Approaches to Educational Planning PDF

Approaches to Educational Planning  What is Development?  In terms of planning and policy, development refers to a structured and strategic approach to achieving progress and improvements in a society or system.  It involves formulating and implementing plans and policies that guide...

Approaches to Educational Planning  What is Development?  In terms of planning and policy, development refers to a structured and strategic approach to achieving progress and improvements in a society or system.  It involves formulating and implementing plans and policies that guide growth and advancement in areas like infrastructure, economic conditions, social welfare, and governance.  The goal of development in this context is to create sustainable, equitable, and efficient solutions that address current and future needs.  In terms of planning and policy, development refers to a systematic, goal-oriented process that integrates economic, social, and environmental considerations.  It involves designing, implementing, and evaluating policies and plans that ensure sustainable growth, equitable distribution of resources, and improved quality of life for the population.  Effective development in this context requires a collaborative approach, long-term vision, and adaptability to address evolving challenges and opportunities.  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.  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.  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.  The social demand approach to educational planning has three major short comings.  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.  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.  Disadvantages:  (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.  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. Manpower Requirement approach to Educational planning or Human Resource Development Approach:  Manpower requirement approach to education planning is generally concerned with demand for economy of any country. It is 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. 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 labor market to produce a certain level of development for a given period. 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 Advantages of Manpower Requirement Approach (1) The approach reduces the level of educated unemployment. (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 (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 Limitations of the Manpower Approach (i) Manpower approach may overemphasize the notion of unemployment and underemployment, which may become a challenge to move towards the right kind of education which may be development-oriented, and thereby creating its own job. (ii) Educational planners in this approach get a limited guidance in the sense that it does not tell what can be actually achieved in every level of education i.e. primary education, secondary education etc. (iii) Since primary education, the first step of education is not considered to be work connected; manpower approach suggests the curbing of the expansion of primary education until the nation is rich enough to expand it. This is not a healthy sign for any country because it is primary education which lays the foundation of a developing nation. (iv) The approach gives a biased view of manpower needs, which are mostly focused on the urban setting. Thus, the planner may not give due attention to education requirements of semi-skilled and unskilled workers in the cities and vast majority of workers that live in rural areas. Cost Benefit Approach to Educational Planning (Rate of Return Approach) Different terminology is used to define the rate of return approach, which is as follows: (i) Cost Benefit Analysis (ii) Cost Effectiveness Approach (iii) Rate of Return Approach (iv) Cost Benefit Approach 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.  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. Limitations of Rate of Return Approach: (i) At times ‘salaries reflect productivity’ may be a wrong assumption. (ii) It is not easy to quantify the advantages that are obtained from investing in any type of education. (iii) Differentials in the workers’ income cannot be accredited to additional education acquired in developing countries. It can be attributed to other aspects like family background, habits, primordial factor and customers. (iv) Some studies are of the view that primary education provides the highest return to the society on the basis of calculation of social return rates for all education levels. However, this approach does not agree to the same. (v) Certain complexities are present in this type of planning as it needs to clarify and work out the educational investment that needs to be made and its corresponding returns—returns in the form of benefits that are gained by the individual and the society as a whole. The method to measure the benefits of individuals and society is rather difficult.