ALLAMA IQBAL OPEN UNIVERSITY, ISLAMABAD

(Department of Educational Planning Policy Studies & Leadership)

M.A EPM
SEMESTER - AUTUMN 2019
COARSE CODE-6559
COARSE NAME - PROCESSES OF EDUCATIONAL PLANNING-I

ASSIGNMENT – I
Presented To:

Prepared By: Muhammad Nawaz

Roll No: BX536434

Q.1 Critically analyze the stages of planning process in Pakistan.

Answer – 1

Educational planning process can be defined as process of setting strategies, policies,

procedures, programs and standards in advance through which an educational

objective (or set of objectives) can be achieved. Planning in pakistan envolved following

six stages:

1. Pre-planning stage
2. Planning stage
3. Plan formulation
4. Plan elaboration
5. Plan implementation
6. Evaluation
Pre-planning stage is actually the formulation of objectives.it starts with the active
participation of qualified planners. Generally the policies are formed at political level, but
in case of educational policies senior educationist are involved. These educationists
actually play an important role of mediators between the plan makers and political
leaderships. Educationists provide technical requirements for the planners to elaborate
the technical utilities. Pakistan has its own planning department at national level. It
establishes the planning procedures, structuring and re-organization of educational
machinery for formulation and implementation of plans. Pre-planning activity is rooted
from the national educational objectives, specifically defined by the appropriate authority
which is generally the cabinet of education ministry.
National education policy is a document which generally emphasizes the objective very
loosely. Planners have to defined and elaborate the objective with each and every
detail. In policy it the objective may be to quality education and higher education level
are prioritized but in pre-planning planners defined it in detail and identify the resources
and challenges expected to come through to achieve the desired results. Planners may
propose the following measures:
 - Physical resources (buildings, furniture, books and equipment) required in the
institution of higher learning.
- Design and develop the courses of study to produce marketable skills.
- Preparing of teachers training programs for the new course.
- Modification in examination system to encourage the talent.
Planning stage
Planning is consisting of following five steps:
(i) Diagnosis
Once education policy is defined the planners have to make sure that programs and
efforts make for that achievement of objectives are adequate, relevant and specified for
those objectives to achieve. As pakistan had faced many problems after independence
especially the literacy rate was less than twenty five percent. In every five year plan it
was stressed that education would be given priority among all the national goals. Except
the 2nd five year plan targets were not achieved. In the second five year plan (1955-
1960) literacy rate improved from 25 to 48 percent. In the fourth five year plan (1970-
1978) the literacy rate dropped from 54 to 48 percent. It was political instability and plan
was launched at very crucial time when east pakistan was separated and military took
over. Criteria for diagnosis in planning are mainly emerged as relevance, effectiveness
and efficiency.
a) Relevance means how related the programs and activities designed for achieving
the national education goals. Planners try to diagnose whether the system is
helping in order to improve the country socio-economic needs.
b) Effectiveness in achieving the national level educational goals. Planners have to
assess that optimum results are achieving with minimum cost. National goal is to
provide fundamental education for all the citizens. National education policy for
1979 emphasis on providing effectiveness to the existing system through an
analysis of output of the system.
c) Efficiency of system means the best use of available resources to achieve the
national level goals. Diagnosis also seeks whether the targets are achieved at
lowest cost and produce best results with available resources.
(ii) Formulation of policy: during the diagnosis planner find out the drawbacks
and deficiencies in the existing system. At policy formulation stage corrective
actions based on the national policy are framed in details.
(iii) Assessment of cost of future needs: planners have to assess the future needs
by considering the available financial data and rate of price fluctuation by
keeping the long range trend.
(iv) Next step of planning stage is to set priorities and targets: planners have to
identify the options and establish the priorities among all the available
options.
(v) Feasibility testing: it is essential for planners to check whether that formulated
and prioritized targets are attainable with existing administrative and human
resources or we need new resources to achieve them.
Plan Formulation Stage
Plan formulation comprises of two main steps:
a) First planners have to present plan proposals to national authorities for decision.
b) Secondly providing copy of those proposals to the related agencies for carrying
actions on those decisions.
Plan formulation requires specific skill for stating the plan as it should be brief,
succinct and at the same time adequate.
Plan Elaboration Stage
As we have already stated the at plan formulation stage we only state it brief and
succinct but here we have elaborate it with following two steps:
Programming: it is the course of actions designed for attaining the objectives and
sub-objectives. Each program is broad area of activities to achieve the objectives.
As in fifth five year plan following programs were launched.
- Construction of new schools and reconstruction existing.
- Construction of teacher residence.
- Opening of new schools for adults’ education.
Project Identification and Formulation
Each program may consist of similar activities related to one area of specific target
or group of activities may be under one administrative unit is named as project.
 Planners have to identify the projects. These projects are supposed to achieve sub
objective under the main objectives. There may be regionalization (division or
district) for the projects elaboration.
Plan Implementation
Plan implementation starts with the providing instructions to agencies responsible to
participate in different programs and project to achieve desired results. For
execution of the plan necessary resources like financial, human and material are
provided. Moreover managerial hierarchy, job description, authority, consultation and
other administrative activities are defined and details are given to the related co-
partners. Implementation stage permeates all the levels from Ministry of Education
to the schools. Success of plan implementation depends upon the co-ordination of
different projects and programs efficacy.
Plan Evaluation, Revision and Deplaning
Last but continuous stage of planning is plan evaluation. It is systematic approach to
evaluate the rate of progress toward the achievement of goals. Evaluation
machinery also set the deviation standard to detect whether progress is toward the
national educational goals or not. Evaluation is simultaneously continue with plan
implementation. Evaluating agencies prepare progress reports on (quarterly, half
yearly, yearly, half point, endpoint) basis which is required. Independent Monitoring
Units are working to collect data of the basic functions of the education system at
school and college level.
Evaluation serves two purposes:
1. It seeks the weakness in plan, whether the plan has realistic targets, financial
resources are adequately available, different projects are properly phased.
2. Evaluation also have “rolling plans” planners make necessarily changed in plan
after being implementation experience.
Educational planning continues on the basis of evaluation. Some activities or group of
activities seem to be defective, corrective measures are taken for re-planning the
educational plan and revise it accordingly.
Q.2 Critically analyzes the various constraints and educational planner may face at
various stages of planning. Recommend strategies to manage these constraints.

ANSWER

An Educational planner may face various challenges and constraints while planning at
different stages.

Objectives and Constraints in Planning

While defining the objectives planner has the greatest challenge of the objective to be
realistic, attainable, results oriented in aspects of economic and social benefits. Dealing
with constraints planner has to forward looking, innovative and constructing. Planners
have wide range of choices. Among those choices planners have to prioritize and select
cost effective and achievable objectives and sub-objectives. To accomplish the
objectives planners have to face following challenges:
1. Financial resources: Availability of budget for provision of goods and services
2. Human resources: Supply of technical and managerial skill personnel
3. Material resources: Supply of machinery and equipment
4. Natural resources: whether the required land, water, etc available.
5. Natural barriers: whether and geographic had conditions.
To cope with the above mentioned challenges planners have to be very accurate so that
while implementing the objectives are accomplished. Planners systematically examine
the available choices and then eliminate those which are hard, expensive and time
taking. Planners should be optimistic and brave to select the right choice for accomplish
the objective.
Objectives and Constraint as Determinants
Objectives define what the targets are where one should ultimately go, while constraints
define that how far, how long and in how much time will it take to reach that desired
destination. Universal primary education is the goal always cherished by all the National
Education policies and development plan.
Some data of constraints and magnitude of problem can be determined by different
studies conducted for education research in Pakistan. 1986 a study was conducted
which especially designed for primary education and enhancement of quality in
education overall. Study also finds out following challenges to get all school age
children enrolled.
1. In some of the area lack of educational infrastructure include schools, equipment,
books etc.
2. In some remote areas school are not fully functional with educational activities.
3. Some communities are against the education of girls.
4. Financial resources are not enough.
All the above challenges are there for planner to face, and set its objectives within the
available resources. Constraint itself defined the issue and planner has to determine the
way out from the constraint and accomplish the desired objective. Planners should keep
it mind that all the constraints whether natural or man-made would finish at least he
should only have to manage it through meaningful approaches. There were different
options to tackle with those constraints:
 a) National Education policy should restrict all the agencies to follow the universal
pattern of primary education.
b) There should be teacher capacity building program to meet the needs for modern
curricula teaching.
c) Community social and legal pressure should develop to bring the school aged
children in school, especially girls.
d) Manage the learning activities for scattered population in small packets.
Planners should be ready for contingency plan where situation is demanding. He must
be ready for challenges to face. Planners should not hesitate to take one step back to
take two steps ahead.
Constraints in Educational Planning
Every nation of world has it education policy according to its need which make policies
distinct from other.
As education policy of Sri Lanka (1976-1985) highly emphasis on quality of education at
primary and secondary level by providing of highly qualified and skilled teachers.
While Education policy of Malaysia highlights the improvement in primary education and
set targets for enhancement of higher education especially at university level.
In case of Pakistan we see that seven five year plan (1988-1993) has main objectives:
a) Broaden the resource base for education.
b) Universalize the primary education
c) Substantially improve the skill based technical and vocational education
d) Improve the quality of education at all level particularly at university level
Constraints Affecting the Formulation of Policy
Some of the factors that affecting the formulation of policy is ideological and socio-
economic. Political constraint is also play an important role while formulation of policy.
These forces exert their pressure while formulated and promulgated the policy.
Other kinds of constraints influence the formulation of policy are:
a) Socio-culture Constraint: prevalent social values always hard to change as some
parts of Pakistan parents are unwilling to send their girls to school. Similarly,
early age marriage custom is also restricting the children to get even basic
education.
b) Educational and administrative behavior also make difficult for the planner while
formulation of policy. Construction of the schools in different parts of country is
restricted due to the different reasons especially when population is in wide
dispersed area. Different education standard is also a constraint for policy
formulation.
Q.3 Educational planning plays an important role in the socio-economic
developments of a country. Discuss in detail. What are the main challenges
educational planners are facing while planning? Suggest different measures to
overcome these challenges.

Answer
One of the leader said,” Education the most powerful weapon with the help of which
you can change the world.”
Education is the basic factor through which economic development process in all the
fields of life. All the countries have to invest in human capital for sustainable
development. Education develops both individual and society.
Individual Impact
Education enriches the individual understanding of oneself and about the world.
Education helps an individual for uplifting its living standard. It improves the quality
of someone life and enhance its social dignity. On the other side education brings
social and economic benefits. An individual improves it productivity and creativity
and increase its chances of entrepreneurial and technical skills. By having education
one can secure the social and economic rights.

Impact on society
Education has very wide impact on society in sense of social and economic
perspectives. In fact economic development mainly is the collective effort the
productive individuals. We can say that economic development is the combination of
financial resources and human capital. It improves the productivity if efforts are
sophisticated. Best qualities contribute to the economy of country. Some of the
researchers say that poor countries are poor because they are not investing in
human capital. Poor societies don’t use even the small amount towards the best use
of available resources.

Investment in Education
Economists now accept the investment in education, or human capital because it
stimulates the development processes. Productive qualities are created initially by
providing children with primary and secondary education at their doorstep. Private
investment in education is not feasible for poor children. Countries that are highly
developed today have a long history of providing free primary and secondary
education to the poor. A review of their history suggests that the initial impetus for
this schooling had a religious basis, but that as the public’s level of education and
income rose, their demand for schooling rose, and the financial support from private
donors was replaced or greatly augmented with public funds. If poor countries wish
to achieve high levels of national income, they need to provide public funding for the
universal education of the poor, at least at the primary and secondary levels of
schooling.

Finally it can be said that human and physical capitals are both very important for
the development of the country. Both are interdependent, only physical resources
are not enough for the sustainable development of the country.
One of the research says that Education - this is one of the most dynamic and investment
attractive areas of the market economy. According to expert estimates, in the developed
countries, the rate of annual increase in the volume of demand and supply of educational
services is about 10%.
The key role of education requires a special relationship to him by society and the state,
determines the dynamics of socioeconomic development, acts simultaneously on two
interrelated and interdependent markets - market of educational products and services and the
labor market.

ROLE OF PLANNERS

Planners are professionals who facilitate decision-making. Planners do not make decisions
themselves; rather, they support decision-makers (managers, public officials, citizens) by
coordinating information and activities. Their role is to create a logical, systematic decision-
making process that results in the best actions. In their role as objective negotiators, planners
are often in the middle of conflicts. They often have the most knowledge about a project and
the likely impacts of a particular decision, and so are often responsible for anticipating
unintended consequences and representing the interests of people who are underrepresented
in the decision-making process, such as children, the poor and future generations.

BASICS FOR THE PLANNERS

Good planning requires a methodical process that clearly defines the steps that lead to
optimal solutions. This process should reflect the following principles:
i. Comprehensive – all significant options and impacts are considered.
ii. Efficient – the process should not waste time or money.
iii. Inclusive – people affected by the plan have opportunities to be involved.
iv. Informative – results are understood by stakeholders (people affected by a decision)
v. Integrated – individual, short-term decisions should support strategic, long-term
goals.
vi. Logical – each step leads to the next. • Transparent – everybody involved understands
how the process operates.

SOCIAL ISSUES FOR THE PLANNER

There are several social issues in our society which are faced by an educational planner while
planning. Main challenges for planner are:
a. Poverty
An educational planner has to assess the poverty issue while planning and
financing in education. According to the National Education Policy (2006) of
Pakistan Government decided to provide free text books to all the students of
primary and secondary level. So, planner has to set such objectives under the
main goals of national education policy.
b. Child Labor
In the lower economy like Pakistan child labor is very common. People cannot
meet the needs of their family. Mostly unskilled labor sent their children to work
so that they fulfill the basic needs.
c. Corruption
An education planner has to recognize the corrupt practices in every department.
Planners should have to plan and monitor the services and financial activities.
Lack of resources and minimum utilization increase the unproductivity of the
education system.
d. Unemployment
An educational expert decides about the future market need of professionals.
While finalizing the policies it is forecasted, how many and in which field skilled
professionals are needed. Here market expert and economists make
professional demands for the future. Education department prepare the
strategies and programs of different areas to meet the future human capital
needs of the market.
 Q.4 Discuss the significant contribution of assessing future needs of education
in planning process. As a potential planner identify various techniques of
establishing priorities and setting targets.

Answer
FUTURE NEEDS OF EDUCATION
Future needs of education are systematically designed with the help of data
analysis where education experts find the gap between the output and the
targets set to achieve. These gaps the main issues that needs to overcome. For
those constraints educational experts calculate the physical and human capital
needed in future to overcome. Let’s take an example, one of the country decides
to induce a new teaching techniques where students are taught with the help of
multimedia. Objective is set to increase the quality of education and get 85
percent results at secondary and higher secondary level. Educational planners
identify the following defects and discrepancies:-
i. Textbooks are not matched with the idea of teaching with multimedia.
ii. 90 percent schools do not have multimedia facility.
iii. New classroom and new teachers are required to teach through multimedia.
iv. Existence teacher need comprehensive training to retain and to use the
available resources.
Education experts identify the gap between the objectives and the resources to
achieve the desire results. Here planners have to prepare the list of immediate
needs for the future and calculate the resources so feasibility of objectives can
be checked. List may the following needs in the above given scenario.
i. Revision of the textbooks.
ii. Schools should be given standard multimedia equipment for teaching.
iii. New classrooms and teacher needs to hire.
iv. Comprehensive teacher training program is need.
All these things are done under the policy formulation and here all the needs are
separately calculated in terms of financial resources required or human
resources. Needs of education system is in terms of services and goods which in
other words material and men. These are including the land, buildings,
equipment, machines and other expendable and consumable resources.

PROCEDURE OF ASSESSING THE FUTURE NEEDS

Procedure of assessing the future needs can be divided into the below different
steps:

Step 1
Its actually the expression of national education policy to the number and
quantity required for achieving the target set in policy. For instance, Education
policy set the target to bring 95% boys and 80 % girls be enrolled at secondary
level as government find that 25 % girls and 10 % boys do not continue their
study after primary level. So, here experts calculate the number of boys and girls
to be enrolled and then their demographic segregation.
 Step 2
After calculating the numbers, experts estimate the number of new institutions
required, how many additional classrooms and teaching staff required. Programs
and institutions and their demographic distribution is also calculated.

Step 3
Basically job description of the teaching staff and other related staff is defined
in this step. Teaching aids, curriculum development, various professional
expertise and administration staff at different levels.

Step 4
Physical material including textbook, teaching aids, apparatus and equipment
need is calculated.

Step 5
Determine the need of buildings, furniture, fittings, water, electricity and other
facilities.

Step 6
Identify and determine the needs in terms of incentives and scholarships and
other assistance in forms of grants and loans.

Step 7
Identify and estimate the needs, if any ancillary services in terms of transport,
medical and other co-curriculum activity.

All the above steps are estimated and calculated carefully with the consultation of
different units or department experts. Here it is not necessary to calculate the
needs on yearly basis. Here we only calculate the needs required for the project
to complete and targets to achieve.

COSTING FUTURE NEEDS

Costing the alternative courses of actions is a tool for administrator to calculate the
education system needs. While Extending or setting up new facilities in existing
education system or complementing the system with new segments. The world is getting
new and newer dimension which has to place in every field of life. So, new challenges
need some new and innovated measures to fulfill the requirements of targets.

Educationist has to prepare the set of data accurately and give the detail to all the
segments. For example; cost per student, cost per school, cost per textbook, cost per
workshop, cost per program etc. All the costs are prepared with reference to past trends
price increase and current analysis of market.
Educationist prepare per unit cost for all identifiable operations. Unit cost is then
multiply with number of resources needed. It makes very easy for educationist to
calculate the total cost.
DETERMINING UNIT COST
 The per-unit model is a simple but useful model in which a cost estimate is made for a single
unit, then the total cost estimate results from multiplying the estimated cost per unit times the
number of units.

Illustration
Government is initiating a new project of bringing primary school age children in school
who are not enrolled and out of school. Remote areas for five divisions are selected to
increase the primary school enrolled from 65 percent to 90 percent in the next five years.
Planner has given their output that 750 new primary school and 370 additional classrooms
have to build.
Planners calculated that every new enrolled student would cost Rs.37500. in the next five years.
So, Per student cost is found by calculating all identified inputs including material and men.

Student per unit cost per year =37,500.

Number of students =150,000.
One year cost of project =37,500x150, 000 = 5,625,000,000.
Five years cost =5,625,000,000x5= 28,125,000,000.
Need and Resources
This is preparatory phase of planning where we assess the future needs and try to answer the
question:
1. How much the goods and services that we have identified to fulfill all the requirement of
the future to achieve the objectives of national educational policy.
2. As the resources are limited we have to prioritize the needs when we set the targets.
3. What are the targets would be achieved under the main goals of education policy and
how much in quantitative terms would be achieved.
Planners also determine that what we would achieve with having available resources against the
actual targets that we set for. As in all the education policy of Pakistan “universal primary
education achieved as soon as possible is an objective” but when we define it that by the end of
2022, 90 percent of the school would get universal primary education, it becomes a target.
Setting up the targets brings the concrete action plan for all the departments and agencies. While
setting up targets we need to be realistic because we cannot afford to be over ambitious and over
cautious.

Setting the targets and priorities

As we already know that targets are predetermined level or are stage of achievement which
planners aims to achieve in specific time. Planners first differentiate the activities into different
groups and define the economical ways to complete. Similar kinds of activities are grouped in
some kind of program. Different activities are put together and prioritized.
Q.5 Differentiate between the cost-benefit analysis and cost-effective analysis. Describe how cost-
benefit analysis can help in while educational planning non-compulsory education? Give suitable
examples to justify your answer.

ANSWER