Science 3 April 1998: Vol. 280. no. 5360, p. 15

Letters The Special News Report "Science in Southeast Asia" (6 Mar., p. 1465
<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/279/5356/1465 > ) presents
a valuable, comprehensive review of an important part of the world
joining the international scientific community.
However, I should like to comment on sending promising students overseas
for training (J. Mervis and D. Normile, 6 Mar., p. 1468
<http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/279/5356/1468> ). This is
only useful if returning students receive the opportunity to use their
overseas experience in their home country, which often cannot be
realized. Better is a sandwich-model of training with alternating stays
overseas and in the home country, concluding with a final examination in
the home country. With Ph.D. degrees, this is no problem if publications
in international journals are regarded as a decisive requirement for
such a degree. An advantage of this system is that students can already
introduce experience and techniques learned overseas in their home
country during their training period and can also transfer these to
their undergraduate students and even to guest students from their host
country. Also, the teaching staff of their home university has to make
itself familiar with the studies performed by such students elsewhere
for the evaluation of their examinations.

We have a valuable experience with this system. Two students from
Bandung (Indonesia) have worked in our department for four periods of 3
months per year (the maximum allowed stay with a tourist visa) subsi
dized from scratch by 12 Indonesian, Dutch, and international sources,
and they will receive their Ph.D. degrees in 1998 and 1999.

Jaap J. Beintema
Department of Biochemistry,
University of Groningen,
9747 AG Groningen, Netherlands