Educational Planning 1

The ,organization of
educational planning i Nigeria n

A.C. Wheeler R.
Unesco: International Institute for Educational Planning
African research monographs-13
Included in the series*:

1. Educational Planning and Development in Uganda J. D.Chesswas 2. The Planning of Primary Education in Northern Nigeria J. F. Thornley 3. Les aspects financiers de lenseignement dans les pays africains dexpressionfianaise J. Hallak. R.Poignant 4. The Costing and Financing of Educational Development in Tanzania J.B.Knight 5. Les dpenses denseignement au Sndgal P.Guillaumont, D.Garbe, P.Verdun 6. Integration of Educational and Economic Planning in Tanzania G.Skorov 7 The Legal Framework of Educational Planning and Administration in East Africa . J.R.Carter 8. Les aspects financiers de Idducation en Cte-dIvoire J. Hallak, R. Poignant 9. Manpower, Employment and Education in the Rural Economy of Tanzania G.Hunter 10. The Process of Educational Planning in Tanzania A.C. Mwingira, S. Pratt 11. Lducation des adultes au Sngal P. Fougeyrollas, F. Sow, F.Valladon 12. Laide extdrieure et la planification de Iducation en Cte-dIvoire L.Cerych 13. The Organization of Educational Planning in Nigeria A.C.R.Wheeler 14. The Integralion of External Assistance with Educational Planning in Nigeria L.Cerych 15. Financing of Education i Nigeria n A. Callaway, A. Musone 16. Planning Non-forma1 Education in Tanzania J. King
* Further titles t be published o
Published i 1968 by the United Nations n Educational. Scientific and Cultural Organization Place de Fontenoy, 75 Paris-7e Printed by Ceuterick, Louvain Cover design by Bruno PfIi3i
0 Unesco 1968
IEP.66/1.13/A Prinled i Belgium n
IIEP African studies
In 1965,the InternationalInstitute for Educational Planning ( I P embarked on IE) a series of African case studies designed to shed light upon severalmajor problems confrontingeducationalplanners i developing countries.These problems included n the integration of educational and economic planning,the costing and financing of educational development, the supply of and demand for teachers, the effect of rapid expansion on the quality of education, the planning of adult education,the bearing of educational planning upon external aid,and the administrative aspects of planning,including implementation. The task was undertaken i three stages. The first involved the collection and n analysis of documentation on three English-speakingcountries,Nigeria,Tanzania and Uganda,and two French-speakingcountries,Ivory Coast and Senegal,where the studies w r to be undertaken,followed by the drafting and c i i a review of ee rtcl provisional reports. The second stage consisted of f e d investigations by s a f il tf members and expert consultants,lasting one t three months i each case. In o n n several instances ieports were prepared by experts on the scene i accordance with outlines jointly designed and agreed to. The last stage involved the drafting, criticism,revision and f n l editing of the reportsfor publication. ia T w o senior stamembers ofthe IIEP directed the studiesi the English-speaking n nta ia and French-speakingcountries respectively, from i i i l design to f n l editing. Altogether, eighteen f e d studies were carried out with the help of o f c a s and il fiil advisers of the countries concemed. To the extent possible, the same problem was examined on a similar basis i different countries so that it could later be n subjected to comparative analysis.Although the IIEP intends later to synthesize certain of the studies i book form,it considers that most of the f l original n ul reports should be made available promptly i monograph form for training, n operational and research purposes. It should be emphasized,however, that the intent of these reports is not to give advice to the countries studied but rather to extract from their experiences lessons which might prove useful to others and possibly t themselves. o
IIEP A r c n studies fia
While gratitude is expressed to the governments, organizations and many individuals whose Co-operation made these studies possible,and to the Ford Foundation and the French Government for their help in financing them, it is emphasized that responsibility for the facts,analyses and interpretationspresented rests with the authors. In making the decision to publish these studies, neither Unesco nor the IIEP necessanly endorses the views expressed in them, but they feel that their content is worthy of open and free discussion.
Foreword
Educational planning is sometimes talked about as i it were a separate package f which can be tacked on to an existing educational system and magically make it work better. The fact is, of course,that educational planning,i it is to amount t f o anything,must be an integral part of the whole process of educational administration,t e intimately to a1 decision-makingand implementation. id l This has always been the case.Those responsible for administering education, whether for an individual school or University or for a whole system,have always had to anticipateatleast oneyearahead thenumberofstudentsto be accommodated, the number of teachers,seats and books required,the cost of a1 this,and where l the money would come from. The essential difference now is that everything has speeded up enormously. Far-reachingchanges in the environment of vir tually every educational system, including an explosive growth i the popular demand for education,have required n these systems to grow and change a an unprecedented rate. t Under conditions of rapid growth and change, an educational system can encounter serious imbalances,both jnternally and i relation to Society and the n economy. To avoid such imbalances and the consequent waste of resources, educational managers now require a much more extensive and complicated kind of educational planning than used to suffice.This new type of planning must be more comprehensive,in order t embrace and Co-ordinatea1 main components o l of the system;it must be effectively linked with the requirements for economic growth and social development,and with the resource supplies of the economy; it must look much farther ahead,t allow for the long production o cycleof eduih cation;and it must be as much concerned w t educational change and quality a w t mere quantitativeexpansion. s ih To cope with these new necessities calls not only for a new kind of educational planning but,even more,for a new kind of educational management.A n old and obsolete administrativesystem cannot successfully accommodate modern educa-
Foreword
tional planning. S i l old systems of educational administration,of the supervisory tl, and caretaker sort, cannot quickly be transformed into the more positive system of management which is required for rapid and well-planned educational development, integrated with over-al1 national development. This problem of administrative transition lies a the heart of the difficulties t which newly developing countries have encountered i trying to establish modern n educational planning. T o learn more about these difficulties, and how they can best be overcome, the IIEP sent one of its staff members, Anthony Wheeler, to study the early experiences of the various regions and the federal capital of Nigeria. H e conducted his field work, in close co-operation with Nigerian educational officials, during several weeks in 1965. Subsequently, he examined many other relevant materials and studies, both on Nigeria and on problems of development administration. The findings reported here pre-datethe more recent political changes within Nigeria. The Institutes hope is that this examination of the Nigerian experience, w t ih regard to the administrative aspects of educational planning, wl be helpful to il other developing countries as well. Their specific circumstances-like those of the regions of Nigeria itself-will of course dfler greatly. Yt most are likely to find e i common with Nigeria a series of fundamental problems of educational planning n and administration which are inescapable when a country moves into independence and into a fresh era of development. A the successive stages of this study the author received generous help from t many Nigerian authorities and educational experts. In particular, the author and the Institute acknowledge their special gratitude to the following: Chief Stephen Awokoya, former adviser to Nigerias federal Ministry of Education; Mallam Shehu Bakari, chief inspector of primary education, Kaduna, Northern Region, Nigeria; Mr. C. Ebert, chief inspector of secondary education, Benin, Mid-West Region, Nigeria; D .A. Musone, former Unesco adviser on statistics r to Nigerias federal Ministry of Education; Professor Andrew Taylor, former director of the Institute of Education a the University of Ibadan; and t Mr. J. Thornley, a senior inspector wjth special responsibilities for primary education in Nigeria. In addition, Chief Awokoya, Dr. A . Callaway, a research associate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology s Centre for Jnternational Studies, and Mr.R.Lyons, a senior staff member of the IIEP, spared valuable t m to read and ie criticize various drafts, and many of their suggestions have been incorporated into the study.
PHILIP COOMEIS H. Director, IIEP
Contents
Introduction
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The progress of education in Nigeria
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Therole and powers of thefederalgovernment Planning at the federal level . . . . The federal Ministry of Education . . The National Manpower Board . . . The national Universities Commission . . The Federal Ofice of Statistics . . . The planning process in the regions of Nigeria
The nature oj the planning process Directives for planning . . . Preparation of plans . . . Approval of plans . . . . Implementation o plans . . . f Reviewing procedure . . .
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Conclusion.
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Introduction
This study examines the organization of educational planning in Nigeria immediately before the events early i 1966 which produced substantialpolitical n n changes. Thus it focuses i particular on the first three years of the 1962-68 National Development Plan. Earlier efforts a educational planning i Nigeria t n receive relatively little attention.The reasons for t i restriction on the scope of hs the study require some explanation here, although they are referred to a t appropriate points later i the study. In a rapidly developing and changing n country such as Nigeria it is d f i u t to investigate closely the recent historical ifcl period, since with the frequent changes of personnel,those most involved in a rte particular undertaking are no longer easily accessible.In addition,w i t n documents of events whose political repercussions are not yet exhausted are often unavailable. Thus w do not treat extensively the establishment of universal e primary education i Western and Eastern Nigeria. Nor for that matter do we n provide a thorough account of the preparation of the 1962-68 National Development Plan, from the viewpoint of an exercise in organization,decision-making, and administrative procedures.' Thus the primary focus of t i study is on the hs implementationofthe educationalprogrammes of the first National Development o Plan,up t and including 1965. It needs to be stressed at the outset that this study is concerned primarily not with the progress of education i Nigeria, but with the progress i developing n n machineries and procedures for planning Nigeria's educational development. Of course an examination of the progress of education is one aspect ofthe evaluation of progress i planning, from the point of view of the results achieved,but it n must be emphasized thatw undertake this only as an aid to arriving a conclusions e t about the progress i planning educational development. n
1. See W. Stolper, Planning ~oitlzoufFacrs, Cambridge, Mass., 1966, and O. Aboyade, F. Foundations of an Africati Econotny, N e w York, 1966, which throw more light on these issues.
11
The organization of educational planning in Nigeria
The educational systems of the southern regions of Nigeria w r in 1965 ee considerably more advanced than that of Northern Nigeria, but for Our purposes this is less of interest than their relative progress in planning such development of education as has taken place. Possibly this places the North a an advantage t in any recent comparison of progress among the regions, because the southern regions went through their period of rapid educational expansion earlier, during the decade immediately before, and had subsequently settled down to a slower Pace of quantitative development, dictated partly by the need to consolidate earlier expansionary efforts, and partly by the growing burden of recurrent expenditure, which created a budgetary limitation on further expansion. Thus the most recent history of education in the southern regions might be characterized as the spreading of qualitative improvements,e.g.,upgrading of teachersqualifications. By contrast, the greatest expansion of the Northern Region educational s s e ytm has taken place (from s a l beginnings) only during the recent period with which, ml as is pointed out above, this study is most concerned. Hence while it is easy to see a close connexion between the expansion of education in the North and the effort made to plan this expansion, it is less easy to discover comparable evidence of planned educational development in the other regions during the same period. The truest comparison of the effectiveness of planning as an agent of educational development in Nigeria might be, Say, between the North of the early 1960s and the East and Ws of the mid- and et late 1950s, but, as explained above, it was not f l possible to do this. (This of et course refers primarily to a comparison of the quantitative expansion of educational systems, since the application of techniques of planning to their qualitative improvement remains by comparison a less-developed subject.) W therefore feel e the need to indicate the possibility of a certain built-in emphasis in the conclusions of this study, which tends to concentrate more on experience in the North, simply because recent progress there is much easier to observe, and also because the n current state of the art i educational planning lends itself more easily to analysis of this type of situation. The criteria which have been used to evaluate the development of educational planning in Nigeria are as follows:
1. The regular collection of relevant data for planning. 2. The training and permanency of planning personnel. 3. The phasing and costing of educational proposals within the context of a 1 l other government activities so that the government agencies concerned, such as the planning unit and the ministry of finance, can see them as such and provide for their implementation. 4. The development of procedures and personnel for the implementation of plans and review of their progress.
12
Introduction
Obviously it could not be expected that a country a Nigerias level of developt ment could f l i a 1 these criteria entirely satisfactorily-perhaps no country i ufl l n the world could-but the jnterest of the inquiry is i discovering the extent of n progress, the obstacles faced, and the solutions found to overcome them.
13
1 The progress of education i Nigeria n
The progress of education in Nigeria during the years 1957-65 is b i f y rel summarized i the four tables below;these cover primary and secondary schools, n but not higher education,which was the responsibility of premiers i the regions, n and of the Prime Minister i Lagos. Tables 2 and 4 are especially instructive, n o because they show the extent t which the schools were managed by difTerent types of authority i the four regions, a matter of great relevance to the n implementation of educational planning. The regions are discussed in turn. ih The North is the region w t the largest population, though its density is low, as is the enrolment ratio i primary education over large areas.According t a n o 1965 estimate,' this ratio for the 6 to 1 age group was below 1 per cent i 2 0 n five large provinces. Even so, the situation had greatly improved a t r 1957, fe since the number of pupils had more than doubled,enrolments of g r s having il risen faster than those of boys, and the teaching force had also doubled. The number of primary schools,however,rose by only 35 per cent,reflecting a large increase i the average size of schools and a slight increase in the average size n of classes.This suggests that better opportunities existed for improving the quality ofeducation,sinceinspectionwas made easier,and teacherswhen grouped together are i a better position to learn from t e r more experienced colleagues.It may be n hi added that the qualifications of the teaching force also improved during this period,though this is not shown in the tables. Another problem not revealed by the tables, yet common t a1 the regions, o l was the high rate of drop-outin primary education.Thus,in 1965,there were in the North almost 1 0 0 0children in class 1, but less than 4 , 0 in class 7. 0,0 000 Certainly part oft i difference could be accounted for by the fact that an expansion hs
(continued on page 20)
1. Ministry of Education of Northern Nigeria, Classes, Enrolments and Teachers in the Primary Schools of Northern Nigeria, 1965, p. 20, 6g. 4.
1 4
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The progress of education i Nigeria n
TABLE Secondary education: number of schools, and number of teachers 3.

and pupils by sex
Average of pupils Year Number of schools Teachers Male Female Total Pupils
~
Boys
Girls
Total
per per school teacher
NORTHERN RECION
General education
1957 1960 16 93 16 95 1957 1960 16 93 16 95 1957 1960 16 93 16 95
27 4 1 5 6 72 8 14 1 6 1 6 46 51 54 55
272 297 470 609 7 7 18 7 219 224 164 260 351 475
46 18 0 140 216
1
318 405 610 825 7 8 180 226 236 25 3 351 492 670
336 0 57 5 9 8 469 11 750
35 4 59 3 1412 2419
361 5 6 334 9 881 14 1 9 6
135 153 16 7 197
11.5 1 6 1 6 1 7 11 11 12 1 2
Technical and vocational education
2 7 1 2 7 1 9 1 11 4 15 9
872 2 012 2 658 2 884 2 183 3 469 6 290 88 1 0 33 6 643 1483 2 207
872 2 012 2 658 2 884 25 6 4 41 2 1 77 3 7 11 O08
19 0 144 16 6 180
55 81 144 200
Teacher training
10.8 12 1 6 1 6
EASTERN REGION
General education
1957 1960 16 93 1957 1960 16 93
8 3 113 21 3
915 1147 1944
16 0 128 445
1021 1275 23 9 8 3 9 5 6 7 1 738 665 73 1
13 200 1 59 9 0 31 862 492 83 6 1643 7 252 912 2 7 742
1632 2 628 8 076 18 13 45 211 6 28 1 9 2 943
1 832 4 2 17 2 3 3 938 9 510 876 1688 9 413 1 013 2 10 685
19 1. 7 45 16 1 9 7 1 3 17 7 1 2 13.1 0 97 1 6 2 1 24 4 62 12.8 7 1 6 8 93 15
Technical and vocational education 5 3 9 -
9 7 12 5 19 5 115
55 68
1 3
Teacher training
1957 1960 16 93
55 6 55 0 530
13 7 160 183
WESTERN ON^ RE CI
General education
1957 1960 16 93 1957 1960 16 93 1957 1960 16 93
362 700 91 1 2 4 6 99 11 0 92
1574 3 944 5914 30 36 54 547 55 8 613
382 829 1357

3
1
1956 4 473 72 1 7
33 3 6 55
3 5652 9 249 46 8102 7 7 384 22 8 5 1 1 2 9 8 6 0 4 104 4 1 46 2 7 150 688 1 7 200 137 695 7 963 8 482 9 922 20 5 7 80 25 8 0 2 825 3 063 220 194 75 7 1 41 0 7 11 307 1 985 2
1292 2 . 2 39 15 2 4 1 15 2 6 1 110 6.7 49 5 19 1 2 4 16 1. 0 42 1 2 15 1 11 1 4 7
11 9 194 162
Teacher training
738 779 75 7
[See notes overlaaf]
17
TABLE(continued) 3
Average of pupils Number
Of
Teachers
~
Pupils Total Boys
Yeu
schools
Male
Female
Grs il
Total
per per school teacher
LAGOS
General education
1957 1960 1963 1951 1960 1963 1957 1960 1963

NOTES
17 29 47 2 2 2
205 161 435 52 78 85 6 30 54
87 121 200
292 282 635 52 79 90 8 34 12
2949 3208 7065 1418 1927 2 161 94 391 632

SOURCES
1138 2506 4 307
4087 5114 1 1 372 1418 1955 2234 129 476 896
240 14.0 197 20 242 18 709 27.3 978 25 1117 25 129 16.1 119 14 179 12
1 5
28 73 35 85 264
Teacher training
1 4 5
2 4 18
1.Data for the Western Region include the area which formed the Mid-West Region in 1963 2.For strict comparability with the other data, these figures should be slightly increased, as they do not include post-certificatepupils
The same as for Table 2, except for the 1965 figures for the Northern Region which are from Classes,Enrolmenls and Teachers in the Schools of Norlhern Nigeria, 196s (Ministry of Education. Kaduna)
TABLE Secondary education: number of schools and pupils by controlling authority 4.

Northern Region Year Number of schools Number of pupils Eastern Region Number of schools Number of pupils Western Region1 Number of schools Number of pupils
Lagos
Number Number
of schools
of pupils
GENERAL EDUCATION
Goaernment schools
1957 1960 1963 1957 1960 1963
4 4 5
615 787 1315 1624 2581 3966 1352 2896 4 306
4 4 5
3 7 12
71 1 843 1566 141 779 1818 10329 14003 23 970
4 4 5 98 153 168 260 121 113
9522 995 1324
2 2 3
467 568 1149
Local authority schools
15 15 19
15 75g2 24643 30482

30 1002 18074 25048
12 24 29
2239 3 780 5 370
Aided schools
1957 1960 1963
8 22 27
47 61 99
18
TABLE (continued) 4
Northern Region Eastern Region Number OF schools Number of pupils Western Regionl Number of schools Number of pupils
Lagos
Number of schools Number of pupils
Year
Number of schools
Number of pupils
GENERAL EDUCATION (cont.)

Non-aided schools
1957 1960 16 93
294
2 9 4 1 115
3651 6512 12584
422 620
57531 93 834
3 3 15
1381 1366 4853
TECHNICAL AND
1957 1960 1963
VOCATIONAL EDUCATION
Government schools
5 1 4 1 6
709 2012 2 658
3 3 2
33 4 394 IO54
2 4 6
220 14 9 75 1
Local authority schools Aided schools
167 18 1 140
2 2 2
1418 1955 2234
1957 1960 16 93 1957 1960 16 93
2 1 1
Non-aided schools
13 6
5 4
364 494
2 0 2 2 2 5
6 5 5 2 9 2 8 2 8 64 68 58
534 55 2 654
3 492 3 827 4186
TEACHER TRAINING
Government schools
1957 1960 16 93 1957 1960 16 93

Aided schools
1272 1802 4011
5 6 5
629 480 689 770 1030 1012 7 494 10002 8 984

52 0 51 0
SOURCES
1 1 2
19 2 12 7 455
Local authority schools
2 6 2 9 2 8
1 0 1 2 11 12 2 17 2 99
15 1 4
-
3 3
1957 1960 16 93
Non-aided schools
1274 2310 3617

-
6445 6955 81 5 4
304 441
1957 1960 1963
15 4
NOTES
1. Data for the Western Region include the area which formed the Mid-West Region i 1963 n 2 Post-school certificate pupils i general education in . n the Western Region were excluded in 1957
As for Table 2
19
i enrolments affects the lower classes first, but there remains a significant n proportion which indicates drop-out. The pattern of management of primary education i the North differed from n that i other regions in that the native authorities controlled the largest number n of schools, with the voluntary agencies coming second, whereas i the other n regions the reverse was the case. Furthermore,the number of native authority schools in the North increased,while that of voluntary agency schools remained stationaryi the l s two years after having decreased previously.This r f e t the n at elcs more restricted influence of voluntary agencies i the North and, conversely,the n greater recent influence of government during the period of expansionfollowing the Ashby Commissionsreport. The development of secondary education in the North was much more rapid than that of primary education during the period 1957-65.There was a fourfold increase in the number of pupils and a threefold increase in teachers. General secondary schools tripled i number and technical schools doubled, with both n types of school substantiallyincreasing their average size.In teacher training,the 0 ie number of institutions increased by only 2 per cent, but the average s z quadrupled to reach 200 pupils. By 1965 the North had a much more diversified system of secondary education than the other regions;although the number of general secondary schools was relatively small,that of technical and vocational schoolswas larger i both relative n and absolute terms.Teachertrainingwas also expanding at a much fasterrate than i the other regions,thoughfrom a much lowerlevel.On the other hand,the figures n do not show the fact that the other regions were more successful than the North i raising the output from the higher levels of teacher training. n Thus,the main features which distinguished the North from the other regions during the 1957-65period were the rapid growth i a1 sectors of education from n l a late start,the relatively greater emphasis on technical and vocational education at the secondary level, and the more apparent influence i educational matters n of the government and the native authorities as compared with the voluntary agencies. The East and the West can be considered together because of their very similar educationalsystems.Both had very large primary enrolmentsby African standards, owing to the introduction of universal free primary education in the mid-1950s (subsequently partly replaced by fee-payingi the E s ) But after the introduction n at. n n of free primary education i the East i 1957, the number of primary schools steadily decreased,particularly among aided voluntary agency schools,and t i hs suggests that the government,by virtue of its grants-in-aid, able to encourage was mergers among schools. Also, the number of teachers showed a tendency to decrease i more recent years,though their average qualifications were improving, n n which suggests a steady qualitative improvementi primary education in the East
20
following the expansion generated by the introduction of universal free primary education. Less easy t explain is the f 1 i total enrolments after 1960,though o a1 n this i no doubt partly accounted for by the reimposition of fees from class 3 in s 1958 and the reduction in the length of schooling from eight years to seven years i in 1960 and to s x years in 1962. In the West, universal free primary education was introduced in 1965 and has been maintained since.In this case,also,enrolments and the numbers of teachers and schools showed a tendency t decrease after 1960. A recent publication1 o ascribes t i as wl as the increasing drop-outs to the lack of employment hs el opportunities for school leavers,poor standards of teaching, and the lack of finance among parents. More children remained as part of the labour force on family farms. However, in the areas closest to Lagos, which offered the most varied employment opportunities,enrolments continued to increase. Secondary modern schools w r established to enable primary school leavers ee to continue their education with a view to enhancing their employmentpossibilities. The results were disappointing,mainly because the schools were inadequately equipped and staffed t do their job.Enrolments have greatly decreased in more o recent years, and an e f r is being made to replace several of these secondary fot modern schools by comprehensive high schools. Both the East and the West had very few f c l t e for technical and vocational aiiis education,but devoted considerable efforts to the training of teachers for the large system of primary education. Also they were rapidly expanding their secondary grammar systems. Thus quantitatively the main characteristics of the educational systems of the East and West were a large primary level topped by a relatively small secondary level,a significantpart of which was geared to producing teachers for the primary level. However, t i picture conceals the important qualitative changes which hs were taking place. The training of teachers shifted from grade III to grade II, which was expected to influencefavourably the quality of primary schoolinstruction. In the secondary grammar schools i the East greater provision was being n made in the curriculum for s i n i i subjects.There were also plans for a rapid cetfc expansion of technical education. The Mid-West was created as recently as 1963,and by 1965 had not published any s a i t c .Even so, the few data available by inference from Table 1 show ttsis n that the characteristics of the educational system were similarto those i the West. The federal territory of Lagos, like the North, experienced a continuous and rapid expansion of a 1 types of education, though t i expansion was least l hs n il pronounced i the f e d of technical and vocational education. However, this
1. IL0 Mission, Ibadan, Some Trend.T in Education in the Western Region of Nigeria, 1955-65. Ibadan, October 1965, pp. 6 and 22.
21
advance was due not to any previous lag, but rather to the unusually rapid growth of the population of school age due to natural increase and substantialimmigration from other parts of the country. A notable feature of primary education was the large pupil enrolment per school-some schools had double streams, and a few operated a shift system. As can be seen from this brief review, the development of education in Nigeria varied considerably from one region to another. This is due to the extensive autonomy which each of the regions enjoyed in educational matters. It would be wrong, however, to asume that the federal government had no power or influence over Nigerian education. The following chapter describes the nature of federal responsibilities and the instruments used, in particular with reference to the planning of educational development.
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2 The r l and powers oe of the federal government
Under the federal constitution of Nigeria i operation i 1965 there was a division n n of executive responsibilities between the federal and regional governments.The l t e were responsible for education within t e r territories, while the former atr hi was responsible for education within the federal territory and for a number of other educational institutions, mostly a the higher level,deemed t be of national t o importance.This meant,in effect,that higher education was thejoint responsibility of the federal and regional governments,while primary and secondary education remained the sole responsibility of each regional government.But notwithstanding t i delimitation of powers, the federal Ministry of Education became i some hs n measure a national Ministry of Education,particularly with regard t international o educational a f i s and endeavours t Co-ordinatethe educational policies of the far o iw o regional governments with a v e t maintaining national standards.
Planning at the federal level

A an independent federation,Nigeria dates only from 1960.Before 1960,under s
t the colonial rgime,there were national institutions and,a least on paper,national developmentplans.But accounts of these plans agree i treating them as something n less than planning exercises.Referring t the TenYear Plan of Developmentand o Welfare for Nigeria, 1946, the Revised Plan of Development and Welfare and ee for Nigeria,1951-56, Clark says,Theseearly plans w r essentially a disjointed set of individual projects grouped together under departmental headings which reflected the administrative structure of the colonial government rather than any o Co-ordinatedsectoral division of the economy.It was therefore impossible t test
1.P.B. Clark, Economic Planning for a Country in Transition: Nigeria, ch. 9 of Planning Economic Development (ed. Hagen), Homewood, Illinois, Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1963.
The quotation is from p. 255.
23
whether the parts of the plan w r complementary or whether the resource supply ee would balance anticipated future demands. Similarly a federal government publication, the text of the National Development Plan 1962-68l adds: These w r not plans in the true sense of the word. More accurately, they constituted ee a series of projects which had not been co-ordinated or related to any over-al1 economic target. Many of the individual schemes proposed no more than an expansion of existing normal departmental activities and, in large measure, the schemes aimed a building up the social as much as the economic services. t Thus federal activity i any type of planning is a recent phenomenon, and we n must remember further that with independence many expatriate civil servants left and Nigerians Who w r not always prepared for such responsibilities had to ee control newly recruited and inexperienced subordinates. Thus neither the institutions nor the men to carry out federal planning activities existed to any extent before federation. The main task of the apparatus which has been built up was the formulation of the National Development Plan 1962-68,which took place a t the very beginning of its existence. Moreover, i relation to federal planning of n education, most of the institutions which w r brought into existence and whose ee roles are discussed in this section w r subsequent to the formulation of the plan. ee Accordingly Our evaluation of them must be regarded as tentative in the extreme. The apparatus for national development planning centred around three bodies: the National Economic Council, the Joint Planning Committee,and the Economic Planning U i of the federal Ministry of Economic Development. The National nt Economic Council, which was the highest political (ministerial) level, issued over-al1directives to its working arm, the Joint Planning Committee, consisting of senior officials,which developed these over-al1directives before it passed them on to its technical arm, the Economic Planning U i ,which in turn translated nt them into draft proposals. These then had to go back up the scale for modification or final approval. Both the council and the committee were inter-regional i n their representation. Naturally, a a 1 stages in this process Co-ordination was t l aimed a between the regional and federal plans, which together formed the t National Development Plan. In preparing the 1962-68 plan the Economic Planning Ui had two distinct nt iitis tasks: the first, to bring together the proposals of the various federal m n s r e to form a federal government development programme, the second, the further incorporation of regional programmes to form the National Development Plan.2 It should be noted, however, that it is very difficult to obtain a first-handaccount of how the Economic Planning Unit proceeded in practice, for the turnover of personnel has been so rapid that the current occupants of positions no longer have
1. Federation of Nigeria. National Development Plan 1962-68. Lagos, federal Ministry of Economic Development, undated, p. 6. 2. For the precisepeaning given to terms such as programmeand plan,see next chapter.
24
The role and powers of the federal government
a first-handknowledge of what was done several years ago by their predecessors. W e must r l to a large extent, therefore, on documentary sources which are ey themselves not i complete agreement. n o tf According t Rivkin the unit began its work with a small s a f of foreign experts brought i for the purpose,Who had first to learn to work as a team,and n t also with a great variety of politicians and professional people a both regional and federal levels.The essential work of making estimates and projections for the t plan had t be carried out with generally inadequate data. A the same time,the o foreign experts had t train Nigerians Who would l t r supersede them. The o ae Co-ordination of the various proposals was not made easier by the fact that not every ministry was a first willing to acceptnationalplanning.Lastly,theeconomists t in the planning unit, i making alternative projections of the progress of the n economy,used aggregate economic analysis to present their findings.While useful t the technicians, t i presentation was not always f l y i t l i i l to the o hs ul nelgbe administrators i the Joint Planning Committee, Who had to propose policy n n choices,or to the politicians i the National Economic Council,Who had to make the final decision. Consequently the administrators, instead of making basic recommendations for over-al1strategy to guide the subsequent detailed planning, restricted themselves to examining individual federal and regional programmes and considering their financial feasibility.There was,thus,some failure i commun nication between the technicians and the senior administratorsthey had to serve, due to their different concepts of ~lanning.~ Thus the formulationofthe Nigerian developmentplan should not be considered as a good example of organization for planning, and the role of the Economic Planning Unit cannot be taken as a good guide for the future.The unit has since n concentrated on training planners i federal ministries and developing processes n of data collection and analysis i readiness for the preparation of subsequent development plans. A far as educational planning was concerned,the federal activities were of a s diffuse nature and do not easily lend themselves to a precise description. The n federal ministry did not carry out national planning of education i Nigeria,but n neither was it concerned only with the planning of educational development i the federal territory of Lagos. It concerned itself ( ) with representing Nigerian a education abroad, which is not to suggest that regional ministries were thus
1. Arnold Rivkin, EconomicDevelopment Planning in Nigeria, Joirrnal of Local Adminishation Ouerseas, January 1964, pp. 27-34. 2.Clark, op. cit., pp. 260 ff. and pp. 273-4; also James OConnell, SomeSocial and Political Reflections on the Plan, Nigerian Journalof Econoinic and Social Studies; July 1962, p. 135. 3.However, Stolper, W h o worked as head of the group of economic planners, feels that the accommodations necessitated by these considerations were a strength of the planning process. See Stolper, op. cit., p. 39, footnote.
25
excluded from international contacts and ( ) with endeavours to extend cob ordination of educational a t v t e between the regions. A number of federal ciiis bodies had research, information-gathering, Co-ordinating and administrative a t v t e whose products were utilized by the regionalgovernmentsfor educational ciiis planning purposes. The contribution of the federal government i the f e d of n il educational planning can perhaps best be indicated by describing the a t v t e of ciiis the main bodies concerned,e.g., federal Ministry of Education,the National the Manpower Board,the Federal Office of Statistics.
The federal Ministry of Education

The ministry had both a nationaland a localrole.In its localrole it was responsible f for a1 education within the federal territory of Lagos-not a minor task i one l considers that the population probably numbered about one m l i n and was ilo s rapidly increasing.With respectto primary education,the government' authority devolved largely on the Lagos City Council,which acted as the local education various authority,functioning through its education committee.In other respects, o f c a s of the ministry were concerned with educational needs of Lagos,e.g., fiil vocational guidance. In considering the national role of the ministry,it is necessary to bear i mind n
Finance Establishments Information Staff welfare Reports
Statistics Planning and Bureau of projection analysis external aid School buildings Unesco National Commission Registration of students and teachers Research and development Economics of education and insurance projects
division
Primary education School libraries Secondary School education broadcasting Technical Examination and education testing Teacher training Vocational Higher education guidance Adult education School welfare Curriculum Scholarships development Visual aids In-servicetraining Subject inspectors
Figure 1. Federal Ministry of Educationr responsibilities (April 1965)
26
not only the ministrysstructure,but also the manning ofthe constituentdivisions.
A is the case i nearly every administrative body in a developing country,the s n

federal Ministry of Education suffered from shortages of qualified personnel and a rapid turnover. Given this background, it is not surprising that many of the sections of the ministry did not function i the way their appelations might lead one t expect. n o Thus Planningand projection analysiswas inactive because it had no personnel 95. the ( s ofMay 1 6 ) In the professional division, sectionsdealing with the various a levelsand types of education had federal advisersbut sometimesno other executive officers;moreover, the advisers apparently operated mainly as inspectors of educational f c l t e in the federal territory,though t i may only imply that they aiiis hs were misleadingly named. Another aspect of the work of the professional division which requires consideration with regard to the fostering of educational co-operationbetween federal and regional authoritiesis the Joint Consultative Committee.This was the parent body of a series of reference committees for teacher-training,primary, secondary,technical and rural education.These m t periodically,i theory every e n e s x months,though in practice the parent committee a least m t less frequently, i t 95 e.g., June 1 6 meeting was the first for over a year.Committee meetings were the attended by representatives of the federal and regional ministries of education, the University institutes of education,and teachers and principalsorganizations. Their purpose was to ensure interchange of information on educational progress i the regions, explore possibilities of inter-regionalco-ordination,discuss the n development of Nigerian education, and make recommendations to regional governments. Examination of minutes of meetings of some of these committees suggeststhat their discussions did not always deal with problems important for educational planning; indeed, one regular participant in these meetings expressed the view that, as is often the case with inter-governmental bodies within a federal state, discussions were confined to rather minor and uncontroversial subjects.Another participant,a senior o f c a of one of the regional ministries of education,gave fii1 the opinion that the meetings were always packed with representatives of the federal ministry (though attendance records do not always clearly show ti) and hs, would r f e t strongly federal viewpoints. For Our purposes the important point elc about such opinions is not their truth or falsehood,but simply their existence, with its implicationsforthe conductofregionalo f c a sconcerned with educational fiil planning. Consequently,the Joint Consultative Committee appeared ineffective as a device for co-ordinatingfederal and regional a t v t e relating t education, ciiis o and this i turn seriously lessened the potential role of the federal Ministry of n Education as a co-ordinating mechanism for nationaleducationalplanning.Indeed, one is forced towards the conclusion that there was no national educational
27
planning,but rather a series of regional programmes operating to a large extent independently of each other, despite a1 the efforts of the federal ministry to l overcome t i situation. hs I is against this background that the National Educational Research Council t must be viewed. Its purposes w r () to gather information on a 1 educational ee a l research relating to Nigeria, whether completed,i progress or envisaged;( ) to n b set up a documentation centre to collate such research and studies as are relevant to Nigeria and t circulate them i the form of abstracts to Nigerian authorities; o n and () t prepare proposals for educational research by Nigerian institutionsin c o accordancewith the needs of the country.The council included representativesof the ministries of education,the universities,research bodies, and principalsand teachersorganizations.I could play an important role i Nigerian educational t n planning by maximizing the use of scarce research resources;but there was some suspicion in the regions towards the federal government which wl have to be il ufl ciiis overcomei the council is to f l i its purpose.It began its a t v t e by compiling f a list of educational research,completed or in progress, carried out by Nigerian institutions. A can be seen from the foregoing, role of the federalMinistry ofEducation s the i the planning of Nigerian education has been limited by many factors and n especially by the constitutionaldivision of responsibilities for education.
The National Manpower Board

The National Manpower Board was one of the bodies whose creation was recommended by the Ashby Commission.Its basic task was to Co-ordinatethe work of a1 ministries concerned with manpower-at the federal level these were l in particular the Ministries of Labour, Education and Economic Development. o The board could only make recommendationst the ministries, though the fact that it is directly responsible t the National Economic Council, the supreme o co-ordinating body in development planning,makes it more likely that ministries wl take account of its recommendations.But discussion of the boards role i il n the preparation of plans is still largely academic,because it was set up a t r the fe current plan had been prepared (except that it worked out the manpower implications of the Mid-Westdevelopment p a ) A present,its importance lies i its ln. t n role as a servicing agency for the ministries concerned with manpower,e.g., its annual recommendationsform the basis of federal scholarship policy. Its first major project was the survey of high- and medium-levelmanpower resources and projection ofneeds until 1970.Furthertasks included a labour-force aiiis survey,and a compilation of available training f c l t e as a step towards ensuring 28
their maximum use.The board is thusproducing informationwhich is ofimmediate relevance to educational planning. On the basis of such information the level of scholarship grants was reduced i order to permit an increase i their number n n and the allocation of scholarshipsbetween differentsubjects altered i accordance n n with manpower needs.Thswas done i thefirst instanceby the federalgovernment, but the advice was passed on to the regional scholarshipboards for similar action. The board was criticized by the regions,mainly on the ground that a manpower survey which set national targets was of no use i the endeavours of regional n governments t meet regional requirements. There w r regional manpower o ee committees for liaison between the board and the regional governments,but they appeared to be inactive.Regionalgovernmentscould direct the board to undertake specific studies for them,and on t i basis the board worked out the manpower hs implications of the development plan for the Mid-West.The usefulness of the il board wl thus depend on thedemands made upon it by theregionalgovernments. Initially,with its limited resources,the board concentrated on national matters. But,potentially,it represents a very valuable adjunct to educational planning,on the regional as well as federal levels.
The National Universities Commission

This was another of the bodies established as a r s l of a recommendationof the eut Ashby Commission.A n administrative agency, directly responsible to the prime minister,it came into being in October 1962. The principal task of the cominission relates t the financing of University o development.I therefore began its work with a survey of University development, t future needs and financing, making specific recommendations for the peiiod 1963/64-1967/68. These recommendations,published i 1963, concerned a1 the n l governments of the Federation,though i their financial aspects they involved n primarily the federal government. Accordingly, before taking action on the commissions recommendations, the federal government consulted with the regional governments and then made its decisionsi the expectation that the l t e n atr would follow suit. As overseer ofUniversity development,the commissionwas naturally concerned with fostering t i in directions which accorded with national manpower needs, hs
1. Mid-Western Nigeria, MidWestern Nigeria Developiiient Plaiz 1964-68, Benin C t , Ministry iy of Interna1 Affairs, 1965. See ch. 8, Manpower Implications and Employment Potential of the Development Plan. 2.Federal Republic of Nigeria, University Develvpmeiit in Nigeria, Report of the National Universities Commission, Federal Ministry of Information, Lagos, 1963.
29
The organization of educational planning i Nigeria n
though it recognized the danger of interfering with the independence of the universities and characterized its role as that of stimulation, encouragement and ie co-ordination.A basic policy was to encourage each of the f v Nigerian universities to concentrate i i i l y on certain faculties so as to make the best use ntal of existing resources.In t i way,the universitiesassumed a national role,although hs three of them were regional institutions. Indeed i selected instances faculty n developments were intended to serve pan-Africanneeds,e.g., medicine a Ibadan, t veterinary science at Ahmadu Bello. The commission was in close contact with the National Manpower Board -the commissions secretary sat on the boardspolicy committee-and was f l y ul informed of future manpower requirements so that it could advise the universities accordingly.I also advised the Economic Planning Unit of the federal Ministry t of Economic Development on the likely future output of the universities. Lastly, the commission acted as the Channelfor externalassistanceto Nigerian universities n and, i this connexion, was also an ex oflcio member of the Co-ordinating Committee for External Aid for Education. A1 these functions are of recent origin and post-datethe preparation of the l ulr il current plan,so that a f l e evaluation of their significance wl only be possible when subsequentplans have been prepared.In the interim,the commission began undertaking a series of studies bearing on the putput of secondary schools and on the University inputduring the period 1968-72, the administrationand financing of higher education, on studentaccommodation, provideinformationneeded and to for future decision-making. The commission,as already mentioned,was directly responsibleto the federal Prime Minister, and responsibility for University education i the regions also n t rested with the regionalpremiers.I is not clear why there was this sharp division of ministerial responsibility between the universities and other levels of education, though the strong belief in Nigeria that universities should be autonomous and independentmay have led to the feelingthat any degree of control over them must be exercised by the highest political authorities. This and the fact that the commission was associated with a1 federal agencies concerned with national l development planning make it potentially an important body i the planning of n education i Nigeria.The federal structure combined with regional autonomy and n the division of responsibility as between the universities and other levels of education seemed likely to keep the commissionrather remote from the a t v t e ciiis of the regional ministries of education; in fact,there did not appear to be any direct forma1Channel of communicationbetween the commissionand the regional ministries of education.For the sake of over-al1planning of education i each n ik region such a l n would seem desirable.
1. Federal Republic of Nigeria, op. cit., pp. 4,9.
30
The Federal Office of Statistics

This i the main source of s a i t c l information i Nigeria, though, hitherto, s ttsia n educational s a i t c were the responsibility of the federal Ministry of Education. ttsis However,the Office schedule of work for the remainder of the current planning period (ie.,u t l 1967/68)under the heading of education included development ni f n of the current Digest o Educational Statistics, surveys of investment i human resources and of the output of different levels and types of education,and the collection of s a i t c on educational financing.I was not clear whether these ttsis t tasks would be performed by the Office or by the federal Ministry of Education. The Office also collects other data relevant to educational planning,such as i n employment surveys, and intended to make sample surveys of the labour force which would include questions on literacy and level of education. Lastly, the Office is responsible for the collection of demographic data, which has meant principally the most recent census.Processing of the census data wl take several il n years and shouldresulti basic informationforuse inregionaleducationalplanning.
O the agencies discussed above,the National Manpower Board and the National f UniversitiesCommissionseemedthe most important, both actually and potentially, for educational planning i particular,because they represented sources of inforn mation and expertise which could be utilized by the regional governments.There were definite signs that t i was beginning to happen. But when considering hs whether it would be possible to devise better federal machinery for educational planning on a nationallevel,one should bear in mind the delicate and complicated balance of power as between federal and regional governments and the suspicion with which the latter looked upon initiatives of the former.I is for these reasons t that educational planning in Nigeria was a r a i y on the regional rather than the elt hs federal level,and must be considered in more detail in t i context.
31
3 The planning process i the regions of Nigeria n
Before analysing the planning process with its various stages as it has been carried out in the different regions of Nigeria,it wl be useful t define clearly the meaning il o t of certain terms and the nature of the planning process itself. I is only against such a conceptual background that the unfolding of a specific planning process can be properly analysed,and possibly this conception may be of interest to other analysts of experiences of planning.
The nature of the planning process

The planning process entails action on a number of levels,corresponding to what
are usually called project, programme, plan. meaning of these terms and The is indicated by the title of a chapter i a United Nations publication: Integration n of a Programme of Projects into an Investment Plan. Accordingly, a project can be defined as the smallest unit of investment activity t be considered i the o n course of programming,a programme as a co-ordinated set of projects;and a plan as a co-ordinatedset of programmes.The term Co-ordinated important is for,without co-ordination, set of projects does not make up a programme nor a a set of programmes a plan. In the context of an educational plan,a programme might be the expansion of enrolments in secondary education,and the relevant set ofprojects would then include such stepsas the provisionofnew or the extension of existing secondary schools,the provision of secondary school teachers,etc. The planning process can be divided into several stages.In the first place, the planners,before beginning the task of preparing a plan, must be given directives about its aims.These can only be set by the highest political authority in accordance
1. United Nations (ECAFE), Programming Techniques for Economic Development, Bangkok, 1960, Sales no. 60.11.F.3, ch. IV. 2. Ibid., p. 33.
32
The planning process in the regions of Nigeria
with is general policies i the political,economic and social fields.The issuing t n of directives is then the first stage. The second stage consists i the preparation of the plan by the planning n agency, naccordancenot onlywith the over-al1aims as s t out by the governments i e o directives, but also with the amount of resources available t fulfil objectives consistent with these aims.If the resources are not sufficient,the objectives have to be scaled down accordingly. This leads to the third stage,the approval of the plan by the government or another body, such as a planning council or the relevant ministry, specially entrusted by the government with this task. The plan thus approved goes into its fourth stage,that of implementation,which is followed by the f f h and final it stage,the review of progress achieved i the fdfilment of the targets of the plan. n A the first glance,these five stages appear as consecutive ones.However, as t soon as they are examined i detail,it becomes clear that the sequence in terms of n hs timing is much more complex than this.It is suggested that t i sequence depends to a large extent on the nature of the governmental and administrative structure within which the planning process is carried out and i particular on the freedom n of action enjoyed by the planning agency. In this context we can examine more closely the second stage following upon the issuing of directives-the preparation of the draft plan for approval. Such a draft may be simply a setting-outof the major targets of the plan, or it may be a very detailed exposition of the constituent programmes and projects required. o The point here is that approval of the draft plan may relate only t the broad outlines of the plan and may be given before the detailed proposals have been atr et worked out,the l t e being l f to the responsibility of the planning agency or even of some lower authorities.In other words,instead of saying that approval follows preparation, we are justified in saying that preparation must begin, but need not be completed,before approval.It follows that the implementationof the plan may also begin before the detailed preparation of it has been completed. Some projects, for instance,may be timed for the l t e part of the plan period, atr and their detailed preparation can be left until earlier and more urgent projects have been completed.Similarly,the review of the progress of the plan need not await the completion of the implementationstage;in fact,it should begin i the n course of it. The conclusion is that,while the beginning of each stage may be expected to precede the beginning of the next stage,no stage need be completed before the next one starts.Thus several stages may be running concurrently,and the planning 4. process may be represented graphically by Figure 2 (page 3) In a planning process there is theoretically a distinction between planning and policy;the planner proposes,the policy-makerdisposes.But in practice it is not always possible to make a clear distinction between the two. T o the extent that
33
I
Time
Approval
Figure 2. The stages of the planning process
the planning agency has freedom of action, it can formulate policies i detail, n e.g., when the approval of the political authority is limited t the broad outlines o o of the plan or programmes,while the working-outofprojects is left t the planning agency.W e suggested before that a key factor governing the disposition through t m of the stages of the planning process is the structure of authority surrounding ie the planning agency.This now becomes clearer, t the extent thatresponsibility e.g.,o for approval of the plan and its contents is concentrated a a level above that of t the agency so the l t e must complete preparation of the plan before approval atr takes place. Dissatisfaction on the part of the approval body with the i i i l nta proposals of the planners may result i t e r return for reformulation and n hi resubmission. Similarly the extent t which preparation of a1 the details of the o l plan is concentrated i the planning agency is l k l t determine,a least t some n iey o t o extent, how far preparation work is completed before implementation begins. Also the nature of the lrk between the educational planners and the highest ii o a o government authorities may help t determine how f r the planners feel able t begin work on preparing a plan before they receive the governmentsdirectives. Naturally in a country which embarks on its first plan, the apparatus for planning has to be created, and here the biggest problem is the lack of resources for planning, especially of personnel and information.The former may i i i l y ntal be overcome by importing foreign experts,Who should train local replacements. But then the changeover to local s a f creates a discontinuity i the planning tf n process, particularly i the i i i l period. In any event a priority task of any n nta planning personnel is the creation of machinery and procedures for the collection and processing of the necessary data for planning. Another d f i u t arises from the lack of familiarity with planning among ifcly those a the political level Who are charged with issuing directives and approving t proposals.In issuing their directives,they may m k unrealistic or even conflicting ae demands on the planners, and in approving-or rejecting-proposals, they may use wrong criteria for evaluating them.
34
The inter-ministeriallinkages demanded by educational planning are also a potential source offailurein an initialeducationalplanning exercise.The education ministry needs close contact with ministries such as finance,public works, local governments,labour, and economic development in planning a comprehensive development of education in relation to national development. It is essential to establish with the relevant o f c a s i other ministries the implicationsof the plan fiil n i the areas of their competence,and (O make sure that they make allowances i n n their own work accordingly.This is easy to state:it may be less easy to carry out in a framework of government not adapted to such consultations. When planning begins, o f c a s have to adjust to the idea of working with fiil programmes which may run throughout the planning period, instead of having their operations dominated by an annual expenditure budget.This adjustment is not easy,especially i the case of the ministry of finance,whose revenue-collecting n a t v t e i particular are organized on an annual basis. The order of priorities ciiis n for the fulfilment of planning objectives,i education as i any other activity of n n government,does not accord with the criteria for support of projects used by the ministry of financeworking with annual budgets.In Eastern Nigeria i 1965 these n w r stated to be ( ) the revenue-producing ee a potential ofprojects,(b) the availability c of foreign aid to support local financing,and ( ) the need to preserve a balance between capital and recurrent expenditure to maintain on-going projects before initiating new ones. The implications for government financial operations of the adoption of planning as a technique of governing are a relatively neglected topic, since satisfactoryimplementationofa plan on schedule requires long-termfinancial commitments,presented i the form of programme budgets, which go beyond n the horizon provided by a framework of annual budgets. But perhaps the biggest hurdle t overcome is in the implementation of the o fiin plan,because it presupposesthe existence not only ofan e f c e t centralmachinery, but also of a system of local administration capable both of carrying out instructions from above and of reporting back to the centre on the progress achieved.For the purposes of educational planning,an efficient inspection service is essential to success. Thus i the following pages w shall deal a some length n e t with the local administrative arrangements for educational inspection. I now remains to consider, against the background of the conceptual t framework sketched above, the ways in which the five stages of educational planning were carried out i the four regions of Nigeria. n
1. See Raymond Vernon, Comprehensive Model-building in the Planning Process: the Case of the Less-developed Economies, Economic Journal, London, March 1966, pp. 51-69, and the references therein, for further discussion of this and associated points.
35
Directives for planning

This first stage of planning is the one which so far has received least consideration
in Nigeria, and about which very l t l information is available. The politicians ite are the people most concerned a this stage of the planning process. Indeed a t recent commentator has stated, with reference to West Africa as a whole, that n t is no longer possible, as i the colonial days, for senior civil servants to act i largely on their own initiative. They no longer formulate government policies, but, rather, provide policy advice and implement policy decisions made by the political leadership. Indeed civil servants in Ws Africa have often found it et difficult to perform even these functions. Politicians in most of these states frequently make important policy decisions, without the advice of their civil servants. Moreover, political leaders and party officials interfere to an excessive degree in even the detailed implementation of government policies and programmes. What leads politicians to advocate certain broad educational aims as national or party educational policies ?What influences the educational thinking of political leaders responsible for initiating the development of new nations ? These questions are not easily answered.Recent educational planning in Nigeria has taken place within the framework of the federal and regional components of the National Development Plan 1962-68, and directives for planning derived from several sources of power and opinion, in particular regional ministries and boards of education and various independent commissions appointed to review the educational system and make recommendations w t a view to its further ih development. Each regional ministry of education had an advisory board of education, composed of representatives of the ministry, the local education authorities, the voluntary agencies, private institutions and teachers organizations. The board of the Northern Region included in addition members of parliament and representatives of the University and of Islamic learning. The role of the boards was to make recommendations to the Minister of Education on policy matters referred to them. But discussion with various ministry officials suggested that, except in the North, the boards did not have a significant influence in originating policies. A far greater influence on the formulation of policies was exerted by the reports and recommendations of a number of specially appointed
1. Richard L. Harris, The Role of the Civil Servant in West Africa, Public Administration Review, Washington, D.C., December 1965, pp. 308-13. The quotation is from pages 308-9. 2.Federal Ministry of Education, Nigeria, Inuestment in Education, The Report of the Commission on Post-School Certificate and Higher Education in Nigeria, Lagos, Federal Government Printer, 1960 (The Ashby Report). Ministry of Education, Eastern Nigeria, Report on the Reuiew of the Educational System in Eastern Nigeria, Enugu, Government Printer, 1962 (The Dike Report). Report of the Conference on the Reuiew of the Education System in Eastern Nigeria, Enuku, Government Printer, 1964 (The Ikoku Report). Govemment of Western
36
O these, the most significant was the report of the Ashby Commission which f n provided the basis for the expansion of primary education i Northern Nigeria, the impetus to create the National Manpower Board and the National Universities Commission, a first analysis of Nigerias future requirements for qualified manpower, and an impulse for the expansion of sixth forms, science teaching, technical education and advanced teacher training,and also focused attention on the utilization of foreign aid for educational development. The Oldman Report o i Northern Nigeria,through its recommendationswith regard t the development n of educational inspection services,amendments of the education law and, above a l the proposa1 setting up local education authorities, provided much of the l, foundation for subsequent educational planning i the region.In Eastern Nigeria, n the Dike Report foreshadowed the emphasis in the regions programme on the expansion of secondary education, particularly with regard to science, on the rationalization of teacher-trainingf c l t e ,and on the development of technical aiiis and vocational education i line with manpower needs. In the Western Region, n the Banjo Report led t stepsto improve the structureofthe Ministry of Education o and oflocaladministration,and to certainmodificationsi the system of secondary n o modern schools,though it would seem t have had fewer practical results than the other reports,perhaps owing to the political and economic d f i u t e experienced ifclis by the Western Region.I is interesting also that t i Report contained a section t hs on the significance of the Ashby Report for the West. A1 these reports had influence not only on the ministers of education Who l were responsible for inaugurating them,but on governments i general,and they n were a potent factor i the formulation of directives for educational policies. n This was no doubt connected with the eminence of the people Who sat on the commissions and with their first-hand experience of conditions in Nigeria or n elsewhere i Africa. I is much more difficultto assess the relative influence of the various ministries t concerned i the formulation of educational policies,particularly the ministry of n education and the ministry of economic planning i each region. According to n an expert Who participated i the process i Eastern Nigeria, the executive n n n nta ministries there each enjoyed considerablefreedom of action i the i i i lproposal ofprojects.This suggests that the main responsibility for directivesfor educational planning rested with the Ministry of Education.However,the contents of the plan were influenced a a l t r stage, that of approval, by other regional ministries, t ae
Nigeria, Report of the Commission Appointed IO Reuiew the Educational System of Western Nigeria, Ibadan, Government Printer, 1961 (The Banjo Report). Northern Nigeria, The Administration of Primary Eduration, Kaduna, Government Printer, 1961, (The Oldman Report). 1. Chapter III. 2.Frank J. Moore, DevelopmentPlanning in Eastern Nigeria,Journal of Local Administration Ouerseas, London, July 1964, pp. 136-44.
31
particularly the Ministry of Economic Planning,within the framework of interministerial committees. In addition the Ministry of Economic Planning i i i l y ntal had the assistance of the federal Joint Planning Committee i establishing policy n guidelines for the subsequent approval of regional ministerial proposals. A somewhat similar situation appears to have prevailed in the North. I seems less likely that this independence of the executive ministries wt t ih regard to planning could be maintained i the future,since the planning organs n w r established more or less simultaneously with the initiation of the present plan ee and hence had no t m t assert independent lines of action. ie o
Preparation of plans
Inthe case ofNigeria,it is not possible t speak straightforwardly ofthepreparation o ee of educational plans, since there w r no specifically educational plans nor, except i Northern Nigeria, educational planning units, before 1965. Thus t i n hs second stage of planning was limited t the preparation of programmes of o educational projects i the context of the National Development Plan by senior n civil servants i regional ministries of education.There was, however,an earlier n instance of the preparation of a partial plan-the plan to introduce universal free primary education i Western Nigeria-and w shall consider this b i f y n e rel before discussing the preparation of the educational programmes in the current National Development Plan.
The preparation of universalfree primary education i Western Nigeria n
This provides an instance of planning where the government gave a lead and invoked local assistance t f c l t t expansion of an educational system where o aiiae many f c l t e were to be provided from sources other than the government, aiiis though with significant government financing.The preparation of the programme o began i 1952,nearly three years before it was t come into effect. However,it n started without the most fundamental prerequisites for planning-even the basic population data w r lacking, as were personnel with previous experience of ee similar work. Trial and error was the rule rather than the exception,and it took nearly a year t evolve a consolidated questionnaire for the gathering of the o necessary s a i t c linformation.The work of gathering t i information and then ttsia hs planning the development of f c l t e t operate the new policy devolved,partly, aiiis o
1. For the meanings attached to the terms plan, programme, and project,the reader is referred to p. 32 of the present study.
38
The planning process i the regions of Nigeria n
on the very smalls a fof the Ministry of Education and,partly,on the educational tf o f c r responsible for the eight provinces then constituting t e Western Region. fies h n itit They i turn established a series of d s r c planning committees, usually corresponding to a d s r c council area and set up by the existing local education itit committees.The planning committees were composed of local people,including chiefs, councillors, teachers, missionaries and traders, one of them acting as chairman. Each committee had as secretary a government v s t n teacher iiig (GVT), roughly equivalent to an area inspector of education,Who usually acted as secretary to several committees in addition to h s normal duties. The GVTs i formed the lowest echelon of the planning staff, expounding and enforcing governmentpolicy in their committees.They were kept informed of government policy by means of circulars and regular meetings with the provincial officers, Who acted as the l n between the ministry and the d s r c planning committees. ik itit A major task for this machinery was the registration of a1 children Who l would be 6years old in January 1955,the potential first intake of the programme, and a survey of available class-room accommodation. This was undertaken i n July 1954 by the d s r c planning committees, operating through headmasters. itit But, in the absence of a system of registration of births, it was found that the number of 6-year-oldchildren in January 1955 greatly exceeded the number derived from the 1952 census which had formed the basis for i i i l planning. nta In consequence,the numbers of class-roomsand teachersi i i l y proposed were ntal found to be inadequate,particularly i the towns, where the discrepancy was n greatest and where it was most d f i u t to find s t s for additional schools,and ifcl ie a considerable late effort was necessary to accommodate a1 the children. l It must be added that the GVTs,who were the key men at the local level in the preparation of the plans, had many other duties unconnected with t i task, hs ee that communicationsbetween the regional capital and the local centres w r slow and irregular, and that the inexperience of the ministerial planning s a f often tf resulted in imprecise or inadequate instructions to GVTs which needed subsequent correction.Hence the considerable delays in the process of gathering information. O n the basis of the information,the GVTs drew up plans for approval by their d s r c planning committees and subsequent submission to the provincial itit o f c r and the ministry.After the ministrysapproval, fie work began on the expansion of existing schools or the buildings of new ones by the proprietors,i.e.,local authorities and voluntary agencies, aided by a government grant of E200 per class-room.The GVTs had the additional task of reporting progress to the ministry.
1. For an account of the work from the point of view of a provincial official, see R.E.Crookall, UniversalEducation in Western Nigeria, Ouerseas Education,London, April 1958, pp. 3-11.
39
Simultaneously,the Ministry of Education had t ensure the availability of o the necessary resources,which meant in practice organizing the training of the additional teachers needed and finding the necessary finance.Capital expenditure was financed by means of grants from the reserves of the Cocoa Marketing Board, and the additional recurrent expenditure mainly from supplementary o indirect taxes, again largely on cocoa. But owing t the instability of cocoa prices on the world markets, t i proved a source of built-in weakness. When hs blt o prices fell the a i i y of the Western Region t support the recurrent financial burden was seriously impaired but, because of the legal commitment t provide o hs universal free primary education,t i limited the capacity to provide other services. e The greatest mishap was the discovery,a f w months before the scheme was due t be put into effect,that the number of children registering for inclusion,and o hence the requirements for class-rooms and teachers, were much higher than expected,thus impairing the effectiveness of the arrangements made in advance t train extra teachers.Thus when the scheme became operationali January 1955 o n there were only just over 4,000 trained and certificated teachers as against 26,000 untrained or partly trained,and even by 1958 less than one-thirdof the primary schoolteachers were c a s f e as trained.2Because of the i i i l failure t discover lsiid nta o f r enough in advance the scale of the requirement for teachers there was an a impairment of the subsequent quality of primary education in Western Nigeria, which perhaps partly accounted for high rates of wastage, in turn lessening the effectiveness of a large segment of government expenditure. This traces back ultimately t the unpreparedness of government personnel for undertaking such o an exercise,which i turn highlights the crucial importance i a planning exercise n n of having some trained personnel available.
The preparation o educational programmes within f the National Development Plan 1962-68
I should be said a the outset that in studying even the recent history of planning t t i Nigeria the main d f i u t is lack of first-handinformation,which is the result n ifcly of the mobility of the personnel involved. Nigerianization has resulted i the n replacement of most of the expatriate staff, and the Nigerian replacements themselves have moved rapidly between posts t meet the most pressing shortages, o or have gone abroad for further training.Thus the occupants of the relevant ee posts i 1965 w r usually not the people Who prepared the educationalproposals n for the National Development Plan i 1962,and hence it is less easy to evaluate n
1. OConnell, op. cit., p. 119. 2 J. E. Adetoro, Universal Primary Education and the Teacher Supply Problem in Nigeria, . Comparative Education, Oxford, June 1966, p. 210.
40
this work as an instance of the preparation stage of an educational planning exercise. A indicated above,the recommendations of the various ad hoc commissions s have been reflected i planning proposals in a1 regions. In Northem Nigeria, n l the Ashby ten-year targets for primary, secondary and higher education led to the White Paper on Education Development,and were then scaled down to the six-year period of the development plan. In Eastern Nigeria, the educational proposals of the plan, with their emphasis on technical education, were also based on the Ashby recommendations,though it is not clear how the figures for Nigeria as a whole given in the Ashby Report were translated in terms of Eastern Nigerias needs. Each regions educational proposals were set out i the National Development n Plan, together with the annual allocations for expenditure over the planning period. But it was not made clear how these figures were arrived at, though it would seem that the i i i l financial allocation acted as a ceiling on the scale of nta the proposals. The choice of projects i each region appears t have been made n o by the respective ministries of education through their senior civil servants,though the ministries of economic planning have formally the responsibility for the preparation of the plan i each region.But in the case of Eastern Nigeria, the n Ministry of Education, and the executive ministries in general, were encouraged t submit proposals of their own to the Ministry of Economic Planning,partly o because the l t e was short of competent staff,and partly t encourage smooth atr o co-operationbetween the ministries concerned.Similarly,i the North, a newly n established Ministry of Economic Planning had little control over proposals submitted by the Ministry of Education. In the West, there seems to have been inadequate project analysis by ministries,reflecting a lack of qualified personnel. If a1 these steps appear as very limited exercises in educational planning,they l should be viewed i the light of the considerable d f i u t e and obstacles which n ifclis e they faced i the different regions.Among these w discuss below in greater detail n o the opposition of some influential interests t the idea of government control over education, the lack of s a i t c l data, the lack of information on educational ttsia costs,and the extreme shortage of qualified personnel. T o take the first of these obstacles, some important interests in the Nigerian educational community were unwilling t consider the idea of government control o over education being extended beyond the traditional role of setting standards to be observed by the proprietors of schools. Thus i Eastern Nigeria the Dike n Report stated3 ...the Catholic mission which owns and controls a little less than
1. Moore, op. cit., p. 138. 2. Western Nigeria Development Plan 1962-68,First Progress Report, Ibadan, Government Printer, 1964,pp. 2-5. 3. Dike Report, op. cit.,pp. 44-45.
41
50 per cent of the schools i the region and which received wl over El million n el l s year from the state to run these schools,is opposed to state education'. The at report went on to supportthis forthrightstatementwith quotations from Catholic publications. The tenor of these was that Catholic opinion was opposed to any scheme of rationalization of f c l t e for primary education, even where these aiiis were wastefully duplicated by various voluntary agencies,on the ground that it might r s l i some Catholic children not having easy access to Catholic schools. eut n et n Similarly it was not f l that the provision of religious education i a system of state schools was an adequate substitute for existing Catholic education f c l t e . aiiis .. Again the Ikoku Report stated' '. there has been a culpable lack of co-ordinated planning. Government has been contentto demand the minimum requirements for efficiency while giving the agencies a blank cheque for educational expansion' il o and '... no one wl question the right of Government ...t plan a national system of education within the capacity of the national economy to bear'. The report went on to cal1 for the amalgamation of uneconomic school units.However the et Catholic education secretary,Who was a member of the Ikoku Commission,f l obliged to dissociate himself from adherence to these statements,singling out the o proposed school amalgamationpolicy as open t objection. In such a climate of opinion meaningful educational planning was d f i u t to contemplate. ifcl In parts of the North,there has been very ltl enthusiasm for any but Moslem ite n education,and the main problem consistedi getting the childreninto the schools. In view of the large measure of authority exercised by local rulers i this region,it n was necessary to encourage these leaders t support educational development. o This was done by establishing a network of local education authorities, each serviced by a specially trained education officer,i which local dignitaries became n members. The preparation stage of educational planning i the North was thus n concentrated on the formulationof local plans at the local level by the education officers, naturally subject to the supervision of the Ministry of Education planning unit. Another major obstacle to the preparation of plans was the lack of s a i t c l ttsia information.In fact,one of the reasons for developing local planning machinery i the North was to aid the collection and transmission of local statistical n information.The North has possibly the most useful collection of published data for educational planning, though of limited duration. Since 1961,it has been publishing an annual volume entitled,School Statistics o Northern Nigeria,later f changed to Classes, Enrolments and Teachers in the Schools of Northern Nigeria, and there was an intention to publish separate data on educational expenditures. However, there was inadequate information on the stock of buildings and
1. Ikoku Report, op. cit., p. 2. 2.Jbid., appendix G.
42
equipment, or the additions t that stock,and, above a l no information on the o l, s z of the population.This l s question became a matter of political dispute,and ie at lack of information on this subject constituted a major obstacle t educational o planning. In Eastern Nigeria there was also a lack of demographic information and,i n addition,the region had nothing to compare with the s a f and organization card tf of the North, which had to be completed annually by each primary school headmaster t provide data on teachers,buildings, enrolments,attendance and o school leavers. Instead, the East made use of the grant-in-aidapplications to gather data on the numbers,salariesand qualifications of teachers and the number of pupils in each class.Some e f r was being made to collect other data,but their fot processing had been very slow.The only regular publication containing s a i t c ttsis f was the Annual Report o the Ministry of Education, which appeared with a delay of two to three years. In Western Nigeria the machinery for the collection of s a i t c was centralized ttsis i the s a i t c l division of the Ministry of Economic Planning and Community n ttsia f Development.Its publicationsincluded an Annual Abstract o Education Statistics. Thiscontained dataonnumbers, typesandproprietorshipofeducationalinstitutions, on enrolments,numbers and qualifications of teachers,but very little on expenditures for education.The main means for the collection of data were questionnaires sent directly to schools,but the rate of response was not known.The arrangements for the collection of s a i t c were to be changed in 1965,with individualministries ttsis taking over responsibility for the collection and dissemination of s a i t c i ttsis n their respective fields. Thus, a new planning and research section within the Ministry of Education,headed by a curriculum,planning and research officer, was to be responsible for educational s a i t c . ttsis The regions had varying administrative arrangements within their ministries of education for the collection and processing of s a i t c .That for the West has ttsis hs ttsis been mentioned above. In the East, t i task was performed by the s a i t c n n section i the Ministry of Educationwhich,i May 1965,had one US-AIDexpert and two Nigerian assistantsunder training.In the North,it was carried out by the s a i t c section in the planning division of the Ministry of Education,run by a ttsis Nigerian trained by a US-AID expert. Apart from the uncertainty with regard to demographic data,the inadequate informationon educational costs was frequently stated by o f c a s to be a major fiil obstacle to the preparation of educational plans i Nigeria.It also contributed t n o the d f i u t relations between ministries of finance and ministries responsiblefor ifcl ifcl planning.It was d f i u t to predict with any certainty how much finance would be available for the period of the National Development Plan,for several reasons. Foreign aid, which had been assumed to cover 5 per cent of the capital 0 23 expenditure of the plan,amounted in fact to only 1 . per cent during the first
43
two years, or 20.9 per cent if the value of technical assistance is included.In fact, the position was even less satisfactory than is suggested by these figures, since donors often offered aid for projects which w r not in line with the priorities of ee the plan.Another source of finance, the government receipts from export earnings, can Vary considerably in accordance w t trends on the worlds markets, and ih international prices in fact declined in recent years. The amount of government revenue was therefore uncertain,and this made it difficult for ministries of finance to guarantee advance support of projects in the plan. But the costing of the projects by the ministries of education was also insufficiently detailed. Their demands on the ministries of finance tended to be open-ended, for instance, the Eastern Regions project called Ashby Report as, recommendations not elsewhere specifiedwhich accounted for half of the regions projected capital expenditure on education under the plan and for wl over el 80 per cent of recurrent expenditure; the plan simply stated that detailed recommendations and their cost would be worked out in the course of the plan period. Conversely the finance ministry then lacked criteria for allocating money between the projects of different executive ministries. This not only forces a ministry of finance to use some rule of thumb in allocating available finance between the various executive ministries, but can also delay foreign aid to education, because donors are often unwilling to commit funds without having detailed information on the projects for which these funds are going to be used. Thus the figures set down in the plan for expenditure for educational projects should be considered as tentative i the extreme. No doubt, planners find it n difficult to prepare projects when there is so much uncertainty about the possibility of financing them, but neither can ministries of finance find it easy to allocate funds to projects whose costing and phasing are inadequate. A 1 or most of these difficulties and obstacles in preparing plans w r due in l ee the last resort to one primary cause-the lack of qualified personnel, qualified, that i, for planning education. In most cases, the officials Who carried out this s work had had extensive experience as inspectors or principals of educational institutions,but no experience of planning, of relating the components of an educational system together in t r s of timing and of stocks and flows, whether of em finance, teachers, pupils or class-room accommodation. The question arises, and not only i Nigeria, whether educators Who have been primarily concerned with n administering the standards of an educational system can be expected to cope successfdly with the problems involved in planning both quantitative and qualitative educational development, or whether a better solution, wherever possible, would be to entrust such tasks to personnel specifically trained for this
1. Federal Republic of Nigeria, National Development Plan, Progress Report 1964,Lagos, Federal Ministry of Economic Development, 1965, p. 34. 2. Federation of Nigeria, op. cit., p. 248.
44
purpose and working i close conjunction with the existing experienced educators. n In considering the various regions, no mention was made of the Mid-West. n This region was established only i 1963 and subsequentlyproduced a development plan for the period 1964-68.A far as educational development is concerned,the s preparation was rather different from that of the programmes discussed above. An importantrole was played by the National Manpower Board,which undertook a survey to discover the manpower implications of the proposals for development. In the light of the findings of the manpower board and i view of the regions n very limited financial resources and almost complete absence of s a i t c l ttsia information,it was decided t lay the emphasis on qualitative improvements of o the existing educational structure so as t ensure the essential manpower o n requirements provided for i the plan. This was to be achieved by extending government-ownededucational institutions to every part of the region so tbat they should act as models for private institutions, many of which l f much to et be desired.The projects bore mainly on the improvementand expansion off c l t e aiiis for scientific,technical and vocational education i line with manpower needs. n Indeed, it may be said that, within the lmt of its financial possibilities, the iis Mid-West plan laid a stronger emphasis on education as a prerequisite for economic development than any of the other regions, with particular stress on the quality of education as distinct from mere quantitative expansion. A can be seen,the main obstacle to the preparation of plans in Nigeria was s the lack of s a i t c linformation.The situation has perhaps best been summed up ttsia by Moore,and h s statementwith reference t the Eastern Nigeria plan for 1962-68 i o can be extended to the rest of the National Development Plan. Itis wl to think of the plan as published as a satisfactory first approximation el il -an outline of suggested solutions to roughly defined problems-which wl be refined by stages and over t m ,as more facts become available and as ie experience is gained on thejob of working along the directions set by the plan.
Approval of plans
When considering the third stage of planning,it may be asked whether t i stage hs begins when the planners i i i l y submit a set of proposals for approval and ntal continues until a f n l set of proposals has received political approval and been ia embodied i legislation;or whether the approval stage should be confined to the n f n l act o acceptanceand legislative sanction,the submission of successive drafts ia f and the ensuing discussions between planners and authorities being treated as part of the preparation of plans.According to Our concept of the planning process as a series of successive but overlapping stages,it is clear that the approval stage
1. Moore, op. cit.,p. 144.
45
begins with the i i i l submission of proposals and continues until the f n l nta ia proposals receive approval and legislative sanction.Equally,the preparation stage does not stop when the approval stage begins; the two continue together, preparation ceasing only when a set of proposals is accepted by the government. It is on this basis that we shall consider the rather similar methods used for the approval of both the federal and regional programmes contained in the National Development Plan. The arrangements a the federal level have already been mentioned previously t e in connexion with the federal contribution t educational planning, but w shall o refer to them in so far as they affect regional arrangements. n In the Eastern Region,the first step i the approval stage was the consideration of the projects by the Standing Working Party, a group of o f c a s from the fiil Ministries of Economic Planning,Finance,Works, Commerce, Agriculture, and the premiers office, with officials other ministries as and when t e r projects of hi w r under discussion.Within this group,the Ministry of Economic Planning had ee an advisory and Co-ordinatingrole.The recommendationsofthe Standing Working Party were then transmitted to the Economic Committee of the government, composed of the ministers of the Cabinet, the permane? secretaries for finance and economic planning,and a representative of the Eastern Nigeria Development Corporation. This committee in turn made its recommendations to the Executive t hs Council,the f n l arbiter. If a t i stage there was still disagreement between an ia executive ministry,such as the Ministry of Education,and the Ministries of Finance and of Economic Planning,each submitted its v e s separately.Initially,the basic iw criterion for the evaluation of a project was the general availability of financial resources, followed by c i e i of feasibility.This approach was adopted,partly, rtra because of lack of personnel qualified t appraise projects.But, as already noted o earlier, such an approach makes it d f i u t t allocate financial resources t a ifcl o o project whose costs have not been determined,and constitutes a serious obstacle t successful planning. o The Western Region machinery was smlr t that of the East for the approval iia o of plans. But i the North, the machinery centred on the Regional Planning n Committee,the members of which w r the ministers of economic planning and ee of finance,t e r permanent secretaries, the premierssecretary.The meetings hi and of t i committee were also attended by the official-usually the permanent hs secretary-of the executive ministry whose projects w r under discussion. ee The important element in the Northern Nigeria Ministry of Economic Planning was the Economic Planning Unit, whose responsibility was t indicate t the o o committee the policy implications of the proposed projects. In addition, it had t approve any changes i the nature or cost of the projects approved for inclusion o n i the plan. There was an intention to expand t i unit by creating a project n hs evaluation team, probably staffed by an engineer,an economist,and a financial 46
expert, which would work primarily on the evaluation of projects for the next plan,but also on some carry-overprojects,studying t e r relation to the priorities hi of the plan and their recurrent cost implications. This team was expected to Co-operateclosely w t the Ministry of Finance,making recommendations to the ih l t e on both capital and recurrent expenditures.I would seem then that the atr t executive ministries,such as the Ministry of Education, could not have as much freedom i submitting proposals for any future plan as they probably had i the n n case of the current plan. With such development of central planning machinery, the Ministries of Finance and of Economic Planning seemed to be disposed to assume a much more active role i the planning process. n The Mid-West Region, possibly benefiting from the experience of the other regions,paid special attention to the educational projects i its development plan n with a v e t minimizing the huge burden of recwrent expenditure carried by iw o ee the Eastern and Western Regions.The educational projects w r first formulated by the Ministry of Education, i consultation with the Ministry of Local n Government,and then commented upon by the Ministry of Economic Development i the light of plan priorities and of the availability of resources.However, n the key body i the formulation of the plan,the Economic Planning Committee, n f l that too much was being proposed for education and,accordingly,an ad hoc et working party on Government Expenditure on Education was established to consider ways of pruning the proposals and establishing an order of priorities. The working party comprised the secretary and under-secretaryof the premiers o f c and the permanent secretaries of the Ministries of Education, Finance, fie Local Government and Economic Development. Its role was t ensure that o educational proposals were i l n with the priorities of the development plan. n ie The f n l approval was given by the government with the concurrence of the ia Economic Planning Committee, most of whose members also had first-hand experience of education owing t the fact that the teaching profession has o traditionally been the avenue of African advancement to higher administrative posts. The co-ordinationof regional and federal planning for the 1962-68National n Development Plan took place mainly within the Joint Planning Committee i Lagos.The regions also had to inform the federalEconomic Planning Unit of their projected programmes so that the necessary requirements for foreign exchange, and finance i general, could be calculated i advance. Conversely, the unit n n advised the regions of likely changesi the distributablepart of the federal revenue n which could a f c the a i i y to finance the regional programmes. fet blt The actual and projected developmentsi the Northern and Mid-West Regions n suggest that efforts were being made to improve the machinery for the approval of educational proposals. Much would depend,however, on the qualifications of the personnel involved,and their capacity to evaluate projects submitted to them
47
i the context of the requirements of the plan. In t i connexion Clark comments n hs unfavourably with reference to the work a the federal level on the National t Development Plan.
Implementation of plans
In considering the implementation of educational programmes and projects in Nigeria,w are concerned primarily with the personnel and procedures involved. e e The discussion of personnel requires that w take account of the complex structure of control over education i Nigeria. In OUT brief discussion e r i r of the current n ale progress of education i Nigeria, w showed the division of proprietorship of n e n schools i each region between government, local authorities and voluntary agencies.From t i it follows that the contacts between government,the various hs proprietors, the network of local educational administration and the school inspectors are numerous, and hence it is a complicated matter to elaborate the precise nature of procedures in the implementation stage in Nigerian educational planning.
The Eastern Region
The process of implementation differed between primary and secondary levels, and between the three main proprietors, i.e.,the voluntary agencies, the local authorities,and the government.W e consider first primary education. In the larger voluntary agencies, there was an elaborate hierarchy of o f c a s fiil concerned with education. For example, for the Catholic missions there was an education secretary Who acted as liaison between the government and the bishops, Who were the nominal proprietors.Each bishop had a supervisor of schools for 0 n every 2 0 schools i his diocese, and each school had a manager, usually the parish priest,Who managed one or several schools in the parish.In addition,there was a regional Catholic education committee, composed of one priest and one layman from each diocese, the priest being usually the supervisor of schools. This hierarchy may be shown by Figure 3. Key men were the education secretary and the supervisors of schools, both paid by the government.They advised the bishops and gave instructionst school o managers, thus acting as a two-wayChannel of communication.In addition,the education secretary,Who acted as liaisonbetween the bishops and the government, dealt directly with the principal or senior inspector in the Ministry of Education on educational matters, and with the chief accountants o f c on financial fie
1. Clark, op. cit., pp. 273-4.
48
Bishops
(proprietors)
Educntion secretary
I
1
l
Supervisors of schools
(at leilst onc in eacli dioceqe)
Catholic Educntion Committee
Managers or schools
(paris11priests)
Figure 3. Eastern Region: orgunization of a uoluntury agency (Catholic schools)
matters. Conversely, ministerial directives concerning the running of mission schools were transmitted through him. In the local authority school system each urban or county council acted as proprietor within its area,with its clerk as manager of the schools.The councils fmctioned through their education committees,and the key men Who acted as liaison between the committees and the schools under their authority and Who transmitted the decisions of the Ministry of Education were the education assistants. However, the peculiar feature of t i structure was that the education hs assistants were responsible not t the Ministry of Education,but to the Ministry o of Local Government.Their task was to supervisethe implementationof directives by the schools,while members of the inspectorate,Who were employees of the Ministry of Education, had the task of checlung that such implementation was i fact being carried out. Such division of responsibilities was pregnant with n d f i u t e and, indeed,the Ministry of Local Government emphasized the need ifclis for education assistants t Co-operate with the inspectorateinstead of trying to o ifcl o assume its duties. However, it would seem d f i u t t assume responsibility for the functioning of the schools without appearing to be carrying out the tasks of the inspectorate. In 1965 new primary schools could be created only by local authorities, the voluntary agencies having been restricted to the establishment of secondary schools.However,local enthusiasm for education was not matched by the a i i y blt eut to collect local taxes, and educational expansion thus often had the r s l of impairing the functioning of other local services. But i t i constituted an f hs argument i favourofthe Ministry of Local Governmentbeing directly concerned n with the expansion of primary education (its authorization was required for the
1. S.W. Holland, Recent Developments in Local Government in Eastern Nigeria, Journa2 C. of Local Administration Ouerseus, London, January 1963, p. 13 and ff.
49
opening of new schools), it is not clear why it rather than the Ministry of Education should have been concerned with the daily administration of the schools; e.g., the routine ordering of school equipment was done under the authority of the education division of the Ministry of Local Government.Hence the situation i n which t i ministry appeared to play an independent role i the educational hs n a t v t e of local authorities does not seem very logical. If the education ciiis assistants had been under the control of the Ministry of Education,it would have been much easier to harmonize their work with that of the inspectorate.This does not mean that the Ministry of Local Government would have had no Say i such n matters as the expansion of educational f c l t e by local authorities. aiiis The arrangementswith regard to government schools have been ignored above, since these schools represented a very small segment of the educational system. A the secondary level,the system was administered directly by the Ministry t of Education through its headquarters inspectors (the professional d v s o ) iiin, i.e.,the principal and senior inspectors of secondary education and the inspectors for science,English,and commercial subjects.The senior inspector of technical education had the special responsibility of liaison with the Ministry of Works with regard to the building of government schools.Contact was direct between the inspectors and the proprietors and principals of secondary schools. The administration of primary education,as it devolved from the ministry to the local level, was carried out mainly by the senior assistant inspectors,Who were deputiesto the zona1inspectors.They replaced,i 1964,the senior provincial n education o f c r Who had been i charge ofthe localadministration ofeducation, fies n which thus became the responsibility of the inspectorate.The main task of the senior assistant inspectors was the administration of the grants-in-aidsystem within their area, and i t i they were aided by two audit offices, staffed by n hs executive officers, which worked i the f e d and also audited the accounts of n il school managers. The senior assistant inspectors were responsible to the principal and senior inspectors of primary education based i the ministry. n A can be seen from this description, the various channels for the implemens tation of educational decisions-which reflected the various interests i the n educational system-formed a disjointed structure which was conducive to a loose and limited government control over education;the mechanism was complex and tended, therefore,to be inefficient. Such inefficiency encouraged frequent failures i the implementation of educational decisions. n W e now examine in more detail the role of the inspectoratein the implementation process,bearing i mind that t i was only one of its tasks. n hs The inspectorate could be divided into two parts, the headquarters and the f e d s a f ,and,broadly speaking,the l t e was responsibleforprimary education, il t f s atr while the former dealtwith secondary education.The main task ofthe inspectorate consisted i criticism of malpractices and encouragement of i i i t v i the n ntaie n
50
schools. the process,checkscould be made on the implementation ofeducational In decisions concerning the expansion and improvement of the educational system. Thus, seen from the viewpoint of proprietors and teachers, there were both positive and negative aspects to the role of the inspectorate. This needs to be emphasized because there is a popular image among teachers, and not only i n Nigeria, that the inspector is primarily a restrictive influence on the educational system,less an agency of change than a means of discipline.If t i emphasis can hs be made clear then,aside from forma1 duties such as the administration of tests for teachers,the inspectors can report on the implementation of both quantitative and qualitative improvements of education,and encourage these where they are lagging,commend the i i i t v s of energetic teachers,inspire or even reprimand ntaie the less e f c e t Thus, the inspector has a very significant role t play i the fiin. o n modernization of an educational system.Because of the local knowledge which he acquires through systematic visits to the schools,he is also wl qualified t el o advise the ministerial planners on the relevance of their proposals to local conditions and to make suggestionsfor appropriatemodifications.Table 5 below shows the distribution of the field inspectors between the different provinces, derived from Ministry of Education data. The actual inspection of primary schools was carried out by the inspecting assistants,Who stayed for a period i each d s r c .They were,therefore,the main n itit link between the teachers and the authorities. grade II (junior) assistant would The usually have a grade 1 teaching c r i i a e and about ten years of teaching etfct experience. Atr some f v years of service,he could expect to be promoted t fe ie o
TABLE Field inspectors in 1964 5.
Senior assistant inspectors Ratio of inspecting assistants to primary teachers
Province
Zonal inspectors
Assistant inspectors
lnnpecting assistants
Abakalikil Annang2 Calabar2 Degema3 Enugu Port Harcourt3 Ogojal Onitsha Owerri Umahia
uyo2
1 1
1 1
1 1 1 1
1 1 1 1 1 1 1
1 1 2 1
1 2
Yenagoa3
3 2 1 1 5 3 4 6 7 5 4 1
1: 928 1: 1030 1:751 1: 459 1:751 1 :730 1 :227 1:703 1 :1032 1: 839 1: 1158 1:521
1.The zonal inspector in Abakaliki was also responsible for Ogoja province 2.The zonal inspector in U y o was also responsible for Annang and Calabar provinces 3. The zona1 inspector in Port Harcourt was also responsible for Degema and Yenagoa provinces SOURCE Ministry of Education, Enugu
51
grade 1, which involved more varied work, such as conducting grade II teacher tests. But beyond this, there was no provision for promotion t the rank of o assistant inspector. The coverage of primary schools by inspecting assistants was considerably ee improved but,as the above figures show,there w r still significant localvariations. el However, the provinces which appear to be wl served may be those where communications were d f i u t and, hence, where more personnel were required ifcl to carry out inspections with comparable frequency. A1 the higher ranks, from assistant inspector upwards, had to be graduates, l often with training outside Nigeria,and also had t have experience in one of the o f w government schools or training colleges.But some of them had little teaching e ee experience and w r quite Young. Thus,the f e d inspectorate did not o f r a unified career pattern: there was a il fe s il break between inspecting assistants and the higher ranks.A a result,the f e d of recruitment to the higher ranks was very narrow, and those with most teaching ee iey o experience w r less l k l t be eligible.To jump the gap an inspecting assistant would have required both a degree and a period of employmenti one of the few n government institutions. This serious curb on the career of the inspecting assistants tended to lessen their effectiveness through discouraging the best o teachers from recruitment.It also meant that they often had t work under superiors Who were less experienced than they were, a situation that was still further exacerbated by the ministrys action i some instances of appointing the n less successful government school teachers t positions in the inspectorate i an o n endeavour to improve the functioning of the schools. It remains to examine further the duties of the senior ranks of the inspectorate. The assistant inspector was i charge of inspection of primary schools by the n inspecting assistants and the senior assistant inspector was concerned with administrationrather than inspection.The highest rank i the f e d inspectorate n il was the zonal inspector,equivalent t an inspector in the ministry. Apart from o general administrative duties as the head of the f e d inspectorate i an area, the il n particular task of the zonal inspector was the inspection of secondary education. I should be noted, however, that unlike the situation a the primary level, the t t expansion of secondary education had not been matched by a corresponding expansion of the inspection machinery, described below. The principal inspector (secondary) and his staff in the ministry arranged inspections of secondary schools with the zonal inspectors.But this procedure n was proving less and less efficient,because of the increase i the number of schools and t e r increasingly diverse locations,the lack of personnel,and their lack of hi qualificationsfor the task.The ministry o f c a s brought together an ad hoc team fiil for the inspection of a particular school. However, i doing this, apart from n themselves they chose t draw only on the very limited pool of experienced o 52
teachers i the government secondary schools,and not on the far larger number n ofequally qualified people availablefrom voluntary agency schools.Also the zonal inspectors frequently lacked extensive teaching experience, so were not wl el qualified to inspect.Hence graduate teachers, especiallyi the majority ofvoluntary n agency schools,resisted inspection,as bringing to bear the influence of a minority of the profession,and sometimes a relatively unqualified minority a that.Except t when secondary schools applied for a grant-in-aid, inspectionwas not systemati+ t i is an aspect of the ministry's a t v t e which seemed unplanned, or a least hs ciiis t which had been overtaken by the expansion of the system. Another important duty of the zonal inspector was the presentation of an annual report to the Ministry of Education on the work performed by h s s a f i tf, but it is not known what notice the ministry took of these reports.The zonal inspector was also responsible for improving the performance of h s staff, i particuIarIy with a view to making inspections more rigorous. A headquarters,the inspectorate numbered fifteen officials i May 1965, but t n their duties embraced much more than inspection.In fact, they were the main body of administratorsconcerned professionally with education,carrying a heavy load of administrative and policy-makingfunctions.The Dike Report criticized t i situation and suggested that the inspectorate should be concerned primarily hs with inspection and not with administration.'
The Northern Region

From the point of v e of implementation,the most important agency i the iw n Northern Region was the planning division of the Ministry of Education. Its tte suggests that its primary function was the preparation of plans, but i fact il n the division was created after 1962 and has, therefore,been involved mainly i n the implementationof the educationalproposals of the current development plan. 4 Figure 4(page 5 )shows the structure ofthe Ministry of Education. The inspectorate and planning divisions were those concerned with planning, the other divisions having mainly administrative functions.These two divisions Co-operated closely with each other, and some of the s a f of the planning tf division came from the inspectorate. The two divisions often produced joint reports for higher o f c a s so that the views of the inspectorate could be said fiil, t permeate the work of the planners, and vice-versa. o The planning division was headed by a planning and development officer. Under him were the s a i t c l and finance officers, and below them three ttsia planning o f c r concerned respectively with primary education and the developfies
1. Dike Report, op. cit.,p. 38.
53
r
.-
jj
d
'-
Ow"
54
ment of local education authorities, secondary education and teacher training, and technical assistance to education. The officer concerned with primary education dealt, in particular, with staff and organizational cards and a Unicef scheme for aid to primary education i the region.The s a f and organization cards were completed annually by a1 n tf l primary school headmastersand provided data on teachers,buildings,enrolments, attendance and school leavers. It was on the basis of these cards that the local authority education o f c r drew up local authority educational development fies plans,whether for a new local education authority or within a native authority development plan ( n cases where a native authority had not yet established a i local education authority), and the o f c r i the ministry evaluated the plans fie n and approved them or recommended modifications. Because of their close connexionwith local authority plans the cards were the responsibility of the o f c r fie dealing with primary education and not of the s a i t c officer. Previously, the ttsis work of this o f c r was concentrated on the collection of data, but as local fie authority plans became more widely operative, it was increasingly concerned with the evaluation and approval of these plans. The Unicef project consisted i the allocation of teaching materials, mostly visual aids for teachers,to primary n schools throughout the region. The o f c r concerned with secondary education and teacher training planned fie their buildings and equipment,i the case of government f c l t e , n Co-operation n aiiisi with the Ministry of Works. The preparation of capital requirements for new projects,and estimates of recurrent expenditure,w r made i Co-operationwith ee n the divisions finance o f c r The allocation of new f c l t e a t i level was fie. aiiis t h s governed by regional needs and availability of resources rather than local claims. With regard t technical education,the inspectorsconcerned advised on manpower o requirements,the planning division being concerned only w t the provision of ih the necessary f c l t e . For other types of secondary education, estimates of aiiis tsitc growth were made by the s a t s i s officer. The officer responsiblefor foreign aid arranged the absorption of Peace Corps and other expatriates into the teaching force and also had t plan requirements for o such personnel. Also,i consultation with the Ministry of Establishments and n Training,he made arrangements for the sending of educational personnel abroad for furthertraining.U p to 1965 the work oft i o f c rwas concerned with technical hs fie assistance rather than financial aid, and was, therefore,perhaps more administrative i character than that of the other members of the planning division. n The work of the s a i t c o f c r was discussed previously and requires little ttsis fie further explanation beyond saying that he was concerned t a greater extent than o any other member of the division with the preparation of future plans as distinct from the implementation of current plans. ih The finance o f c r dealt w t the costing, both capital and recurrent, of fie
55
Planning and development officer
Statistical officer
Planning officer
(primary)
Planning oficer
(secondary)
Planning officer
(foreigii aidl
Figure 5. Structure of the planning division ( M a y 1965)
educational proposals. For t i purpose, he Co-operated with the Ministry of hs Local Government i connexion with the grants made by that ministry t local n o authorities,and with the Ministry of Finance with regard to the resources l k l iey to be available for educational expenditure. The structure of the planning division, with indications of how the work of a1 the o f c a s concerned drew on each other, is shown i F g r 5. l fiil n iue In principle, the planning and development o f c r was involved i both the fie n preparation of future plans and the implementation of current plans. However, the l t e was by far the most important part of the work of the division,and it atr was probably for t i reason that the s a f of the inspectorate division was so hs tf closely involved in the work of the planning division, though the inspectorate also had an important role i the preparation of future plans, for it was on their n progress reports that subsequent planning would be based. Apart from the Ministry of Education,the Ministry of Local Government was the most closely involved i the implementation of educational plans. It had n over-al1 responsibilityfor the financesoflocalauthorities. Accordingly it authorized them t devote 2 per cent of annual recurrent expenditure t education, and o 0 o 35 per cent of capitalexpenditure.Given these proportions,education represented the largest single head of expenditure by local authorities. The ministry was concerned t achieve a surplus on recurrent revenue,i order t establish a reserve o n o t finance capitalexpenditure.However,t i endeavourwas not entirely successful, o hs apparently because of the inability of many local authorities t collect their o revenues,with the result that local authority capitalexpenditure on educationwas n n curtailed below the levels proposed i the local authority plans. This i turn would curtail the implementation of other aspects of these plans. The Ministry of Education assisted the implementation of both capital and t recurrent aspects of local authority plans. I provided a capital grant of &350 per class-room, and there was also the system of grants-in-aidt cover recurrent o costs,i which teacherssalaries were the largest item. However, the provision of n
56
the capital grants presupposed that the local authority concerned would also make its contribution, which as mentioned above was frequently the bottle-neck to implementation. Local authority plans, which concerned only primary education, had to accord with the over-al1 planning objectives of the Ministry of Education, but required,i addition,the approval of the Ministry of Local Government,since the n l t e was the final authority with regard to local authority expenditures. Such atr arrangements seemed liable to constitute a potential source of inter-ministerial conflicts,because the two ministries used different c i e i i evaluatingeducational rtra n proposals of local authorities;the Ministry of Education viewed such proposals i n the context of educational objectives, the Ministry of Local Government i the n light of total expenditure by local authorities. The possibilities for conflict w r l k l to grow as more native authorities ee i e y set up local education authorities which produced educational plans independently of the native authority development plans (hitherto,the l t e contained atr a section relating to education). This was because, under the new system,the educationalplans would be submitted directly t the Ministry of Education instead o of being forwarded through the Ministry of Local Government, but the l t e atr would still keep the control of the native authorities financial outlays on education. Hitherto, inter-ministerialconflicts had been avoided by means of o hs frequentinforma1contacts,but it remained t be seen whether t i would continue to be the case i v e of the apparent s i t i ministerial authority over education n iw hf n a the local level. t A n example of how t i issue might suddenly come t a head was provided by hs o the impact of the salary increases awarded t local o f c a s by the Morgan o fiil Commission.These disrupted the plans of the local authorities by absorbing hi n much of t e r revenue, and thus called i question the validity of long-term projections of financial outlays on educational projects. When short-termneeds of daily administration come into conflict with long-termneeds of planning,the former are l k l to prevail, and then the Ministry of Educations requirements iey for the support of a local educational plan over a period of years would be overridden by the Ministry of Local Governmentsmore immediate requirement for the smooth functioning of local administration. Although primary education was an importantjoint concern with the Ministry of Local Government,secondary education and teacher training w r the direct ee s and exclusive responsibility of the Ministry of Education. A over half of the secondary grammar schoolsand teacher-training institutionswere run by voluntary agencies, the relations between the l t e and the ministry w r an important atr ee
1. Nigeria, Federal Ministry of Information, Report of the Commission on ihe Review of Wages, Salary and Condiiions of Service of the Junior Employees of the Governments of the Federation and in Private Establishments, 1963-64, Lagos, 1964.
57
factor i the implementation of government policies a the secondary level. The n t voluntary agencies have not been dealt with in connexion with primary education, ee since, under the 1964 Education Law, they w r in effect being gradually excluded from operating primary schools, though retaining specific rights with regard to their religious interests. The key figures in the relations between the government and the voluntary agencies a the secondary level were the two education secretaries, one of w h o m t acted for the Catholic agencies, and the other for the Protestant agencies Northern Education Advisory Council, composed of various denominational members, each of which had a secretary of its own. The secretaries were paid by the government and acted in a liaison and advisory capacity between the government and the proprietors, usually the local bishops. Their work exemplified the significance of good personal relations in the functioning of educational planning in the North; the close contacts established between the two sides were in contrast with the experience of the East. A voluntary agency wishing to open a new secondary school had to get the permission of the Ministry of Education, and the education law stipulated the conditions to be fdfilled before permission would be granted. The agency then went ahead with building, and in this context it is interesting that a survey undertaken by the Ministry of Works showed that school-buildingcosts of the agencies were much lower than those of the government. One possible reason for this would be the willingness of commercial entrepreneurs of a given denomination to work more cheaply under the auspices of that denomination, and another the community spirit which often pervaded the building of denominational schools and led to the provision of free or cheap labour. The design requests of the Ministry of Education for new government schools or extensions to the existing ones went in the first instance to the permanent secretary of the Ministry of Works, Who forwarded them to the chief architect. Low-cost standard designs w r available, but projects based on foreign aid often ee contained stipulations which prevented their use. The costing was carried out by the quantity suveyors section a the Ministry of Works, and the completed t designs were then sent back to the Ministry of Education for approval. Apart from the Ministries of Education, of Local Government, and of Works, a number of other ministries were involved, though to a much lesser extent, in the implementation of educational plans, usually with regard to the training of manpower in the field of their operations, e.g.,nurses by the Ministry of Health, agricultural assistants by the Ministry of Agriculture.But there was no established machinery for co-operation with the Ministry of Education in such instances, personal contacts with inspectors of technical and rural education usually ensuring the necessary linkages, and perhaps Ministry of Education representation on boards of governors. In many cases, the scale of requirements was so much
58
larger than the financialand physical f c l t e available that any attempt t relate aiiis o the training effort t manpower requirements was meaningless,and the principal o am was t make the best possible use of such f c l t e as were available and of i o aiiis the new ones coming into operation. A in the other regions, the arrangements for inspection of education were s different for the primary and secondary levels. A the primary level, there was t devolution on a provincial basis, each provincial inspector having under him a number of assistant inspectors in relation to the school population and the territorial distribution of the schools. A the secondary level, inspection was t carried out by the inspectors from the Ministry in Kaduna. Table 6 below shows the distribution of the inspecting personnel for primary education by provinces, derived from the then available figures. The development plan provided for a provincial inspector and a provincial education secretary for each province, and Table 6 shows how nearly the target was achieved i the case of the inspectors. But i the case of assistant n n inspectors the picture was very different and,indeed,much worse than the figures i the table might suggest.In the first place, the target figures i the table related n n t the school population as it was i 1964,whereas primary education was t be o n o considerably expanded. Secondly,t i expansion would be most concentrated in hs the provinces with the lowest current enrolments, i.e., provinces such as Bornu, Katsina,Sardauna and Sokoto,which had almost reached the target for assistant inspectors. Hence the target figures must be considered as totally inadequate t o
TABLE Northern Nigeria: inspectors for primary education 6.
Target for assistant inspectors (allowing 1 for every 5,000 of the school population i 1964) n
Provincial inspectors October 1964 April 1965
Assistant inspectors October 1964 April 1965
Province
Adamawa Bauchi Benue Bornu Ilorin Kabba Kano Katsina Niger Plateau Sardauna Sokoto Zaria Kaduna
SOURCE
1 1 1
2 2 3
1 1 1 1 1 1 1
6
3 3
1 3 5
3 3 4 3 3 3 2 3 3 1
4 6 16 4
9 11 8 3 4 8 2
1 1
1 1
4
3
1 1 1
4
3
2 4 3 1
4 8 2
Ministry of Education. Kaduna
59
future needs.Nor is the figure of 5 0 0school population per assistant inspector ,0 ie a low one i v e of the small average s z of the schools,their remoteness,and n iw the paucity of transport f c l t e . aiiis The assistant inspectors w r i most cases grade 1 or grade II teachers Who ee n had had sufficient teaching experience t become headmasters.In principle each o covered one of the constituent native authority areas in a province, but owing t differences i the size of school populations and the areas to be covered t i o n hs was not rigidly adhered to.The provincial inspectorswere not normally graduates, but w r expected t be better qualified than grade 1 teachers. ee o The inspectorate a the ministry comprised,apart from the chief inspector t and h s deputy,senior inspectors and subject inspectors.The former were distrii buted between primary, secondary and technical education,teacher training,and womenseducation.The specialpost for womenseducation,which cut across the o iw il other types of education,was felt t be necessary in v e of the position of g r s i a developing Moslem Society.The number of subject inspectors for secondary n education,Who were responsible for inspection of the regionssecondary schools, was liable t fluctuate because of the custom of employing them temporarily i o n other positions i the ministry whenever the necessity arose. In May 1965 there n w r subject inspectors for English,mathematics, chemistry,technical subjects, ee a t and crafts,domestic science,ruralscienceand Arabic studies.The qualifications rs ee required w r a degree,a teaching certificate,and extensive teaching experience; most i not a1 of the posts were occupied by expatriates,and t i situation seemed f l hs unlikely t change i the near future. o n A particularly important aspect of inspection a the secondary level was the t attention paid t the English language, since a i i y in English largely governs o blt s aiiis performance i other subjects.A secondary education f c l t e expand,it could n be necessary t devolve inspection duties i t i subject t territorial e t t e i o n hs o niis n order t ensure a proper coverage.A similar problem could arise with regard t o o other subjects.The then current arrangements with the centralization of inspection a Kaduna were viable,but with the expansion of secondary education,the number t of subject inspectorswould have t be a leastdoubled,since a territorialdevolution o t would require a least two teams instead of one t cover the region. t o The Northern Region published a handbook for the guidance of inspectors, stressing t e r twofold role, t act as a Channel for the spread of educational hi o o improvements and t check on the implementation of policies. With regard t o these functions,it should be noted that although the inspectors w r employees ee of the regional government,while the key figures i local administration, local n the hs education officers, were employees of their local authorities,t i did not mean that the government had no control over local education officers. A native authority desiring to attain the status of a local education authority was required fie by the education law to send its candidate for the post of education o f c r for
60
training to the educational administration course a Zaria run by the ministry. t The ministry was thus able to ensure that education o f c r learnt what the fies ministry expected them t do,that they acquired the right approach and became, o as it were, the ministrys agent within the local education authority. To sum up, it would seem that the North had a more integrated machinery for implementation than the East, mainly because of the relatively stronger position of the Northern Ministry of Education.Potentially weak aspects of t i hs implementation machinery were the inspection of primary education and the possibility of frictions between the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Local Government.
The Western Region

Planned educational expansion i t i region dates from the commitment to n hs universal free primary education i 1952, and accordingly there is longer n experience of the implementationof educational planning.Before the introduction n of universal free primary education i 1955,school inspectionswere a rare occurrence,but the need for them became urgent with the great expansion of f c l t e aiiis and the consequentrise i the number of inadequately trained teachers.However, n the proprietors,Who were operating inspection services themselves, objected to government control of inspection,and i addition the Ministry of Establishments n would not agree t the necessary expansion of Ministry of Education s a f A o tf. s an alternative,the Ministry of Education advanced funds to voluntary agencies to enable them to recruit school supervisors Who would act as inspectors,but the results w r not encouraging and the scheme had t be curtailed.This inadequacy ee o of the inspection system was one of the factors contributing to the widespread f 1 i standards after the introduction of universal free primary education. a1 n Thus a failure i implementation was largely due to administrative failures n which, i turn, had their origins i the multiplicity of interests endeavouring to n n controlthe educationalsystem.However,i other respects the regionalgovernment n did achieve a degree of competence i educational planning which was not attained n until much later elsewhere i the country. The maintenance of the universal n primary education scheme, a whatever cost, was a considerable planning t achievement, greatly helped by the care taken to achieve Co-operationwith the voluntary agencies whenever feasible. Subsequently the Western Region experif enced serious political and economic d f i u t e ; the splitting o f of the Mid-West ifclis Region i August 1963 had the unfortunate e f c of increasing the Western n fet
1. In this connexion, see J. F. Thornley, The Planning of Primary Education in Northern Nigeria, published in this series by IIEP. 2. See David B. Abernethy, Nigeria,in David G.Scanlon (ed.), Church, Sfare and Education in Africa, N e w York, 1966, pp. 220-24.
61
Region's dependence on cocoa revenues for its income a a t m of falling world t ie ih prices for this product. Thus the government was faced w t a crippling burden of subsidies to the cocoa farmers. After the separation of the Mid-West, political unrest continued as competing parties struggled for control of the government, backed by various factions outside the region. In these conditions,the evaluation of the implementation process during the development plan period according to normal administrative criteria becomes somewhat academic, particularly when the legal requirement to maintain free primary education is seen against the background of the population explosion. During the first year of the regional development plan (1962-63), actual capital expenditure exceeded the planned figure by about 50 per cent.' Instead of the E250,OOO originally scheduled, almost 62 million w r spent on teacher-training ee colleges, a 1 of it on advanced teacher-training colleges, no new action apparently l having been taken towards overcoming the inadequacy of primary school teachers. Similarly,the allocation for secondary grammar schools was exceeded, but most of it went for a single comprehensive school established with US-AIDassistance. Conversely, no money was spent on handicraft and trade centres. Consequently, capital expenditure in the next year had to be reduced to &934,000 compared w t ih the E2.54million scheduled.2Political factors w r commonly claimed to play an ee important role in the implementation of educational projects, politicians striving to be associated w t popular projects rather than those justified on educational ih grounds. For the local administration of education the region was divided into four zones, each containing approximately 1,000 primary schools of a1 types which came l under the control of a principal inspector of education, Who was both the head of the inspectorate and i charge of administration of primary education in his n zone. Below this level, each local authority had a local education adviser, usually an experienced teacher W h o acted as school supervisor (the chief education officer envisaged by the regional education law), and was apparently responsible to the zona1 principal inspector, Who in turn acted as a Channel between the Ministry of Education and the local authorities, and thus occupied a key role with regard to both inspection and the implementation of educational decisions. The Ministry of Local Government also played a significant role i the implemenn tation process, since it provided annual grants to local education authorities for recurrent expenditure (E 1 per teacher and 5 s. per child), though apparently the 0 Ministry of Education retained the sole control of the policies of local education authorities. However, this did not add up to a well-organized administrative machine, for
1. Western Nigeria Development Plan 1962-68.. op. cit., p. 34, table II. ., 2.Federal Republic of Nigeria, National Development Plan. ..,op. cit., p. 172, table 1.
62
many of the local education authorities were too s a l to function effectively, ml and apparently no special training was given to their advisers.The zonal principal inspectorswere too few to overcome such handicaps. The inspectorateconsisted of five grades-principal inspector,senior inspector, senior inspecting assistant, and inspecting assistants grades 1 and II. Principal and senior inspectors had to be graduates,the former with eight yearsteaching experience,the l t e with four years. Senior inspecting assistants were mostly atr grade1teachers with abouttwenty yearsexperience ofprimary teaching,assistants1 were grade 1 teachers with five yearsteaching experience,and assistantsII could be newly qualified grade 1 teachers.The inspectorate operated from the four zonal centres-Oyo, Ibadan,Akure and Xjebu Ode-each ofwhich had its zonal principal inspector,a senior inspector and a senior inspecting assistant. The distribution of assistants 1 and II within each zone endeavoured to reflect the urban concentration ofthe primary school population,an e f r having been made t establish fot o the zones so that each should contain about 1,000 primary schools.The graduate inspectors also had charge of the secondary schools in their area. The regionsannualfinancialestimates provided i recent years for f v principal n ie inspectors,thirteen senior inspectors,eight senior inspecting assistants, fourteen inspecting assistants 1 and ninety-two inspecting assistants II, but it was not possible t establish the extent t which t i establishment was f l e .I was not o o hs ild t therefore possible t evaluate the functioning of the inspectorate. o
The MidWest Region

The recentemergence ofthe Mid-Westas an autonomousregion and the even more n recent advent of its development plan (published i 1965) make any discussion of implementation procedures an academic exercise. However, it may be useful to review existing machinery as an indication of the prospects for possible future activity i t i context.The local educational administration was similar to that n hs of the Western Region. However, suggestions were made for the setting-up of new local education authorities, more independent of other local government a f i s than hitherto, and with greater participation of voluntary agencies. far A shown in Table 7,the inspectoratewas almost up to establishment,but the s figures were deceptive because many of the inspectors could not perform their duties owing to the lack of transport f c l t e and their periodic allocation to aiiis other tasks,e.g., collection of census data.In any case,the ministry had so far the made little use of inspectors as a feed-backmechanism from below. The senior inspectors had t be graduates with teaching experience,the senior o
1. Abernethy, op. cit., p. 224, in this context.
63
TABLE The field inspectorate in the Mid-West Region, 1965 7 .

Present establishment Present staffing Proposed establishment
Senior inspectors of education Senior inspectors (secondary) Senior inspecting assistants Inspecting assistants (grade 1) Inspecting assistants (grade II)
SOURCE
4 10 34
3 9
a
3 4 16 36
34
Ministry of Education, Benin
inspecting assistants grade 1 teachers with extensive teaching experience,and the inspecting assistants a least grade II primary teachers. The proposed additions t t the establishmentwould have enabled a senior inspector to be stationed i each o n d s r c t act as the ministrys spokesman and source of information with regard itit o t primary education, while three other senior inspectors would deal with o secondary education.
Reviewing procedure
This stageofthe planning process hitherto hardly received any seriousconsideration i Nigeria. Since there were no comprehensive national educational plans, but n rather educational components of federal and regional development plans, and these still far from realization, any specific machinery for their review seemed premature,particularly in v e of the scarcity of manpower available for such an iw extra task. There are, however, two topics relevant t the reviewing procedure o which wl be discussed briefly-the progress reports on the national development il plan and the potential role of the inspectorate i the review of educational plans. n The progress reports,which were the responsibility of the federal and regional economic planners,gave an account of the progress achieved in the realization of projects during each financial year, and the federal report also stated the amount of resources available for the implementation of the projects. But the regional reports, whenever they indicated a failure t achieve targets, did not generally o make proposals for re-phasing the implementation of projects, and t i was a hs significant omission. The inspectorate i each of the regions had, among other duties, that of n reporting on local observance of ministerial instructions and, as such, it could have been trained to perform the task of a local review agency for implementation, though t i might require expansion of its personnel. hs There w r thus two actual or potential channels for the reviewing procedure, ee one central and the other local.What seemed to be lacking was an intermediate
64
Channel able t collate and relate local reports t regional or national targets and o o t make informed recommendations for further implementation. It may be that o hs certain o f c a s in the ministries of education were already doing t i kind of fiil work as part of t e r duties, but it did not appear that anybody was o f c a l hi fiily charged with t i task. Perhaps the advisory boards attached t the ministry of hs o education would have been an appropriatebody t perform such a task,or perhaps o a new body could have been created for t i purpose. hs
65
Conclusion
This study has examined some of Nigerias recent experience of educationa planning. A number of points arise out of this examination, and the principles implicit in these are relevant to the improvement of educational planning not only in Nigeria, but i many other countries as w l . n el A the beginning of Chapter 3 we established a simple theoretical framework t for the discussion of educational planning experience in -theregions of Nigeria. This enabled us to isolate the different major activities in the educational planning process, with specific reference to the 1962-68 National Development Plan, and to examine each regionsprogress in each of these activities.With the period of the plan only half-elapsed a the t m of examination this was obviously a tentative t ie exercise. The choice of this period possibly favours the North, and certainly Our observations tended to suggest that in 1965 this was the region of Nigeria with.the most active commitment to the use of planning techniques and procedures as an aid to its further educational development. However, it must also be recognized that the particular educational problems of the North a that t m w r perhaps t ie e e more suited to the use of planning procedures than the contemporaneous problems of other regions-i.e., from the viewpoint of planning, it is probably easier to concentrate on expanding an educational system than on upgrading i, though of t course this is not to imply that any part of Nigeria was preoccupied with either of these endeavours to the exclusion of the other. In any case Nigeria is a difficult country for which to make such an evaluation of the educational planning process. A federation of not many years standing which was undertaking a pioneering planning exercise, and in which some of the potentially most significant elements of the planning machinery had scarcely become operational when the plan was published (see Chapter 2, provides a very ) complex case. In addition, during the years under consideration one part of the country was undergoing serious economic and political difficulties which interfered with its ability to carry out planned policies. Thus Our conclusions must be tentative, and subject to the influence of the above observations.
66
Conclusion
However,taking into account also the point made i the introduction about n
the influence on any such comparison ofthe different levels of educationalprogress i the regions, the following conclusions can be drawn from the study. n
1. A federal structure of government makes planning a much more complex hs operation.The nature of t i complexity is of course dependent on the precise federalstructurei the country under study.In Nigeriascase thepredominantly n regional responsibility for education existed in conjunction with a considerable federal control over sources of government revenue.Thus the division between spending and revenue-earning ministries, in which education f l s squarely al among the former,was made more complicated by the division of levels of government.Behind t i lies the more general point that any planning process hs is more complicated when it has t pass through a more complex planning o machinery . 2 A major determinant of the content of any educational plan is the previous . educational history of the area t be planned. Thus i Northern Nigeria the o n previous comparative absence of educational development limited the possible Pace of further development because of,for instance,the absence of teachers for an enlarged educationalsystem.Similarly i the southernregions theprevious n rapid development ofprimary education had created such a burden of recurrent expenditure that the further developmentof other educationallevelswas limited by shortage of finance. 3 The scarcity of personnel with training as planners impaired the preparation of . plans, e.g., n Western Nigeria e r i r during the preparation for universal i ale primary education, and elsewhere l t r i adequately preparing and costing ae n projects. 4. One of Nigeriasgreatest dificulties lay i the comparative lack of statistical n data, the machinery t collate them, and the personnel to interpret them. o A was noted in the course of Chapter 3,it appeared to be the Northern Region s which had taken the most active steps towards the overcoming of t i difficulty. hs 5 A the stage of implementation of planning there was a lack of recognition of . t the possibility of using the inspectorate i a more positive way as an agency n for plan implementation,or a least,if t i possibility had been recognized it t hs was not being followed up actively. s o rtra These conclusions lead u t reiterate the c i e i for the evaluation of progress i planning which w set out i the introduction,but t i t m as principles t be n e n h s ie o observed i attempting t improve planning performance. n o 1. Regular collection and processing of relevant data for planning. 2. Training and permanency of planning personnel.
1. Thus it is noteworthy that W. Stolper, the original head of the federal Economic Planning F. Unit, entitled a book substantially based on his Nigerian experience Planning withour Facts.
67
3. Phasing and costing of educational proposals within the context of other government expenditures so that the agencies concerned, such as the economic planning unit and ministry of finance, can see them as such and provide for their implementation. 4. Development of procedures and personnel for the implementation of plans and review of their progress.
68
Other IIEP publications
The following publications are obtainable from Unesco and its national distributors throughout the world:
Educational Planning: a Directory of Training and Research Institutions
1964. Also available in French

Educational Planning: a Bibliography
1964. Also available i French n

Educational Planning: an Znventory of Major Research Needs
1965. Also available i French n

Prohlems and Strategies of Educational Planning: Lessons from Latin America
1965. A s availablei Spanish lo n
New Educational Media in Action: Case Studies for Planners 1967. Three volumes The New Media: Memo IO Educational Planners W.Schramm,P.H. Coombs,F.Kahnert,J. Lyle 1967. (A report including analytical conclusions based on the above three volumes.) Also available i Spanish: t be published in French i 1968. n o n
Fundamentals of Educationul Planning ils Series of booklets. Also to be published in French. Full current list of t t e available on
request
Librairie de l'Unesco Place de Fontenoy 15 Pari~-7~ France
The International Institute f r o

Educational Planning
The International lnstitute for Educational Planning (IIEP) was established by Unesco to serve as an internationalcentre for advanced training and research in the fieldof educational planning. I s i i i l basic financing was provided by Unesco, the International Bank for Reconstruction t nta and Development and the Ford Foundation and its physical facilities by the Government of France. I has since received supplemental support from private and governmental sources. t The Institutesaim is t expand knowledge and the supply of competentexperts in educational o planning in order to assist a1 nations to accelerate their educational development as a prime l requirement for general economic and social development.In this endeavour the Institute cooperates with interested training and research organizations throughout the world. The governing board of the Institute is as follows:
Chairmon
Meinbers
S r Sydney Caine (United Kingdom), former Director,London School of i Economics and Political Science Hellmut Becker (Federal Republic of Germany), President,German Federation of Adult Education Centres Carlos Cueto Fernandini (Peru), Vice-Rector,Universily of Lima Richard H. Demuth (United States of America), Director,Development Services Department,International Bank for Reconstruction and Development Joseph Ki-Zerbo(Upper Volta), President,National Commission of the Republic of Upper Volta for Unesco D. Kothari (India), Chairman,University Grants Commission S. David Owen (United Kingdom), Co-Administrator,United Nations Development Programme P.S.N.Prasad (India), Director,Asian Institute for Economic Development and Planning S.A. Shumovsky (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), Head, Methodological Administration Department,Ministry of Higher and Secondary Specialized Education (R.S.F.S.R.) Fergus B. Wilson (United Kingdom), Chief,Agricultural Education Branch, Rural Institutions and Services Division,Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Inquiries about the lnstitute may be addressed to: The Director,IIEP,7 rue Eugkne-Delacroix, Paris-1 75 6e

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Educational Planning 1

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The ,organization of

educational planning i Nigeria n

Unesco: International Institute for Educational Planning

African research monographs-13

Included in the series*:

* Further titles t be published o

IEP.66/1.13/A Prinled i Belgium n

IIEP African studies

IIEP A r c n studies fia

PHILIP COOMEIS H. Director, IIEP

The progress of education in Nigeria

The organization of educational planning in Nigeria

1 The progress of education i Nigeria n

The progress of education i Nigeria n

"NO -00 : t-ow$l r - w m N b O 0-w

wmr-. mon t-mw

The organization of educationalplanning in Nigeria

The progress of education i Nigeria n

TABLE Secondary education: number of schools, and number of teachers 3.

per per school teacher

1957 1960 16 93 16 95 1957 1960 16 93 16 95 1957 1960 16 93 16 95

336 0 57 5 9 8 469 11 750

361 5 6 334 9 881 14 1 9 6

135 153 16 7 197

Technical and vocational education

872 2 012 2 658 2 884 25 6 4 41 2 1 77 3 7 11 O08

1957 1960 16 93 1957 1960 16 93

915 1147 1944

1021 1275 23 9 8 3 9 5 6 7 1 738 665 73 1

13 200 1 59 9 0 31 862 492 83 6 1643 7 252 912 2 7 742

1632 2 628 8 076 18 13 45 211 6 28 1 9 2 943

1 832 4 2 17 2 3 3 938 9 510 876 1688 9 413 1 013 2 10 685

Technical and vocational education 5 3 9 -

1957 1960 16 93 1957 1960 16 93 1957 1960 16 93

1574 3 944 5914 30 36 54 547 55 8 613

382 829 1357

1292 2 . 2 39 15 2 4 1 15 2 6 1 110 6.7 49 5 19 1 2 4 16 1. 0 42 1 2 15 1 11 1 4 7

Technical and vocational education

[See notes overlaaf]

The organization of educationalplanning in Nigeria

Pupils Total Boys

per per school teacher

1957 1960 1963 1951 1960 1963 1957 1960 1963

205 161 435 52 78 85 6 30 54

292 282 635 52 79 90 8 34 12

2949 3208 7065 1418 1927 2 161 94 391 632

1138 2506 4 307

4087 5114 1 1 372 1418 1955 2234 129 476 896

Technical and vocational education

TABLE Secondary education: number of schools and pupils by controlling authority 4.

1957 1960 1963 1957 1960 1963

615 787 1315 1624 2581 3966 1352 2896 4 306

71 1 843 1566 141 779 1818 10329 14003 23 970

4 4 5 98 153 168 260 121 113

9522 995 1324

467 568 1149

Local authority schools

15 75g2 24643 30482

2239 3 780 5 370

1957 1960 1963

The progress of education in Nigeria

GENERAL EDUCATION (cont.)

3651 6512 12584