This is the first booklet in the series to be published in what might be termed a ‘double-decker’ form, in order to present both points of view on a specific problem within two covers. The first essay is a generalized treatment of costing by an authority whose experience specially fits him for the task; the second is a description of the costing of plans as it actually occurred in a developing country. It is not, be it noted, simply a matter of confronting the ‘theorist’ and the ‘practical man’. Anyone reading John Vaizey’s contribution must sense the wealth of practical experience that lies behind it, and John Chesswas is no stranger to the theory of planning. What are being brought face to face here are two different kinds of experience. Nor is the second part designed to be, in the text-book sense, an illustration of the theories or generalized statements made in the first. That would have involved the trimming or tailoring of one part or the other to ensure a proper ‘fit’, which would have thwarted the whole purpose of the publication. Mr. Vaizey’s article is no high-flown theorizing but a generalized guide to practice, but Mr. Chesswas makes it clear in his opening paragraph that, while practice conformed to the general lines of the theory, there were many respects in which it diverged. In that particular setting, some problems in Part I did not arise; others, as he frankly states, ‘were simply never thought of‘, and sometimes, when facts were lacking, intelligent guessing took the place of calculation. Mr. Vaizey would have expected this to be so, and Mr. Chesswas makes no claim that the particular bit of costing he describes is an ideal model. He himself suggests ways in which it might have been improved, and also shows how the costing was simplified (and thereby limited) by ‘making the assumption that the education system would remain basically the same as that which existed’. The virtue of this contribution is that it is a straightforward account of how an able and experienced ministry of education in a developing country did in fact cost its plans.
