably not
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a financial bottleneck but rather a bottleneck of human
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talent in the form of good teachers. We
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know here of course in the United States that this has been a perplexing
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impediment to our educational advancement for some years. The
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evidence is rapidly mounting in various European countries that
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they are more and more encountering the same bottleneck.
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The fourth point then is that the teaching
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bottleneck. And here I am for size teaching as distinct from the statistical
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number of teachers because it's teaching services of a
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good quality that are in short supply.
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The teaching bottleneck must be broken by
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attacks from a variety of directions designed to increase
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the supply of well-trained teachers
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not only by producing more in our training institutions but by
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drawing back into teaching. Former teachers removing
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obstacles to their return and tapping other sources
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particularly women in some of these countries who haven't thus far been
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adequately utilized in teaching the fifth point
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follows directly which is that changes
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within education. And not simply a physical
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expansion of what we now have in education is essential. And these
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changes must touch all aspects of the curriculum to
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bring it up to date to direct it toward them greater priority needs.
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The whole organizational structure of education the methods of
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teaching and learning the architecture. Every phase of
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education must be re-examined to see if we can find still better
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ways to get maximum educational results of the highest
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quality within the limits of whatever resources are available.
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Thus the aim is not only to expand quantitatively but to improve
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qualitatively. 6 important conclusion
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it seems to me. Is that the only CD countries as
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relatively well developed countries face in the coming decade not
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only a much greater domestic task and responsibility
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but in addition face a heavy responsibility for
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providing requested assistance to less developed countries.
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Our educational institutions are our principal resource
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base which will enable all our countries
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to assist in the development of human resources in the newer countries.
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And finally in order to meet this double
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responsibility of domestic and overseas requirements
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educational systems will have to be developed
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in an orderly fashion that we cannot. Look at the
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matter simply from year to year but must project ahead and
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anticipate the future needs and the future problems to be overcome.
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The future bottlenecks that must be broken because education
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is a long term process it takes time to bring about basic changes in it
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and the kinds of changes needed the kinds of expansion needed must be
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anticipated. Well in advance of the conference then turned
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to providing such guidance as it could to the developed countries
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in their efforts to assist the underdeveloped countries. And I
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will give you a few brief observations are summaries
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there. First the need for human resource development
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in the less developed countries is very great. There is
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need not only to develop physical resources but it is at least as
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important at the early stages of development to emphasize
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human resource development which represents ultimately the
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greatest wealth of a nation. So there must be a balance between the two
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physical and human resources. This is by any
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measure an enormous and very expensive task. A
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second conclusion is that it is especially essential
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that educational developments in underdeveloped areas
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if they are to make the best use of the available external resources
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and internal will have to be well planned on a
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long range basis and carefully integrated with general
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plans for economic and social development. A third point is that
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the kinds of educational systems that can best serve the unique
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needs of the underdeveloped countries will have to be
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carefully designed to fit those needs. They cannot be mere
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imitations of the educational curriculums
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practices and structures of the developed
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countries. The point is that all of this will
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require a tremendous effort
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in the direction of research and development of operations analysis
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that will bring about some real breakthroughs from past
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conventional methods of education. And
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finally it was agreed that we
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who attempt to help underdeveloped countries should not make them
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the debating forum for our debates internally
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on education. Not that those debates aren't extremely wholesome
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in our own countries but they can prove terribly confusing and irrelevant
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to the under developed countries.
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Philip Coombs assistant secretary of state for Cultural Affairs who presided at
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the policy conference of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
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thus summed up the views of the delegates of the more than 20 member countries of
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only CD on education as an instrument of economic development.
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The conference was held at the Brookings Institution and the State Department in Washington
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to serve a means of improving the educational operations of Western Europe
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Canada and the United States and then to outline what might be done
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by these powers to help underdeveloped countries. Observers
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from numerous organizations including the United Nations several
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foundations and some of the underdeveloped countries attended the
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weeklong meeting. In a world in crisis the thinking leadership of the
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Western world has taken the framework of the old Marshall Plan organization
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for European Economic Cooperation and converted it to a
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partnership for progress as the Organization for Economic Cooperation
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and Development. This concludes the special series of reports we have brought
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you from that conference from Washington this is John F. Lewis
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reporting.
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You have been listening to one of a series of broadcasts covering highlights of the recent policy
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conference of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on education
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in economic development. Your narrator and producer for this 0 0
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ECD partnership for progress conference was John effluence. This
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program was produced and distributed by the National Association of educational
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broadcasters. This is the NOAA radio network.
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This program has been transcribed using automated software tools, made possible through a collaboration between the American Archive of Public Broadcasting and Pop Up Archive. Please note that no automated transcription is perfect nor is it intended to replace human transcription labor. If you would like to contribute corrections to this transcript, please contact MITH at mith@umd.edu.