EDUCATIONAL PLANNING AND

DEVELOPMENT

M.Ed first
 Anam Tariq
1171-2017

EDUCATIONAL PLANNING :

Educational planning is concerned with the problems of how to

make the best use of limited resources allocated to education in view of
the priorities given to different stages of education or different sector of
education and the need of the economy.
Educational planning, on its broadest generic sense, is the
application of rational, systematic analysis to the process of educational
development with the aim of making education more effective and
efficient in responding to the needs and goals of its students and society.
( Philip H. Coombs, UNESCO: International Institute for
Educational Planning)

Also , Bernardo M. Reyes (1974) explains the nature of educational

planning as follows:

Educational planning is an instrument for providing the needed

coordination and direction of the different components of an educational
system and ensures that widely accepted long-term goals, such as
universal primary education, are approached more objectively.
o It provides a realistic appraisal of the countrys resources
(material, human, and institutional) which is an important factor in the
successful implementation of the plan.
Through educational planning, a country indicates its willingness to
effect an orderly change or reform in its educational system by bringing
into focus the shortcomings or needs that had been ignored or unknown
and so that appropriate action can be affected coupled with the proper
allocation of energies and resources to their sectors.
Educational planning takes into account the past and present
realities of the countrys education and training programs.
Educational planning is a high level staff function providing
professional guidance to the authorities in the determination of
educational goals and the evolving of educational policies and their
execution;
o it involves all level of education of both public and private
sector and the related financial agencies of the nation
o It must be comprehensive and continuous process and must be
periodically evaluated.
(Reyes; see Manuel, Guerero, and Sutaria, 1974, pp. 334-336)

Similarly ,another educationist defines it in following words:

Educational planning is concerned with the problems on how to make
the best use of limited resources allocated to education in view of the
priorities given to different stages of education or different sector of
education and the need of the economy. (Adesina 1982)

APPROACHES OF EDUCATIONAL PLANNING :

Following are the approaches of educational planning :

SOCIAL DEMAND APPROACH
MAN POWER APPROACH
ROLE OF RETURN APPROACH
COST BENEFIT APPROACH

1. SOCIAL DEMAND APPROACH

This approach requires the education authorities to provide schools and find facilities
for all students who demand admission and who are qualified to enter. Aghenta
(1987) opined that this approach looks on education, as service demanded by people
just like any other social services. Politicians in developing countries often find the
approach expedient to use because of its appealing nature.

Advantages of the Approach

1. The approach provides the planners with approximate number of places where
educational facilities has to be provided.
2. It is a suitable political tool to meet the need to satisfy the demands of the general
public.
3.Where resources are acutely limited, and where we are seeking to provide those
kinds and quantities of education which will offer the greatest good to the greatest
number, such planning techniques are best.

Limitations of the Approach

1. The approach has no control over factors such as the price of education
2. The approach has no control over absorptive capacity of the economy for the
trained personnel.
3. The approach does not in any way lay claim to whether the resources expended
are economically allotted and to that extent, the approach is poor.
4. The approach does not provide guidance we need as to how best to meet the
identified needs.

2. MAN POWER APPROACH

Manpower approach or model entails an analysis of demand and supply of manpower.
on the supply side, one has to take stock of manpower according to field of
specialization and levels of education as well as the enrollment across levels of
education and field of education in both the formal and the non-formal education
sectors.
Manpower approach is an educational planning approach that has it that planning
should consider human resource in all fields required for country. Education planning
should be skilled based, expected man power. Based on demand supply principle,
need based.

The Man-Power Requirement Approach

The focus of this approach is to forecast the manpower needs of economy. This is to say that it
stresses output from the educational system to meet the manpower needs at some future
date.

Advantages of Man-Power Approach

1. Man-Power could usefully call attention to extreme gaps and imbalances in

theeducation output pattern that need remedy. This does not need elaborate
statistical studies.
2. It gives educators useful guidance on how roughly educational qualifications
ofthe labour force ought to be developed in the future. That is, the relative proportion
of people who would have primary education, secondary education and various
amount of post-secondary training.
3. The unemployment and underemployment which may result from some
overemphasis on man-power approach may become a challenge to move towards the
right kind of education which may be development-oriented, and thereby creating its
own job.

Weaknesses of the Approach

1. It gives educational planner a limited guidance in the sense that it does not tell
what can be actually achieved in every level of education e.g. primary education,
secondary education, etc.
2. The approach says nothing about primary education, which is not considered to
be work connected. By implication, manpower approach suggests the curbing of the
expansion of primary education until the nation is rich enough to expand it. Hence,
attention is focused on the cream of education that will contribute to manpower
development in the society.
3. Most manpower needs are mostly needed in the urban employment. Thus, the
planner who may be called to plan is not given any useful clauses about education
requirements to those people like semi-skilled and unskilled workers in the cities and
vast majority of workers that live in rural areas.
4. The employment classifications and manpower ratios such as desirable ratio of
engineers to technicians; doctors to nurses etc. and the assumed education
qualifications corresponding to each category of job borrowed ideas from
industrialized countries or economy. This does not fit into the realities of less
developed countries of Africa.
5. It is impossible to make reliable fore-cast of manpower requirements far enough
ahead of time because of many economic, technological and other uncertainties
which are involved.