The Political Economy of Educational Planning in Uganda

Abstract

THERE HAVE not been many attempts at a synthesis of the varieties of educational planning experience, despite the fact that there have been a large number of educational plans produced in various parts of the world in recent years. One rather obvious, and sobering, element in the educational planning experience which emerges from even a cursory acquaintance with educational plans is that the plans are hardly ever, perhaps never, actually implemented in their entirety. Some actions specified by the typical educational plan are simply not carried out, and other actions pertaining to education, but not specified by the plan, are. So it is exceedingly rare for a plan's targets, stated in terms of enrollments or expenditures, to be actually attained by the end of the plan period. By the end of a typical plan period targets are under-fulfilled or over-fulfilled, but rarely fulfilled as planned. No doubt, a variety of explanations can be offered for this. Here we shall try to identify, for a collection of educational plans put forward in Uganda in the last thirty years or so, the main ex post deviations from the targets specified in the plans. And we shall find that the reasons for the deviations fall quite naturally in a particular class. The deviations pre-eminently arise, so to speak, for reasons of political economy. We define an educational plan as a rational statement of those actions pertaining to education which should be thought most likely to attain the object or objects desired; and we may note that there are two distinct normative problems connected with educational planning. There is the problem of choosing the best educational plan, given a set of desired objectives; and there is the problem of choosing the objectives. The former is a problem of educational planning per se; the latter is a problem of political economy. At any one moment of time, the problem of political economy is to select from the domain of alternative objectives a particular set as being more worth while than any alternative set; and the problem of educational planning is to design a course of action most likely to attain those objectives. For some kinds of objectives, particularly economic ones, there is often considerable difficulty in discerning an appropriate action sequence. And lengthy action sequences become increasingly subject to re-evaluation over time, as unforeseen contingencies are experienced and preferences evolve. So it is not particularly surprising that a government's educational development plans, which often have economic objectives, and are generally designed for five-year periods or more, should so rarely be completely implemented.