Concepts and Techniques of Educational Planning

Abstract

Despite a steadily expanding body of literature on the subject, there is at present little agreement on the dimensions or scope of the educational planning process. Indeed, since the interest in this area is of such recent origin, much of the literature has simply concentrated on defining terms and exploring alternative techniques for the preparation of national education plans. Consequently, as a recent bibliography compiled by the International Institute for Educational Planning (1964) demonstrates, educational planning research represents little more than a series of probes with a range wide enough to challenge even the most expert taxonomist. Studies span from an attempt by Harbison and Myers (1964) to delineate general educational strategies on the basis of international comparisons of student flow rates to the use of operations research and linear programing techniques for evaluating the student flow characteristics of a specific system (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 1967b). Since the ultimate purpose of planning is to design educational policy, studies have also touched on such diverse items as curriculum content, design of physical facilities, methods for exploiting new sources of revenue, and cost implications of alternative educational technologies. Obviously, this situation hampers a concise description and evaluation of recent research in the field. It is essentially for this reason that the scope of the present paper is limited to a review of some of the aggregate models and techniques that have been either suggested or actually used for the preparation of national educational plans, especially in the low income or underdeveloped countries. As will be seen, these models are primarily quantitative in both purpose and method. They are, nonetheless, representative of the research in the educational planning field and thereby provide a framework in which the more detailed studies can be viewed. To place this discussion in proper perspective, however, the elements of new interest in planning educational systems must be explored.