BEPE 400: EDUCATIONAL PLANNING

Expected Learning Outcomes

By the end of this unit, you should be able to:
i) Explain the meaning of educational planning
ii) Describe the history of educational planning

Educational planning
Introduction

Education is a potent resource used to achieve reforms to attain good life. It sanctions average people
to understand maneuvers of life and survive in a civilized community.
It is different from learning in that; learning is a simple daily-to-daily observations and realizations of
human life.
Educational Planning is a conscious and deliberate Government effort to mobilize, control and direct
resources in an economy towards desired goals and objectives.
The aim of educational planning is to respond to the needs of the society.
The needs of the society are not static and therefore, planning should not be rigid or monolithic
approach to be imposed uniformly in all situations.
Planning answers the What? Who? How? When? Questions.
Example: What does it mean to be a 21st century teacher?
 Digital skills and literacy
 Multi-skilled teacher who possesses skills in several disciplines
 Innovative-teacher who comes with innovative ideas
 Adaptive
 Lifelong learner-learning never ends
Who is the 21st century student?
 Digital and technologically adept-able to use the internet#
 Younger
 Innovative-ideas are everywhere if you know how to put them to use.
 Entrepreneur –educators as entrepreneurs and agents of change.
 Talented
How is the21st century education?
 Digital
  Collaborative learning-learner centered
 Enhancing extra-curricular activities
 Equip students with Special Needs in Education
The 21st century is the age of the ‘global village’ where information has become virtual and access is
inhibited. In the global village, ‘no one is an island’. We are also talking of ‘teacher without borders,
learners without boundaries’
The 4IR-4th industrial revolution-which is about customizing.
The future is ‘students anytime, anyplace’
In the 4IR-Machines and human beings are working in cahoots.
Teacher 4.0- ‘Those who know do, those who understand teach’
-pro-active
-willingness to learn
-ability to inspire
Learner 4.0-Generation Z and next
-love learning outside class
-love digital tools
Educational Planning is an intelligent preparation for the future involving choosing between and

amongst several alternatives the best choice (Muiya 1998). According to Coombs, (1970), education

planning is the application of rational systematic analysis to the process of educational development

with the aim of making education more effective, efficient in responding to the needs and goals of

students in the society.

THE CONCEPT OF PLANNING AS APPLIED TO EDUCATION

First, the term rational is used with specific reference to the planners in the sense that:
Educational planners ought to be people endowed with the capacity to think about educational problems.

• It’s concerned with social goals, means to achieve goals as well as the processes and
controls of the learning activities.

• It’s concerned with conceptual designing on which decisions and actions by groups
concerning education may be made.
Secondly, in the definition the term systematic analysis really points to the development of education.
It’s often argued that education should develop in an orderly fashion.
In Kenya, good examples of this desire for orderly can be seen from the fact that education has had to
be planned right from the dawn of independence by way of commissions, committees and task forces;
The third important term of the definition is that education should be made more efficient in order to
realize productive man-power. It means that quality education should be provided to individuals to
avoid the problem of the educated employed, by way of a better curriculum, better distribution of
educational facilities and human resources.
The fourth implication is that education has to respond to the changing needs of a society. Society is
dynamic and not static, therefore, education should respond appropriately to these. Since
independence, the society demands for a technological form of education hence, education should
undergo these revolutions.
The fifth implication is that education planning is a dynamic concept because:

• It provides reasonably detailed procedures as well as procedural modifications with

information updates.

• It provides a co-coordinating link among long-range goals and intermediate programs and a
detailed operating plan for implementing annual programming in concert with intermediate and
long-range frame-works.
The sixth implication is that education planning deals with a perception of the whole in the sense
that; it blends procedure with knowledge.
The seventh implication of the definition of education planning is that it emphasizes the influence
of politics in education. In Kenya, politics has had to affect educational plan long after they have been
formulated and implemented.
The eighth implication of the definition of educational planning is that it is a process that does the
following;

• Produces valid information in the form of alternative courses of action to achieve

established educational objectives.
• Serves as guideline for monitoring educational activities.

• Provides a basis for re-examination and refinement of educational objectives and goals.
• Provides a means of continuous review of education.
• Planning is future goals and action oriented.

• Formulation of goals and objectives=>implementation of goals and objectives=>evaluation of

goals and objectives

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PLANNING

Introduction

Development of educational planning can be traced to the roots of the society and can be examined in
two;
1. The ancient/ pre-contemporary period. This had what is known as AD-HOC education
planning. This is where a plan is established to solve a problem and once the problem is arrested,
the plan is disbanded. It is discontinuous in nature and is not seen as spiral.
2. The modern/contemporary period-Is an ongoing activityi.e.an activity which is
continuous, spiral in nature and does not end.
The Ancient Period of Planning

Educational planning owes its origin in the ancient civilization of the Nile, Athens, Sparta,
Peru,oftheIncasandChinaduringtheHandynasty.Inthesesocietieseducationwas meant to suit the lives
and aspiration of the people and achieve goals of the society. Indeed, there was a close relationship
between education and the philosophy of the society.
In the city of Sparta, they had a particular constitution solely devoted to educational planning known
as the Xenophon constitution. The second part of this constitution was devoted to education. The
Spartan felt that education could serve a particular purpose in a society hence there was need to plan.
The aim of education was to produce an ideal citizen, a soldier who was honest, loyal and courageous.
Education training had a militaristic outlook and geared towards the production of citizens who would
defend the state.
In China, during the Han Dynasty there was some formal education plan. Although it was crude, it had
some goals to achieve. Plato, an Athenian philosopher in his famous book, the republic, proposed a
scheme, which was supposed to make the school system accountable to the society. He called for the
need to emphasize the school system to meet the societal needs.
In Peru under the rule-ship of the INCAS, the rulers saw a link between education and achievement of
national development. During the renaissance period in Europe, particular attention was paid on
educational planning as a means of achieving intellectual and societal change

Some of notable changes include:

An education system, which catered for the material well-being of the Scotts, a plan for school
administration, which would enhance national unity and the development of tertiary level of education.

The Modern Period of Planning

In 1917, there was a revolution in Russia which lead to the emergence of socialism and by 1923;
socialistic ideas gave birth to modern educational planning. Russia had a 5 year development plan and
was the 1st kind of plan in the world. The economists came up and pointed out the link between
education and economic growth and development in the 1950’s that, a need arose to plan.
Therefore, the western world became convinced that education can be panned. Two decades later, the
western world started following the Russian example of planning. In 1944, the British came up with an
education act and in the act it was meant compulsory for the local educational Boards to draw up
educational plan. In 1951 in France, education became part of the national development plan and many
countries of the world except USA began to do educational planning.
The colonists of the Europeans copied their masters’ form of education planning especially after
attaining independence. This is true of African and Indian countries. Between 1951- 1955, Indians
national development had a section on planning devoted to education. Burma had a national
development plan in 1952, Columbian in 1957, Tunisia in 1959, Nigeria in 1966, and Kenya in 1964.
According to UNESCO 1948, education was seen as a basic human right that everybody is entitled to.
This idea was reinforced by Addis Ababa conference of 1961. The African state in the conference
promised to have a universal primary education by 1980. The UNESCO conference came up with
various resolutions, which formed the general framework of educational planning.
UNESCO Conference of 1948/ Characteristics of Educational Planning
Came up with certain resolutions;
i. Education planning is future focused. It should have long-term planning, medium-term
planning and short-term and annual planning.
ii. Education planning should be comprehensive. There should be harmony between and amongst
the various forms of education. i.e. Informal, formal and non-formal education.
iii. Education planning should be integrated in the broader economic, political, social
development of the country.
iv. Education planning must be concerned with qualitative rather than quantitative
education.

Further E-Resource Readings

1. Tilak,J.B.G.(2008). Educational planning at grass roots. Aph Publishing
Corporation. (Chapter 1)
2. M.Blaug.(1967).Approaches to Educational Planning. The Economic Journal, 77(306), 262-287.
doi:10.2307/22293

EDUCATIONAL PLANNING
Expected Learning Outcomes:
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
i) Explain different kinds of education planning
ii) Describe the process of education planning
iii) Describe the methodologies of educational planning

KINDS OF EDUCATIONAL PLANNING

 Educational planning is the process of setting out in advance, strategies, policies, procedures,
programmes and standards through which an educational objective (or set of objectives) can be
achieved.
 First, Planning with adequate facts, backed by rather than voluminous statistics. This type is
certainly the most desirable but it’s the one least likely to be carried into effect simply because in
practice, the necessary facts and statistical data are seldom available.
 The second type of planning is called planning without facts. In many cases it is simply
impossible to ascertain all the facts ideally necessary for perfect planning.
 The third type is planning without purpose or planning for the sake of planning.
 Whatever planning is used whether it’s with or without facts, the importance of strategy building is
fundamental to the process.
 No country can have all the education, which it thinks necessary or desirable. Rather, any country
must promote or emphasize programmes, which have high priority and discard or tone down
programmes which have no priority.
 Strategy building thus involves the making of assumptions, which may only sometimes be correct
and which often must be based on intuitive judgments. It involves, above all, the making of
choices, sometimes very difficult choices, and planners, particularly educational planners, often fail
to realize that the choices of one objective implies the rejection of others.

 If you choose to put your resources in one area, you thereby choose not to put them in other areas.
As far as educational development is concerned, six such critical areas will be outlined here,
without indication, however, of what the actual choice should be, as this depends largely on real
condition on any country.

Critical Areas of Choice in Educational Planning

The choice between the levels of education:
 The first choice is between the levels of education.
 What emphasis should be made on primary, secondary, and higher education when making
investments in education?
 You can give top priority to primary education, but only at the expense of secondary and higher
education but you cannot give top priority simultaneously to primary, secondary, and higher
education.
 No strategy of educational planning is complete until this choice has been made.
The choice between quality and numbers:
 The second and even more fundamental choice is that between quality and numbers. Which is to be
emphasized? In the field of primary education, for instance, do you aim at compulsory universal
schooling, with few textbooks, poor teaching methods; and teachers who will necessary have very
low qualifications? Or do you want well-qualified teachers, better textbooks and better teaching
methods?
 If you choose the second alternative, economics necessities may force you to achieve quality, that
is, to sacrifice the ideal of primary education. There is a difference between schooling and
education, and the choice between quality and numbers arises throughout the whole education
system.
Science and technology vs. the liberal arts:
 The 3rd choice, more particularly in the field of higher education, concerns the balance between
science and technology, on one hand, and the liberal arts, on the other. What proportion of students
should attend science and engineering faculties, and what proportion should study thearts,
humanities and law? This is not a question of the intrinsic value of these subjects but rather one of
the practical needs of the country.
If you decide to increase the number of science and engineering students, you are immediately faced
with a thorny financial and political problem. Education in science and engineering costs roughly
four times more per student than education in the arts, humanities and law. Financial necessities may
therefore compel you to balance any expansion in science and engineering studies by a fourfold
contraction of liberal art studies.
In fact, the choice between science and technology and the liberal arts becomes to some extent a
choice between quality and numbers. By and large, the lowest quality education is in law, humanities
and the arts, because they lend themselves the use of large classes and employment of part-time
teachers. Science and engineering however require much higher standards of teaching, more
expensive facilities and many more full- time teachers.
 The educational planner must keep such figures in mind when deciding on the proper balance
between scientific and non-scientific education.
Formal education vs non-formal training
 The 4th area of choice lies in the relative emphasis upon formal education, i.e. education before
employment and training by employing institutions or on-the-job training. This problem becomes
particularly acute at the craftsman level. It has been amply demonstrated that pre-employment
training of craftsmen in secondary vocational schools is a poor investment in most countries. Its far
more advantageous to provide potential craftsmen with general secondary education and then
develop their skills on the jobs. In other words, formal pre-employment education should aim at
forming trainable people, while the task of developing specific skills should be the responsibility of
the employers both public and private.
The choice of incentives
 The 5th area of choice which is of great importance to the general planner as well as to the
educational planner is that of incentives. To get into certain occupations, do you rely on the free-
play of the market or do you provide incentives and manipulate them constantly, as the situation
demands, so as to create differential salary scales and raise the financial rewards and status of
particular types of jobs? This is a vital and very difficult problem in many countries.
 In Iran for instance, the proportion of doctors to nurses is 10:1, where it should about one to ten. So
the reason for this is that the salary and status for nurses are so low that nobody wants to enter the
nursing profession. Similar considerations apply to technicians, engineering assistants and
agricultural assistants in many countries. As a result, its often more important for the educational
system to produce nurses rather than doctors, or engineering and agricultural assistants rather than
graduate engineers and agronomists.
 These are difficult choices to make but unless they are made thoughtfully, great amounts of money
will be wasted. The study of incentives is an integral and indispensable part of educational
planning, and a planner who ignores the incentives structure of his society is like an ostrich hiding
his head in the sand.
The purpose of education
 The 6th and the last area of choice is concerned with the very purpose of education. Should
education aim at satisfying the needs, desires and hopes of individuals, or should it be directed
towards meeting the needs of the state? Countries professing the so called liberal philosophy would
naturally favors the 1st alternative, and those professing the communist philosophy would choose
the second, but the problem is not nearly so simple in the new, developing countries.

General functions of planning

 The normative/Decision-making functions. It involves the making of decisions i.e. setting of
goals and objectives. Decision making is carried out by politicians, high-ranking bureaucratic
officials and professionals.
 The technical/strategic function. It focuses on the formation of plans, identification of targets and
evaluation of the required resources-human, financial, physical resources. It’s carried out by
individuals known as planners/statisticians.
Qualitative planners are concerned with better training to teachers, better training facilities, better
 teaching resources. Quantitatively, they can be concerned with distribution of physical resources,
teachers, teaching and learning materials, equipment and enrolment. The concern is provision of
finances for recurrent and development expenditure.
 Implementation functions. This is the operation stage. Planned target and procedures are fulfilled.
These activities are performed by the cabinet secretary and the principal cabinet secretaries to a
ministry in liaison with the semi-autonomous arms of the ministry. i.e. KNLB, KNEC.
 The control functions. This is the evaluation function. It involves identifying the strengths and
weaknesses, the discrepancies and errors and problems between actual and planned achievement.
The function demands close interaction between planners and administrators.
Models used in educational planning.
1. Comprehensive planning models.
These are used to analyze changes in an entire educational system. They are also used to guide
educational plans toward attainment of economic and social goals by guiding allocation decisions.
2. Target setting models.
These are used for projecting and forecasting the development of social and economic systems over
time. They include models for demographic analysis and population projections, models for projecting
school enrolments and models for projecting human resource requirements.

THE PROCESS OF EDUCATIONAL PLANNING

The planning procedure involves:
1. Identification of the national education goals.
 Goals are the end of which a plan is made. The national educational goals as given by Ominde
Commission/report of 1964 must be considered at all cost when doing any educational planning.
These goals are:
 Education should foster a sense of nation hood and promote national unity.
 Education should serve the needs of national development.
 Education should foster the dignity of cultural values.
 Education should promote social equality and remove divisions of race, tribe and
religion.
 Education should make an individual be able to fit locally, foster international
understanding among all the people of the world.
 Education should promote the conservation of the environment.
 The goals set must;
 Be relevant and be realizable.
 Should be general.
  Community oriented and long-range.
 Possess clarity of purpose.
 Be operational.
 The goals should be geared to answering the following questions;
i. What choices should be made?
ii. For whom should these choices be made?
iii. To what degree must the ends be met?
iv. At what rate must these choices be implemented and the needs be met?
v. Under what conditions plans should be carried out?
vi. In what order of priority?
vii.How will the goal be recognized when reached?
 These questions will tend to generate actions that determine the entire course planning will
take.
b) Formulating educational objectives.
c) Choosing the best alternative possible of achieving the planned objectives.
d) Consider the condition/ factors that would influence the achievement of planned objective.
e) The decision making process itself/implementation stage.
f) Feedback/evaluation.