Reading #1

5 Main Stages of Educational Planning

by Deepti Verma
There are five main stages of educational planning:
(1) Collection and Analysis of Statistical Information:
At this stage, relevant information about the system of education and concerned socio-economic factors
is collected so as to provide the quantitative basis for projections aimed at the future development of the
educational system.
Along with this, assessment in some allied fields is also necessary as education is an integral part of the
total plan and is closely inter-related with the economic development of the country.
(2) Evolving Policy Proposals:
The statistical information collected helps in identifying the gaps, weaknesses and shortcoming and
provides the planners with a clear idea of the existing conditions. This helps the planners in formulating
policy proposals aimed at accomplishing pre-determined objectives.
The formulation of the policy proposal requires an over-all view of the role of education vis-a-vis the
economic development and the over-all planning. It should also take into account the complexities of a
large country like India, the diversities of cultures within it as well as the regional aspirations.
These necessitate the introduction of a uniform educational system (e.g., 10+2+3 system) along with
scope for regional diversities in the curricula. It should also aim at evolving policy decisions concerning
rational norms of optimum class-size in terms of enrollment and student-teacher ratios at different levels
and types of education.
Besides, policies concerning admission criteria (except the compulsory primary education level),
promotion of students, fees to be paid on the basis of the principle of social justice, supply of text-books,
equipment, devising curricula, methods of teaching, teachers qualifications and in-service professional
development, methods of evaluation, medium of instruction, language policy and teachers salaries must
be taken into account.
(3) Projections, Programming and Project Analysis:
An effective plan necessitates projections of all the inputs of the educational system students, teachers,
administrators, school buildings and classrooms, equipment and financial requirements.
Projections have to be made of the future nature and size of the demographic composition of population
for a period of fifteen to twenty years. Since student is the focus of the educational process, projection
should begin with the school and the college age-groups drawn on a yearly basis in terms of enrolments.
There are two commonly employed procedures available for scientific projections:
(i)The enrolment ratio method which is based on the projection of past and present ratios of school
enrolment or school attendance into the future. It requires estimates of population by age and sex
regarding school enrolment and/or attendance data.
(ii)The grade cohort method which is also known as cohort survival method. This method also makes use
of the past and current enrolment data by grade for every school level and for approximately seven-year
and ten-year data for primary and secondary levels respectively.
It also requires data on the number of new students, repeaters and those who pass on to the next higher
class for every standard/class. Projections are calculated from the survival rates of students after taking
into consideration demographic characteristics such as birth rate, mortality rate and migration rates.
Alongwith this, a minimum social standard of education needs to be postulated such as compulsory
schooling for every child for a certain number of years.
Besides, provisions should be made in the estimates for the changes made by students midstream (e.g.,
switching from science faculty to commerce faculty) and other forms of turnover, adult education, literacy
programmes, excess supply of products in a particular stream etc.
An assessment should also be made about the efficiency and effectiveness of the curricula, pedagogy
used and criteria of admissions and evaluation as well as the changes required therein.
This is followed by programming and operation. For example, if 800 technicians are to be produced, a
programme on the number of institutions, teachers, equipments, space, syllabi, courses, etc., is to be
worked out. Here, one institution is called a project programming and project analysis involves the
application of administrative and economic principles in order to assess a particular situation and
establish an operational programme.
(4) Costing Educational Plans:
Education is an activity wherein the institution and the society bear part of the cost and the learner bears
part of the cost. In order to improve the formulation and implementation of educational plans, it is
necessary to understand the methods of costing education and the problems associated with it.
The unit costs of different types of educational facilities need to be computed. These costs are to be
studied in terms of the availability of present and future financial resources. It should be ensured at this
stage that the real cost of education is not too high so as to be inconsistent with the attainment of the
overall plan objectives.
(5) Decision, Implementation and Evaluation:
A five year plan needs to be broken up into annual plans. Each annual plan is scrutinized, discussed and
criticized in relation to a review of previous years strengths, weaknesses and achievements. At this
stage, the necessary conditions for effective implementation of the programme need to be created.
Thereafter, the actual operations take place.
At the end of the plan, evaluation is done in terms of the extent to which the objectives of the plan have
been accomplished in an effective and efficient manner.
Reference:
http://www.shareyouressays.com/100978/5-main-stages-of-educational-planning
REACTION:
Planning is an on-going process that can help you manage things in order. In educational
planning, there are steps and stages that you need to take to put your plan into action.
Administrators or school managers can be successful with their plans related to learning
development if they can follow the systematic stages of educational planning. Of course, these 5
stages of educational planning cannot be realized by the administrator alone, he needs the
assistance of the other educators for the effective implementation of the plan.
Reading #2
6 Reasons Why Educational Planning is Important for Academic Institutions
by Deepti Verma
Educational planning is an absolute necessity because:
(1) It ensures success of the institution. It takes into consideration the important issues, conditions,
constraints and factors in education. Its focus is on future objectives, vision and goals. It is proactive
in nature in that it emphasizes perception and ability to apply theory and profit from it in advance of
action.
It clarifies goals and the means to achieve those goals. Thus it eliminates trial-and-error process,
reduces chances of failure and ensures success. In other words, it provides intelligent direction to
activity.
(2) The scarcity of financial and other non-material resources poses a challenge to education.
Planning is a response to such challenges and explores the possibilities of alternative uses and
optimum utilization of limited resources.
(3) Effective and efficient planning saves time, effort and money.
(4) It is a co-ordinated means of attaining pre-determined purposes.
(5) Education is a public service demanded by the public and supplied by the government. For any
government effort of such a large magnitude as education, planning is absolutely necessary.
(6) Educational planning is one of the components of the overall national socio-economic
development. The over-all planning has to provide the objectives of education and the finances for
educational development for accomplishing these objectives.

Reference:
http://www.shareyouressays.com/100974/6-reasons-why-educational-planning-is-important-for-
academic-institutions

REACTION:

Our country these days faces problems like population explosion, man-power needs,
increasing aspirations among different sections of the society, dwindling resources,
mismatch between educational products and the demands of the economy, haphazard
applications of scientific developments and ecological imbalances.

These dilemmas place demands on the system of education for solutions. In order that
the system of education meets these problems, planning becomes vital and the
competence to plan becomes obligatory.

The growths taking place in and the increasing complexity of the educational system
have made educational planning an absolute necessity.





Reading #3
Factors to Be Considered in Educational Planning

The Educational Investment in Relation to Socio-economic Planning
Highest priority must be given to estimation. of the total amount of the future educational investment and the
relationship of educational expenses to the general economy -national income or total public expenditures.
In the effort to achieve a well balanced social and economic development and to promote the nation's welfare, the
balance between investment and consumption should be considered; and in the investment balance should be
maintained between physical investment and manpower investment or between productive capital and indirect social
capital.
On the basis of such well balanced distribution, the contents of manpower investment and of the investment of
indirect social capital should be examined. As such investment is mostly made in terms of the government
expenditures, it can be examined as the problem of the distribution of total public expenditures spent for various
administrative fields. The public or government expenditure has a tendency to increase in an effort to develop well
balanced economy and to promote the nation's welfare. And the tendency is strengthened, being supported by the
payment of increased taxes. Such tendency deserves attention as a proof of the forwarding steps now being taken by
every country.
Effective Distribution of Educational Investment
It is of great importance to determine the proportionate distribution of the educational investment among various
educational fields.
For the effective distribution of educational investment, the factors to be considered are diversified and complex.
Some of the more important current factors include the increased importance of heavy and chemical industries
which have now been developed to the status of permanent national enterprises; the expansion of tertiary industry
and the resultant changes in the structure of the working population; the elevation of the standard of national
consumption; the reduction of working hours; the increase in leisure time; and, as a result of the cumulative effect of
those changes, the new situations in the fields of politics, economics, society and culture of this country and the need
for competent leaders in these new fields of activity.
The national goals of education in Japan need re-definition in the light known and foreseeable socio-economic
changes, objectives and requirements. As a basic principle for determining the distribution of educational
investment, implicit is a definition of national socio-economic and educational objectives. That is the requirement
for as nearly complete popular participation as possible, and hence the educational objective of optimum
development of the innate capacities and the training of the abilities of all individuals.
Reference:
COPYRIGHT Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
REACTION:
The making of a national plan for education requires study of the basic factors which must be considered,
with equal emphasis on abrupt needs and on the requirements of comprehensive long-term planning. It
already has been urged that the factors to be considered in the planning must be viewed from the internal
viewpoint of historical development and in the light of international implications. The factors will be
determined in part by decisions involving interrelationships between the national socio-economic and
educational objectives, e.g.; (1) the percentage of national income or total governmental costs that should
be allotted to education; (2)the priorities of educational progress requisite to meet the most urgent socio-
economic needs; and (3) distribution of the financial burden of educational support among the several
levels of government and private sources in such manner as to assure nation-wide achievement of the
national objectives without imbalance of financial burden.
Reading #4
THE DATA BASIS OF EDUCATIONAL PLANNING
By Dr. Zakaria, M.Pd

1. In Unit 5 the planning process and its various stages were described. In all stages the planner needs
information on which to base his decisions. He can never decide how many new schools should be
constructed if he does not know how many schools already exist. But he also needs to know the quality of
the existing buildings in order to determine how many school buildings may have to be replaced.
From this simple example it emerges already that there are two types of information:
1. Quantitative data
2. Qualitative information
Quantitative data are figures of statistics. They relate to the educational system but also to other systems
related to education. There are, however, extremely important items of information which can not be
quantified.
Statistics will include numerical information on number of schools, students, teachers, finance. Non-
quantifiable data or qualitative information to be taken into account by the planner comprises
information on the objectives of education and educational policies, the content of education, equality of
opportunity to education, quality and relevance of education, etc.
2. In this and the following units we will concentrate on quantified data. The reader should, however, bear
in mind that this is only one aspect of the information required by educational planners.
3. Statistics are needed by the planner in every phase of the planning process.
(i) The planning phase
This phase starts with a diagnosis of the educational system. Diagnosis without statistics is impossible. A
statement like there is a shortage of teachers is almost meaningless for a planner. He needs to know how
many teachers are short, at what level, with what type of specialization? Only if this type of detailed
information is available, can the planner make the proper diagnosis.
From diagnosis the planner goes on to policy formulation teacher training institutions; determine
whether new institutions will have to be created and what the financial implications will be. Therefore he
will need detailed statistics on the existing capacity of teacher training institutions and on the costs of
teacher training.
(ii) The plan-elaboration phase
The elaboration of the plan again requires statistical background data. The plan will be split up in
programmes. Under each programme specific projects will be formulated and these projects have to be
regionalized.
One programme could be primary teacher training. To formulate this programme detailed statistics would
be required on primary teacher training capacity existing at the moment, the number of teacher
educators, the costs of primary teacher training, etc. For regionalization of this programme one would
need, for each province or region in the country, data on capacity for primary teacher training, on demand
for new teachers and on the number of students seeking entrance into primary teacher training.
(iii) The implementation and evaluation phase
Once the plan has been finalized and implementation has started, the educational manager has to
continuously check the progress made. For this he needs a constant flow of mainly quantitative
information. Possible shortfalls or excesses should be recognized immediately so that remedial action
through revision of the plan can be taken.
As a conclusion can be stated that, for the planning and management of the educational system a
continuous flow of information quantitative and qualitative is required. Without this flow no accurate
and timely decision can be taken.
4. It should be emphasized that the need for information not only arises from a central planning office in
the Ministry of Education. Decisions have to be taken at all levels of the educational administrative
hierarchy. School headmasters, inspectors, district Educational officers, as well as planners at the
Ministry of Education are faced daily with problems which ask for decisions. At all levels quantitative and
qualitative information is required and should be available.
5. To serve all these functions well educational statistics should be:
(1) Comprehensive
(2) Rapidly available
(3) Reliable
Comprehensive Information
6. The modern educational manager has to take a systems view. In order to do this he needs information
on the educational system as well as on other system in society related to education.
A good indication of the data required for the educational system as well as information for some other
sectors of society can be obtained from the article by Mr. K.G. Bolin: Statistics Needed for Educational
Planning, which is attached ad background reading material to this Unit. Of particular interest is
statistical information on non-formal or out-of-school education. In the thinking and writing of the
educationists non-formal education. In the thinking and writing of the educationists non-formal
education is assigned an increasingly important role in attacking the basic problems of mass illiteracy and
shortages of trained manpower. Planning non-formal education, however, is extremely difficult because of
the lack of a data base. Establishing this data base presents practical and conceptual problems. Many
different agencies are involved in providing this type of education (a score of government agencies and
private bodies) and non-formal education takes many different forms (sandwich courses, evening classes,
correspondence courses, radio and T.V. courses, literacy courses). Courses differ in duration and
intensity, thus making it difficult to find a common denominator to estimate enrolment.
Comprehensive data should include stock and flow statistics. Stock statistics refer to the situation as it
is measured on the pupils on that day. Flow statistics allow an assessment of the movement of teachers
and pupils through the educational system. They include information on new entrance into grade I,
repetition, drop-out of pupils in the system. For proper analysis of the educational situation and for
projection of student flows through the school system adequate flow statistics should be available.
Recent Information
7. For adequate management recent information is required. If the information is a few years old, the
decisions taken now refer to the situation of a few years ago and not to the present. The statistical process
should therefore be properly organized. There are three ways of data collection for the educational
statistics:
(a) Personal inquiry by the statistician This can help him to obtain data from other government offices
on the non-educational statistics (demographic, economic, manpower, etc.). It my also be a way to obtain
information from the bigger educational institutions like universities. Good and frequent contacts with
these offices and institutions will enable the statistician to collect recent data from them.
(b) Postal census of educational institutions In all countries this is the most important way of data
collection. Annually, a questionnaire is sent to all schools. The processing of the returns of the
questionnaires is different in different countries, but basically there are who alternatives. In the first case
the returns are collected by a central statistical office and checked and processed there (often through a
computer). The second organization is step-wise, the number of steps varying from country to country,
but a representative example of this case is that schools send their questionnaire returns to the district
education office, which compiles the data on district level and send them on to a provincial office which
takes care of provincial compilation and sends the provincial data to the central statistical office.
Both methods have advantages and disadvantages. It is not necessarily so that a centralized and
computerize organization can present the results quicker. It may take a central office longer to collect in
return for computer consumption. The advantages of the computer are that is has more combinatory
powers and can analyze all details that the questionnaires provide. The advantage of the step-wise
organization is that data are collected and processed by those offices (district) where most educational
decisions are taken. The district officers often have powers to decide on additional budgets and staff for
schools and therefore they need urgently recent information.
Whichever way of organizing statistics a country may chose will depend on the particular ways of
educational administration of that country. In all cases it should be possible that, when a questionnaire is
distributed to the schools at the beginning of the school year, the collecting and processing of the returns
will be finalized towards the end of the same school year.
(c) Sample inquiry The school census is an expensive and time-consuming operation because of the
vast number of schools involved. For some items of information a small sample of schools can give us
estimates which can be representative for the whole educational system (e.g. data on repetition,
attendance, age-grade distribution, socio-economic background of pupils). The advantages of a sample
are that it can be cheaper, quicker and a better check on its reliability is possible. If it appears, during the
preparation of a plan, that certain important items of information are not available, a sample may be the
only way to immediately obtain the data.
Reliable Information
8. It is obvious that only correct data are useful. No statistical figure can be foolproof but at least extent
and direction of errors should be known.
To improve reliability of data an investigation into causes of unreliability is called for.
(1) The first problem lies in the schools. Their records form the source from which the questionnaire is
answered. In may schools no records are maintained or are very poorly maintained. Only if headmasters
can be made to understand the importance of the statistical information he may take more care in
answering the questions. In some countries the organization of decision-making is such that the
headmaster purposely gives false answers in the hope of securing more resources for his school.
Questionnaire returns should, therefore, be checked in personal visits by school inspectors.
(2) The district education offices lack adequately qualified personnel and appropriate equipment for
their statistical work. They have to obtain their information from many different agencies engaged in
education, some of which are not under their direct authority (e.g. private schools). They also have to rely
on often inadequate postal services.
It seems that for increasing the reliability of data the schools and the district offices are the crucial places
in most countries.
Conclusion
9. It has been established that the planners and managers of the educational system need statistical
information. Before starting the collection of statistics, the statistician should always consult the planner
and manager on their data needs. The collection of statistics is a time-consuming and costly process and
only useful data should be brought together.
After the collection of the raw statistical data, the statistician first has to check them on correctness and
consistency. Then the phase of analysis and presentation starts. Analysis should bring out the crucial
issues and trends of the educational development. The presentation of the data should be such that every
user will immediately be able to understand and interpreted the data.

Reference:
http://dayatfarras.wordpress.com/2011/01/06/the-data-basis-of-educational-planning/

REACTION:

Statistics is an inevitable factor to be considered when planning education. Educational
plan should be based on a precise and exact diagnosis if it is to be effective. The
diagnosis makes the plan possible to take into account the state of education, and
identify the problems through a detailed and critical analysis in order to propose
solutions. Not using accurate and timely educational information for monitoring
development activities results in retarded development. Quality, timely and transparent
data as well as sound statistical analyses are important for decision making in
formulating policy.

Reading #5
Fundamental Concept of Educational Planning
By bon102192 | October 2012

1.Why is there a need for educational planning?
Educational Planning can be basis for evaluating/assessing performance of the educational system. It
affects equity in the distribution and utilization of resources. Educational planning is an instrument for
quality improvement. Through educational planning, a country can indicate the needed change, reform
and innovation, and to maximize the use of limited resources. It brings about a well-balanced educational
system and correlate education effort with national policy. It improves the effectiveness and efficiency in
the delivery of educational services.

There is a need for educational planning it is the instrument for providing needed coordination and
direction of the different components of an educational system. It also answer that widely accepted long
term goals such as universal primary education are approach objectively. It provides a realistic appraisal
of the countrys resources which is important factor in the successful implementation of the plan

2.As a planner/administrator, how do you understand the term educational development? Suggest other
facets of educational development.
Educational development as a planner or administrators means expanding the facilities to match numbers
with needs of the clientele; diversifying teaching learning situations as well as their content to suit the
varying demands of society; promoting lifelong learning through the provisions of education for all in-
school and out-of-school youths and adults; and establishing an effective challenge response
relationship between economic and social development, on one side and education on the other.

3.What do you think are necessary to bring about a feasible and workable educational development plan
in your region/division/district/institution?
An educational development plan claims to be designed to meet the unique educational needs of the
learner.

Reference:
http://www.studymode.com/essays/Fundamental-Concept-Of-Educational-Planning-1158848.html

REACTION:

There are many definitions of educational planning. Educational planning first starts with a vision. A
clearly articulated picture of the future you intend to create for yourself. It's a dream. A passion for what
want you do, and the benefit it brings others as well as yourself. However, if that vision (dream) does not
have direction, it will always remain a dream and will never become a reality. Therefore, the vision comes
first which also includes the will to change circumstances; Your overall long-term career goals and
objectives. Next, you must develop a road-map with short-term goals and objectives which will lead to
your long-term career goal. The short-term goals and objectives will ensure you that you are moving in
the right direction, and will serve as a catalyst giving you excitement and incentive to carry on. When
creating a road-map, it should never be without the collaboration of a mentor, or we could say a coach, or
reputable counselor. Thus the following.
Acquire the will to change circumstances
Acquire the vision (dream)
Develop a road-map leading to the overall career goal and objective
Just do it with 100% commitment and don't let go until it becomes a reality.
READINGS
IN

CONCEPTS OF SCHOOL
ADMINISTRATION AND
SUPERVISION

EDUC 213

Submitted by:

ANNALIE D. CELADIA
MAED, Supervision and Administration