Reporter: Mr. Dennis Mark A. Dela Cruz
Professor: Dr. N.Villa
INTRODUCTION
Educational planning is concerned with the problems of how to make the best use of limited resources allocated to education in view of the priorities given to different stages of education or different sector of education and the need of the economy.
Educational planning, on its broadest generic sense, is the application of rational, systematic analysis to the process of educational development with the aim of making education more effective and efficient in responding to the needs and goals of its students and society. ( Philip H. Coombs, UNESCO: International Institute for Educational Planning)
Objective no. 4, under section 4, Declaration of Objectives,” of the Educational Act of 1982 states that the educational system aims to “respond effectively to changing needs and conditions of the nation through a system of educational planning and evaluation.”
Bernardo M. Reyes (1974) explains the nature and scope of educational planning as follows:
- Educational planning is an instrument for providing the needed coordination and direction of the different components of an educational system and ensures that widely accepted long-term goals, such as universal primary education, are approached more objectively.
- It provides a realistic appraisal of the country’s resources (material, human, and institutional) which is an important factor in the successful implementation of the plan.
- Through educational planning, a country indicates its willingness to effect an orderly change or reform in its educational system by bringing into focus the shortcomings or needs that had been ignored or unknown and so that appropriate action can be affected coupled with the proper allocation of energies and resources to their sectors.
- Educational planning takes into account the past and present realities of the country’s education and training programs.
- Educational planning is a high level staff function providing professional guidance to the authorities in the determination of educational goals and the evolving of educational policies and their execution;
- it involves all level of education of both public and private sector and the related financial agencies of the nation
- It must be comprehensive and continuous process and must be periodically evaluated.
(Reyes; see Manuel, Guerero, and Sutaria, 1974, pp. 334-336)
According to Reyes, the essential elements of educational planning are:
1. Quantitative Planning
This covers all questions involved in the expansion of educational facilities based on pedagogical, demographical, geographical, economic, and social factors. Quantitative planning makes references to school population (enrollment, dropout, promotion), the recruitment of teachers and supervisors, and the provision of classrooms and equipment (furniture, laboratories, etc.)
2. Qualitative Planning
This covers aims, content, and methods of education, curricular planning (the levels and branches), teacher training, educational guidance, research, and textbooks and other teaching aids.
3. Administrative Planning
This is concerned with the needs and assets, costs, sources or finance, distribution of expenditures (recurrent expenditures and capital investments), grants, and loans.
In educational planning, two approaches are involved:
- Macro Approach- refers to the over-all planning which is primarily concerned with the aggregates in the educational system; e.g., new enrollment at the various levels, number of schools to be constructed, etc.
- Micro Approach - lays emphasis on the individual components which go to make up the educational system.
Major Approaches to Educational Planning
1. The Social Demand Approach
This approach requires the education authorities to provide schools and find facilities for all students who demand admission and who are qualified to enter. Aghenta (1987) opined that this approach looks on education, as service demanded by people just like any other social services. Politicians in developing countries often find the approach expedient to use because of its appealing nature.
Advantages of the Social Demand Approach
1. The approach provides the planners with approximate number of places where
educational facilities has to be provided.
2. It is a suitable political tool to meet the need to satisfy the demands of the general
public.
3.Where resources are acutely limited, and where we are seeking to provide those
kinds and quantities of education which will offer the greatest good to the greatest
number, such planning techniques are best.
Limitations of the Approach
1. The approach has no control over factors such as the price of education
2. The approach has no control over absorptive capacity of the economy for the
trained personnel.
3. The approach does not in any way lay claim to whether the resources expended are
economically allotted and to that extent, the approach is poor.
4. The approach does not provide guidance we need as to how best to meet the
identified needs.
2. The Man-Power Requirement Approach
The focus of this approach is to forecast the manpower needs of the economy. That is, it stresses output from the educational system to meet the man-power needs at some future date.
The approach focuses on 3 main elements, namely:
1. Specification of the composition of manpower need at some future date e.g. 2015
2020.
2. Specification of man power availabilities e.g. in 1995.
3. Specification which reconciles the former specification with the later.
Advantages of Man-Power Approach
1. Man-Power could usefully call attention to extreme gaps and imbalances in the
education output pattern that need remedy. This does not need elaborate statistical studies.
2. It gives educators useful guidance on how roughly educational qualifications of
the labour force ought to be developed in the future. That is, the relative proportion of people who would have primary education, secondary education and various amount of post-secondary training.
3. The unemployment and underemployment which may result from some over
emphasis on man-power approach may become a challenge to move towards the right kind of education which may be development-oriented, and thereby creating its own job.
Weaknesses of the Approach
1. It gives educational planner a limited guidance in the sense that it does not tell what can be actually achieved in every level of education e.g. primary education, secondary education, etc.
2. The approach says nothing about primary education, which is not considered to be work connected. By implication, manpower approach suggests the curbing of the expansion of primary education until the nation is rich enough to expand it. Hence, attention is focused on the cream of education that will contribute to manpower development in the society.
3. Most manpower needs are mostly needed in the urban employment. Thus, the planner who may be called to plan is not given any useful clauses about education requirements to those people like semi-skilled and unskilled workers in the cities and vast majority of workers that live in rural areas.
4. The employment classifications and manpower ratios such as desirable ratio of engineers to technicians; doctors to nurses etc. and the assumed education qualifications corresponding to each category of job borrowed ideas from industrialized countries or economy. This does not fit into the realities of less developed countries of Africa.
5. It is impossible to make reliable fore-cast of manpower requirements far enough ahead of time because of many economic, technological and other uncertainties which are involved.
Sources & References:
1. Aquino, Gaudencio V, Curriculum Planning for Better Schools, Rex Book Store, 1998
2. Reyes, Bernardo M, “Educational Planning and National Development,” in New Thrusts in Philippine Education.rev.ed.Vol.1.eds. Bienvenido B. Manuel, Juanita S. Guerrero, and Minda C. Sutaria. Manila: Current Events Digest, Inc., 1974
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