Experiences with Comprehensive Educational Planning: Lessons from the Federal Republic of Germany

Abstract

Until the beginning of the 1960s, the extension of state activity in the direction of an 'active intervention state' faced strong opposition in the Federal Republic of Germany so that planning was not then an issue. It took a memorandum from the Commission of the European Economic Community and the initiatives of the OECD, i.e. international impulses and developments, to bring about a fundamental change in attitudes towards planning. As a consequence, after 1960 an important structural change in the political and administrative system took place, which soon affected the educational sector as well. 'Planning' became a new policy approach which was expected to increase the rationality of decision-making in complex situations. In the course of this development, educational administration changed from an 'executive' to a'planning' function, involving a significant extension of its traditional scope of action. Technically this generally occurred by reorganising the Ministries of Education of the Lander and establishing planning departments. A similar development took place at the level of the responsible bodies (towns, districts). At the federal level, planning efforts centred at first upon the two main areas of 'cross-sectional planning': regional development and medium-term fiscal planning, which were given a legal basis by the Regional Development Law (1965) and the Law for the Promotion of the Stability and Growth of the Economy (1967). In 1964 a national educational plan was demanded in the Lower House of Parliament (Bundestag); but the Federation could not take the initiative in educational planning because it lacked the necessary powers (apart from research promotion and financial participation in university construction, under its jurisdiction since 1964). This changed five years later: following the international trend towards 'co-operative federalism', rights in educational planning were granted to the Federation through an amendment of the Basic Law in 1969 [1]. In the 1960s, planning in the educational sector took place at the level of the individual state (Land). Exchange of information among the Lander and co-ordination of their policies was (and still is) the task of the Standing Conference of Ministers of Education (KMK). This was deemed sufficient to secure the necessary uniformity of education in the Federal Republic. The shortcomings of this 'self-coordination' of educational planning became an issue of debate in educational policy in the 1960s. The insights arising from this debate were responsible both for the establishment of the Science Council (Wissenschaftsrat) and the German Education Council (Deutscher Bildungsrat) and for the decision to extend the competence of the Federation in educational planning by changing the Constitution. Article 91b states: