The conditions for success in educational planning

KENYATTA UNIVERSITY (MAIN CAMPUS)

SCHOOL: OF EDUCATION

DEPARTMENT: OF EDUCATION MANAGEMENT, POLICY & CURRICULUM STUDIES

NAME: FRED OWILI OWINO

REG: E55/27782/2014

TASK: cat one;

UNIT: EMP/M/815

UNIT NAME: planning education to meet societal needs

LECTURER: DR KIRANGA GATIMU.

SUBMITTED ON: 17TH /03/2015.

About three decade ago RUSCO, GC wrote a book entitled, “The conditions for success in educational planning.” In what ways would you disagree/agree with a book written more than three decades ago? Give persuasive reasons for your position using examples from Kenya.

Planning is a rational process of preparing a set of decisions for future action. Educational planning is therefore the application of rational and 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 individual and society. I would like to disagree with RUSCO, in his book conditions for success in educational planning, in that this book was written long time ago and by now a lot of changes has occurred on educational planning. These conditions stressed may be necessary or sufficient or both in that there may be conditions, no one of which is sufficient to produce the event, but all of which are necessary. There may be a condition sufficient to produce the event, although this condition may not be itself necessary because some other condition(s) may also be sufficient. Finally, there may be a single condition which alone is necessary and sufficient to produce the event.

He first highlights, legal, staffing and technical conditions are as the necessary conditions for successful educational planning. Thus, he finds recurrent concern with the legal bases which define the scope of educational planning and the institutional format for planning; the recruitment, training and deployment of educational planners; and the technical sophistication displayed by planners in collecting, analyzing and using data and in designing and utilizing educational models. Although the specific legal means by which educational planning is initiated and its institutionalized framework established varies somehow from country to country, there has been widespread agreement that educational planning requires a fairly specific legal framework. Such a framework usually includes the legal functions of the planning agency, its relations with other educational authorities and with other planning authorities, and its specific form. He said that the staffing of the planning officers though it was a seasonal variation in the number and kinds of planners employed should proceed relatively well as the government also keeps changing. He therefore concludes on the challenges of planning in regard to financing the whole process. The problem of the recruitment, training and deployment of educational planners, while still not totally resolved, has become increasingly amenable to a pragmatic solution. No longer does the problem seem to be one which requires some prior agreement on the definition of the ‘educational planner’. Rather, most people now agree that a variety of skills are necessary for planning. The need for demographers, statisticians, economists, sociologists and experts in all levels and kinds of education has been agreed upon if not everywhere met. In the last condition RUSCO brings in the element of technical conditions, that Much of the attention given to educational planning has been directed at improving the techniques of planning, ranging from better use of existing statistics to the application of complex models of linkages between education and national development. survey of the legal, staffing and technical conditions conventionally associated with educational planning suggests that such conditions are not sufficient to ensure success in educational planning.

He said that the success in educational planning does not fully depend on only those factors but also must be able to look at the constraints of education planning such as political interference and administrative factors that tries to hinder development in educational planning.

These arguments are rather far much backdated having seen especially greater development in educational planning. That there are a lot of factors to consider in developing strategies to cater for success which are the policy for planning. The first four of which deal with policy making, the fifth with planning and sixth and seventh with policy adjustment:

(i) Analysis of the existing situation.

(ii) The generation of policy options.

(iii) Evaluation of policy options.

(iv) Making the policy decision.

(v) Planning of policy implementation.

(vi) Policy impact assessment.

(vii) Subsequent policy cycles.

In the present state of Kenya a number of policies have been put in place to outlaw the RUSCOS ideas which are majorly outdated, the government in conjunction with UNESCO has brought out clear guidelines in making sure that planning for education is a success. Some of this we see in the millennium goals of education, the constitution of Kenya 2010 and even the UNESCO journal guidelines. That the current situation needs a clear guideline on the seven policies for educational planning. The conceptual framework for policy analysis and its application to the four exemplary cases vividly indicate that education planning cannot be purely technical or linear. It deals with an educational enterprise that is not characterized by unambiguous issues, clearly defined objectives, undisputed causal relationships, predictable rationalities and rational decision-makers. Education policy planning, as such, is by necessity a series of untidy and overlapping episodes in which a variety of people and organizations with diversified perspectives are actively involved in the processes through which issues are analyzed and policies are generated, implemented, assessed and adjusted or redesigned. Education planners thus need a methodological approach, to capture the intricacies of both policies and processes, to give deliberate attention to every element of the policy planning process, and to gauge the evolving dynamics of the system (flow, procedure, form, and interaction among interest groups).A conceptual frame work is sometimes followed to the later in Kenya but then at times most of the decisions made in planning of education are done by the politicians, this interference which always leaves the planners with o decisions but to work out ways of helping implement them.eg the laptop project and the free primary and secondary day school.

COPARE AND CONTRUST the claim by Michal Hopkins that The manpower forecasting debate was carried out vigorously in the 1970s and 1980s but appeared to end with the notion that all forecasting techniques that purported to assess manpower requirements in the future were dubious and that the future lay with labour market analysis and labour market signaling. In general, the monograph disputes the first notion but agrees that the, often over-simplified and non-flexible forecasting models of the past, should be supplemented with better data and improved labour market analysis.

Man power approach method was preferred by economists in the 1950s and 1960s Based on the argument that Economic growth is the mainspring of a nation’s overall development -thus should be the prime consideration in allocating scarce resources. Economic growth requires not only physical resources but also human resources to organize and use them.The focus of this approach is to forecast the manpower needs of the economy. It stresses on output from the educational system to meet the man-power needs at some future date. Manpower planning is based on the attempt to forecast the future demand for educated manpower Given the length of time taken to produce educated professional people, such forecasts may have to be made for some years e.g. fifteen years in the case of scientists, engineers, or medical doctors. There was a dubious discussion between 1970s and 1980s which was very vigorous, the findings shifted goals to labour market analysis. That manpower approach gives educational planner a limited guidance on what can actually be achieved in every level of education e.g. primary education, secondary education, etc. The approach says nothing about primary education, which is not considered to be work connected. It suggests the curbing of the expansion of primary education until the nation is rich enough to expand it. It focuses more attention on the cream of education that will contribute to manpower development in the society. It focuses on manpower needs mostly in the urban employment. It does not focus on semi-skilled and unskilled workers in the cities and vast majority of workers that live in rural areas. (Over production of engineers’ vs. masons).It relies on employment classifications and manpower ratios such engineers to technicians; doctors to nurses etc from industrialized countries or economy. This does not fit into the realities of less developed countries of Africa. It is therefore impossible to make reliable fore-cast of manpower requirements far enough ahead of time because of economic, technological, political and other uncertainties which may occur. This Approach has largely been applied at the level of persons with higher education and has tended to ignore those with lower levels of education, i.e. the great majority of workers; Limits itself to headcounts and ignores the effects of movements in wages and other prices; largely makes use of employment data relating to the public sector and/or to large private firms, whereas in developing countries the majority of workers are liable to be in small firms and/or in the informal sector; It is based on the historical relationship between output and labour, which is then extrapolated forward decades ahead; It is gender insensitive Man-power & women power

Labour market analysis is an approach/methodology that presents a major shift from the manpower planning approach.  Manpower planning focuses on skilled and formal labour only and is gender biased (woman power, manpower),

Labour market analysis categorizes labour employed and unemployed, skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled, formal and informal, male and female. The basis of policy analysis lies in the recognition of the inability of human beings to anticipate future developments accurately. E.g. the conceptual problems in the manpower approach it that it implies that the main purpose of education is employment. But education encompasses a wider perspective of producing a human person who would be able to play a meaningful role in society. The labour market is a generalized concept representing the interaction between:

the supply (number of persons available for work) &

the demand (number of jobs available) and

the wage rate effects of education/output, outcome

The keyword “planning” is out “policy” and “analysis” has become keywords. Policy has more modest, short-term affectation than planning. Labour market analysts constantly adjust short and medium term analyses to reflect changing conditions while keeping the long-term in mind. The horizon of the manpower planner is long, sometimes as long as twenty years. The labor market analyst has a much shorter horizon.  Manpower planning makes unrealistic estimates/forecasts. It is difficult to make reliable forecasts of manpower requirements for a long period of time.

Society is dynamic and political, economic, social and technological changes can take place any time. A significant focus of labor market analyses is the concern for poverty and equity rather than strictly production efficiency. (How much you produce given certain inputs)

In labour market analysis efficiency is no longer the only criterion of social action rather equity and poverty considerations are taken into account. It is therefore concerned with correcting present imbalances in the labor market and in reassessing the situation periodically in order to take additional corrective action as necessary. Hence Michal Hopkins that the manpower forecasting debate was carried out vigorously in the 1970s and the 1980s, making the labour market analysis most suitable approach to use. The manpower planning school stresses labour market research and labour market

Signaling as ‘the’ alternative to manpower forecasting. There is no objection to the need for alternative techniques but, as also argued, there is a need to perform, and perfect, forecasting to provide a future vision to assist in the assessment of training and educational needs. The labour market signaling chapter showed that even with relatively detailed surveys, the identification of mismatches on the labour market and future training needs is not straightforward. The data collected in the surveys would help to calibrate some.

Reference

Caillods, F. 1991. Educational planning for the year 2000. IIEP Contributions No. 4. Paris: UNESCO/International Institute for Educational Planning.

G. C. Ruscoe 1969.The Conditions for Success in Educational Planning. UNESCO: International Institute for Educational Planning

Hallak, J. 1991. Educational planning: reflecting on the past and its prospects for the future. IEP Contributions No. 2. Paris: UNESCO/International Institute for Educational Planning.

LYONS, R. F. (ed.). Problems and strategies of educational planning: lessons from Latin America. Paris, Unesco/IIEP, 1965, 117 p., tables.