Educational Planning in the Pacific Islands is the Need of Hour

Pacific Islands have witnessed rapid and drastic changes since last century in field of educational planning, i.e. moving away from hierarchical to more decentralize and learner focused; from power over supervision to power to empower; impact of globalization and planning for unknowable future, so educational planning has become the need of hour.

Educational plans for many Pacific Islands focus in improving the quality of teaching and learning with the aim to provide Education for All and also providing TVET education. In this context of Pacific Islands, strategic planning was implied in the PRIDE Project [Pacific Regional Initiatives for the Delivery of basic education] workshop of fifteen Pacific countries held in Lautoka 2004 having interactive, consultative and participatory approach that aimed to develop planning principles and processes as per the Pacific values and ways of thinking; and also blend with global approaches with local values. The transformation from teacher centric to learner approach and to educate as a holistic process of lifelong learning with the help of ICT revolution to make students active and confident learners; effective teaching as facilitators of learning; adoption of holistic approach to learning by interconnecting secondary and TVET curricula; and implying true lifelong and learning based on new model of assessment of learning (Teasdale, 2005). This article broadly summarizes the views of scholars in regard to educational planning and its varied stages to understand its complexity for future educational planning

What is Educational Planning?

It is difficult to define clearly the meaning of ‘Educational Planning’ but  A.G.M Ishumi’ work Educational Planning: Its meaning and its Relevancy to Developing Countries, defined  it as “a process of preparing decisions for future actions in the field of education, decisions that take cognizance of prevailing policy, in an earnest attempt at arriving at informed decisions designed to enhance an integrated and equitable development and distribution of educational opportunities and life chances”. In similar vein, Philip H. Coombs’ work What is educational planning?  stated in broadest terms it “is the application of rational, 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 its students and society”. Although its basic principles and concepts are universally applicable but the practical methods for applying them may vary.

Coombs stated educational planning include “(1) refinement of objectives; (2) evaluation of system performance; (3) systems approach to educational design; (4) new management styles and measures, including program budgeting, program evaluation and review technique, and techniques of cost benefit analysis; and (5) intensified research and development”. Further explaining that its methodologies are sufficiently flexible and adaptable to every situation, although the basic logic, concept and principles remain same but the practical methods for applying them may differ. Planning helps in decision making in all levels. This takes into consideration of making plans for future by taking into consideration of the past in the present.

Educational Planning Process

Ananda W.P. Guruge’ Educational Planning Process describes six stages of process of the educational Planning. It begins with Pre-Planning stage with “(i) the creation of a suitable planning organization, (ii) the establishment of planning procedures, (iii) the structural reorganization of the educational administrative machinery to participate in the formulation and implementation of plans and (iv) setting up the machinery and the procedures for the collection and analysis of the statistical and other data required for planning. The principal pre-planning activity is to have the national educational objectives defined by the appropriate authority”.

Followed by Planning stage, which has six steps as highlighted by Guruge, first, Diagnosis where the educational planner ascertain the current effort of the country is adequate, relevant and conducive to their achievement; it helps in identification of weaknesses in nature, magnitude, quality, organization and level of performance of the national educational activities; second, is formulation of policy where the deficiencies highlighted in diagnosis will be corrected by framing a set of policy and it is an instrument of educational reform; third, costing of future needs by using cost data to formulate the total financial cost; fourth, establishing of priorities and target setting, after analyzing the resources and data, the educational planner reviews the future needs and establish priorities among competing candidates for resources and set the realistically achievable targets with anticipated investment of resources; and lastly, feasibility testing is done by rechecking the targets in regard to priorities.

Third stage is Plan formulation stage where the presenting of a set of decisions to the appropriate national authorities for approval is conducted, and blue-prints for actions by the various agencies responsible for implementing those decisions. Authorities decide what is proposed, why it is proposed, and how the proposals are going to be implemented.

Fourth stage is Plan elaboration stage where it is expanded up to the point that individual actions units becomes clearly identifiable by programming [dividing the Plan into broad action areas of which aims at accomplishing a specific objectives], and project identification and formulation.

Next stage is Plan implementation begins when individual projects are taken up for execution. The planning process merges with the management process of the national education effort. Using the annual budget or the annual plan as the principal instrument, an organizational framework is developed for the various projects.

Lastly, the Evaluation, Revision and Re-planning Stage as the education plan is being implemented, the machinery to evaluate the rate of progress and detect deviations is set in motion. Evaluation is normally a continuous operation, simultaneous with plan implementation, the preparation of reports may be at fixed points.

One need to be aware of the duration of possible education Plans, it may vary from long term [10-20 years], medium-term [4-7 years], short term [1-3 years], and single purpose plan [few days to couple of years]. One have to take a note of factors that may affect the educational planning such as the nature of the political system, different political ideologies, the official and non-official actors role, international influence, funding and budgeting, human factor, laws, community, moral-spiritual values, philosophical bases, individual differences and much more.

Conclusion

In context of Pacific Islands educational planning, one needs to be mindful, that Educational planning is not a miraculous remedy of every problem but it is “a process of setting out in advance, strategies, policies, procedures, programmes and standards through which educational objectives can be achieved”. Therefore, proper formulation of each educational plan in regard to aforesaid stages needs to be conducted to achieve a successful educational planning in all Pacific Islands.