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APPROACHES TO EDUCATIONAL PLANNING

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 APPROACHES TO EDUCATIONAL PLANNING

By

Ukpong, N. N. (Ph.D)
Department of Edu. Admin & Planning
Faculty of Education
University of Calabar
[email protected],08035802844

Chapter Objectives
After reading this chapter the reader should be able to:

(i) explain the rationale for educational planning

(ii) discuss the process of educational planning

(iii) explain social demand approach to educational planning and identify areas of it

usage in planning Nigerian education.

(iv) explain manpower requirement approach to educational planning and state when

it is necessary to use it in planning

(v) explain how cost benefit approach to educational planning is useful.

(vi) enumerate the constraints to effective planning of education in Nigeria

Introduction

Planning entails the identification of goals and objectives of organization and

working out ways and means of achieving them. In more simple terms, planning is
therefore incorporated in every man’s activity economically, politically and socially.
Planning is known and practiced by every race in the world. Every action of man is an
output of his thought otherwise known as strategic planning. Planning is a systematic,
conscious and deliberate process of deciding ahead of time, the future course of action that
a person wishes to pursue in any field human, endeavor (Undie, Ekere & Adah, 2011).
Every planning is usually done with a view of achieving some defined objectives using
available resources maximally.

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 Educational planning according to Adesina in Azunwena and Uchenna (2011) is a
process of preparing a set of decisions about educational enterprise in such a way that the
goals and objectives of education will be sufficiently realized in the future with the
available resources. Educational planning deals with how to harness the available human
and materials resources to achieve educational goals. It is a continuous, process concerned
with where to go and how to get there by the best possible route. Planning becomes
necessary if education must be used to address the challenges of Nigerian society.
Emechuble (2011) enumerated the following reasons why educational planning is
necessary in every school organization.
It helps management to clarify focus and research their organization development
and prospects?
It provides a local framework within which the educational system can develop
and pursue strategies.
It offers a benchmark against which actual performance can be measured and
reviewed.
It plays vital role in helping to avoid mistake or recognize hidden opportunities.
It enables educational managers to understand more clearly what they want to
achieve, how to achieve it and when it can be achieved.
Based on these reasons, it could be said that educational planning involves the
process of identifying educational needs, the direction which education should take and
how to implement the plans. To further stress the relevant of implementation of plan,
UNESCO (2004) asserts that preparation of a comprehensive plan will not guarantee
success but it effective implementation will. Therefore it is necessary to plan education,
implement plans and evaluate the planning process for attainment of education goals at
different levels of education. Okunamiri (2003) observes that the purpose of educational
planning is to ensure the systematic accomplishment of a series of activities leading
towards the achievement of set objectives of educational development. Also focus, of
educational planning is the application of rational and systematic analysis of the
educational production function, whether past or present, with a view to suggesting what
measures would make the production of education more efficient and effective.
Educational planning involves foreseeing the future of educational requirement
with a view to making adequate provision for them. It requires that many factors are taken
into consideration to ensure that the exercise of planning process is successful. In

2
educational planning, policies are evolved goals must be set, feasibility studies carried out
and essentially forecast are made. For this reason, Fadipe (2001) posits that educational
planning can be described as the logical response to the general trend towards/planning for
overall development of a nation.
Therefore, educational planning involves obtaining and analyzing data and
discussing them to make projection for future educational development particularly
estimates of human, physical and financial resources needed to achieve objectives (Fadipe
and Adepoju, 2006). According to the Implementation committee of the National Policy
on Education, educational planning is defined as; a continuous process of obtaining and
analyzing facts and from empirical base of providing information to decision makers on
how well the education system is accomplishing its goals in particular, on how the cost
effectiveness of educational programmes and specific objects can be improved (Blue print,
1978).
The main purpose of this chapter is to identify and discuss some of the approaches
to educational planning in Nigeria. However, financing of education in Nigeria has
experienced difficulties and this has affected plans implementation of Education. It is
against this backdrop that educational planning approaches and other issues in planning
education are taken into consideration. The chapter focuses on the following:
- Rationale for educational planning
- Process of educational planning
- Social demand approach to educational planning.
- Manpower requirement approach to educational planning.
- Cost benefit approach educational planning
- Constraints to effective planning of education in Nigeria.
- Conclusion

Rationale for Educational Planning

Educational planning is very needful step towards progress and goals attainment in
education enterprise. It is always hard to obtain results on any educational programme not
well planned and implemented. According to Osareren and Omoike (2013), planning
education could be beneficial to school organization in many ways such as:
- Increase efficiency of school organization
- Reduce risks in modern organization/ activities

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 - Facilitates proper coordination within organization.
- Planning aids in organizing all available resources in school organization.
- Planning gives right direction to the organization.
- Planning helps the organization to achieve its objectives
- Planning motivates school personnel
- Planning helps in decision making
The concept of planning is to identify what the organization wants to do by using
questions which are “where are we today? Where are we going? Where do we want to
go? How are we going to get there?
It is on the basis of answering these questions that made planning one of the most
essential functions of educational administrators and planners. It should be noted that
education must be planned for in order to attain the goals of education in Nigeria.
Obi (2003) Summarize the needs for educational planning to include five key
areas:
1. To enhance checks:
In all formal organizations such as the school system, those who see to the realization of
set goals cannot achieve their aims effectively without a constant check on their
subordinates and all other stakeholders in the business of schooling. The educational
managers can only do this by the aid of a carefully drawn plan. Such plans are used to
connect loopholes, give directive, and maintain a focus on the objectives
accomplishments.

2. To focus on objectives:
It is on records that any authentic education planning has set goals and objective it
wishes to accomplish at a stipulated period. It is therefore obvious that, the major
concern of such plans will also be to concentrate on the achievable objective and ensure
their realization. Every educational plan has set objectives, and the planners always
struggle to include all aspects of the education plan objectives and seriously work
towards realizing such objectives.

3. Correct a wrong form of education:

There is a great need to plan education in conjunction with societal needs. This in
effect could address the problems of wrong choice of educational system. For instance, the

4
educational system left by some colonial masters to the African people did not address the
need of the indigenous African’s nation. The lopsided colonial education increased the
numbers of uneducated unemployment, which results when people indulge in studying
courses that have no immediate relevance to the societal needs.

4. Need for non –financial planning:

The saying that money does not supply an answer to every problem in education
enterprise calls for effective educational planning. Therefore, at this point educational
planning becomes inevitable as it aims at using and coordinating all the scarce
human/materials for school goals attainment.
Outside financial difficulties education sector of the economy faces a lot of other problems
such as lack of adequate and competent teaching personnel long period of time required
for training of teachers, lack of competent industries to handle constructions, furnishings
and production of teaching facilities. Therefore, for Nigerian education system to achieve
its set goals/ objective non-financial resources need to be taken seriously while planning
education for Nigeria

5. Financial demands higher than Revenue:

In the face of dwindling economic situation with educational budgets and revenue
far less than demands of services to be rendered in education at this situation, the
educational planners would be required to sit down to plan out how to enhance education
with meager revenue.
Population explosion which characterized the expansion in schools enrolment,
calls for strategic planning to enable education as a public good to be made accessible to
school children. To spread available resources over more and more students made
planning a needful exercise, though this would be done at the expense of educational
quality.

Process of Educational Planning:

The process of educational planning is a complex one involving the interaction of
three distinct bodies, namely, the polity or legislature, the technical or professional planner
and the administration which is commonly referred to as bureaucracy (Babalola, 2003).

5
- The polity or legislature represents the government of the day at the time of the
plan. This body gives directives on duration of the plan which are prone to be
politically based.

- The technical planer is responsible for analysis of the education system, making
available projections for enrolment, physical facilities funds, and personnel
required for an education project.
- The bureaucracy – constitutes the executing channel of educational planning which
often times create serious bottleneck to plan implementation.

Azunwena and Uchenna (2011) identified phases of the planning process in

education as follows:

1. Plan making: This is the initial stage of the planning process, where the
stakeholders express their desires and needs.
2. Plan formulation: At this stage, a committee made up of the professionals in the
field of planning and education sector are put in action to brainstorm and formulate
plans.
3. Plan implementation: This is the most crucial stage in the planning process. At this
point the formulated plan is put into a action based on the availability of human
and material resources.
4. Plan Evaluation: This stage involves assessing the extent to which the objectives of
the plan have been accomplished. It serves as a forum for examining the weak and
strong points in the plan projections and problems encountered during
implementation stage.
5. Feedback: This is the stage in the planning process that links the evaluation, with
plan –making. This is the evidence to show that planning process is cyclic in
nature. This stage present the success and failure recorded at the implementation
state which helps the planners in the beginning of another plan on how to improve
and rectify the problems that resulted in failure.

6
Social Demand Approach to Educational Planning
The social demand approach to educational planning solicits that education has to
be provided for every individual who is interested, qualified and express desire to acquire
any type or level of schooling. In this approach the planning of education is geared
towards satisfying the private demand of students/ parents for education. This is the
approach which education is planned to cater for public demand for school places.
Social demand approach to educational planning views education as a service
which is demanded by the public just like any other goods and services like hospitals,
roads, water and electricity. Therefore, in this direction educational planning is regarded as
the process of forecasting demand and providing sufficient places in schools, colleges and
universities to satisfy demand.
Generally, the social demand approach can be regarded as a traditional approach to
educational planning. For instance, the leaders of the newly independent nation Nigeria in
the 1960s aimed at satisfying the demands for education by the people because of its
political importance (Okwori and Ede, 2012). The ideas of free and compulsory education
at the primary level in the late 1950s and 1960s even in the 1970s as experimented by the
Military Government were more of a response to the social demands by pupils and parents
rather than a response to the challenge of development
The social demand approach to educational planning has three major short comings as
highlighted by Okwori 2011.
(i) It is capital intensive
(ii) It leads to one-sided production of manpower.
(iii) It plays too much emphasis on population for education at the expense of proper
costing and quality.
The implication of social demand to educational planning according to Azunwena
and Uchenna (2011) is that the type of education, levels of education and demographic
data are put into consideration; because of the following advantages.

(1) It increases the level of literacy in the country.

(2) It encourages equal educational opportunities.
(3) It facilitates the process of income redistribution.

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 On the other side, Okoroma in Azunwena and Uchenna (2011) enumerated the
disadvantages of social demand approach to educational planning that:
(1) The social demand approach to educational planning does not give consideration to
overall national equitable distribution of resources.

(2) The approach also ignores manpower needs of the society, but cause over
production of some types and not enough of others.

(3) The approach also over estimates the demand for education but under estimates
cost, which results in inadequate spread of facilities and poor quality and standard
of education.

Based on the assumptions of the social demand approach that education is a consumption
rather than investment good, a fundamental right of the people, Osareren and Omoike
(2013) highlighted the limitations of the approach to include:
(1) The approach has no control over factors such as the price of education.
(2) The approach has no control over absorptive capacity of the economy for trained
personnel
(3) The approach is poor because it does not guarantee the effective/ economical
distribution of resources
(4) The approach lacks guidance to how best to meet the needs identified.
In Nigeria the social demand approach was earlier applied in the Southern Regions
from the mid 1950s (ie 1955 in the West and 1957 in the East) by the introduction of free
primary Education UPE). In 1976 UPE was introduced in the whole federation and
primary education became compulsory in 1980.
From the discussions so far, it is clear that if the government in power believes that
the citizens of that state or country have to be given the opportunity to satisfy their desire
for education, social demand approach is to be adopted. But heavy financial implication of
the approach has been responsible for the failure of the government of Nigeria in being
able to execute the programme of free education in the past, even till the presence. This is
because as enrolment increases so does expenditure on teachers and classrooms.
However, resources to adopt social demand approach to education planning are
very limited in the dwindling revenue from oil in Nigeria. That is why many state
governments have found that they cannot pay teachers salaries and allowances. Thus, it is

8
pertinent that the cost implication of universal education be considered critically when
planning to adopted social demand approach for educational development.
Manpower Requirement approach to Educational planning
Manpower requirement approach to education planning is generally concerned
with demand for economy of any country. Okwori (2011) posits it to be an approach
which aims at developing those skills that are in severe shortage in the economy. It also
aims at planning for future manpower requirement to increase the rate of economic
development.
The manpower requirement approach has great relevance to developing countries
like Nigeria because of the persistent shortage of the right kind and number of workers.
Through this approach it is possible to forecast the number of people that would be needed
in a country for specific employment sectors over time. Severally, Nigeria had made
efforts to use this approach in planning manpower requirements (Okunamiri, 2009). The
approach aims at striking a balance of demand and supply of educated manpower in the
labour market as the main focus of manpower, planners. But if imbalances occur, it is the
educational system that has to be adjusted.
According to Olubor (2004) manpower requirement approach to educational needs
in terms of graduate turn out at the different levels of the educational system. In this
process an inventory of the available manpower is taken while the demand for skills is
determined in order to know the area where shortage or surpluses exist. However,
manpower requirement approach has turned out to be the most widely used instrument for
integrating educational and economic planning.
Manpower requirement approach is based on forecasting of the manpower needs of
the economy in the various skills areas required by the labour market to produce a certain
level of development for a given period (Osareren, 2013 et al) There is direct relationship
between increase in skilled manpower and productivity, and skills, potentials and
competencies of the people can be transformed through education. Manpower approach
stresses output from the educational system to meet the man-power needs at some future
date (Osareren and Omoike, 2013).

Advantages of Manpower Requirement

Approach as heighted by Azunwena et al.,(2013)
(1) The approach reduces the level of educated unemployment.

9
 (2) It creates a balance between demand and supply of educated manpower on the
lab our market
(3) It is rational and ensures that the limited educational, resources are applied in
the training of only desirable manpower resources.

Disadvantages of Manpower approach by (Osareren et al., 2013)

(1) It gives educational planes a limited guidance in the sense that it does not
specify achievement in every level of education.
(2) The approach ignores primary education because is not considered to be work
connected.
(3) It is impossible to make reliable forecast of manpower requirements far ahead
of fine because of economic uncertainties.
(4) Accurate educational and demographic data are difficult to lay hand on.
(5) The shortcomings of this approach also include
- Lack of adequate data and information
- Lack of consideration for the cost and financing of skill formation

Cost Benefit Approach to Educational Planning

Cost benefit approach to educational planning is also known as the rate of returns
approach. This approach recognizes the fact that resources are scarce and must only be
applied when the best advantage or result can be achieved. In this approach education is
considered to be an investment goal, therefore, expenditure on it is considered investment
expenditure.
This implies that education generates return beyond the immediate, through the
improvement it brings to bear on the income earning prospect of the educated and
therefore productive capacity of the society (Azuwena et al., 2011) pointed out the
advantages of cost benefit approach to include
(1) It is rated as being sound, empirical and rational approach.
(2) It ensures adequate benefits from investment ventures in education

Disadvantages also include

(1) It ignores the non- economic benefits that accompany the acquisition of a
particular level of education.
(2) The approach fails to realize that benefit of education takes longer time to
mature.

10
 To Olubor (2004) the rate of return approach compares the social cost of expanding
education and benefits derivable from such educational expansion. Therefore, this
approach demands that, within the formal education system priority should be given to
investment in the Kinds of education which promises the highest returns. At any given
time the planner has to determine which level of education (primary, secondary,
teacher training, Polytechnic and University) will yield the greatest dividends of
investments made on them depending upon the prevailing economic, social and
political realities of the country.
To Ogunu (2000) the approach favours promoting those levels of education that
exhibits the highest social cost benefit ratios. This approach determines what the
society pays against what return it gets for educating one person with minimum cost. If
the rate of returns to the society expected from a particular educational programme is
higher, such educational investment is recommended, if not, it is rejected.
The cost benefit approach is difficult to be applied by, developing countries. For
instance, Nigeria has neglected this approach all along her plans. This may be due to
its technical nature and fear that it may lead to a reduction in education provision at a
very high political cost (Udoh and Akpa, 2010).
To Osareren at al., (2013) four basic steps are involved in the rate of return
approach to educational planning and these are;
1. Determination of the cost of various educational programmes.
2. Estimation of the expected benefits so as to obtain the rate of return expected from
the programme.
3. Comparison of cost and benefits so as to obtain the rates of return from the
programme; and
4. Comparison of the rates in investment so as to determine the magnitude of
resources allocation that can be shared between the various educational
programmes.
Education is seen as an investment in human beings with the purpose that the returns will
help to improve the whole economy. Education is perceived by the cost benefit approach
to planning from two perspectives, the social rate of return and private rates of return
(Osareren et al., (2013).

11
1. The social rates of return: stresses the benefit to be derived by the state of investing
in a particular form of education, because cost of education is usually borne by the
society.
2. The private Rates of return: Is the investment by private individual and the
expected benefits for acquiring a particular type of education.

Constraints to Effective Planning of Education in Nigeria

1. Political instability: Government instability in Nigeria has been a very serious

bottleneck to educational plan implementation because of frequent change of
government. For instance, educational planning has political activity because the
legislature has a direct influence on the planning process as the body responsible
for policy formulation on educational development. The fact about political
problem to educational planning is that new government comes in with different
style of leadership programmes. At this juncture plans, made by the previous
government are discontinued.

2. Economic problem: Economic constraint in educational planning refers to a

situation whereby an educational programme may not be implemented due to lack
of financial resources as well as human resources. Usually the education sector is
badly hit with inadequate finance that made implementation of Universal Basic
Education (UBE) Programme by some states impossible: Also other educational
project such as the establishment/maintenance of Universities, technical institution
and colleges of Education met with financial difficulties.

3. Lack of adequate and reliable data for planning: This is perhaps one of the most
serious constraints to educational planning with particular reference to Nigeria.
This is because most education plans are based on outdated data.

4. Inadequate educational resources: The planning and implementation of any

educational plan require human and material resources for it accomplishment. But
often times, the inadequacy of teaching personnel are aggravated by Government
policies about education.

12
5. Population Explosion: The problem of overpopulation had increased the number of
eligible youths seeking admission into schools. The size of potential school going
population in Nigeria made educational plans projection for school enrolment to
yield little or no success.

6. Lack of Planning Personnel and Facilities: For many decades in Nigeria, dearth of
skilled planners and materials truncate planning at different levels of government.
For any educational plan to be successful enough facilities and planning officers
should be put in place but often times, the personnel and facilities are not provided
in the Local, state and federal Educational planning units of the Ministries of
Education throughout the federation.

Conclusion
In this chapter several issues about approaches to educational planning in Nigeria
were discussed. Starting with rationale for educational planning, process of educational
planning, social demand approach to educational planning, manpower requirements
approach to educational planning, cost benefit approach to educational planning and
constraints to planning of education in Nigeria.
By implication, it has been shown that every educational system is characterized
by an educational plan which has goals, objectives, philosophy and the policy of the
educational enterprise.
However, the main focus, of this chapter was on the three major approaches to educational
planning that; the social demand approach provides useful projections of the private
demand for education, the manpower approach recognizes the role of education in
providing trained manpower although it difficult to forecast accurately, the cost benefit
analysis approach emphasizes the relationship between expected economic benefits and
costs. Planning education at different levels in Nigeria had not been without challenges
hence analysis of the constraints to effective educational planning was given.

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