Research questions
The following research questions guided the study.
  1. To what extent is forecasting useful is education planning for sustainable development?
  2. How is data useful in education planning for sustainable development?
  3. To what extent is target setting important in planning education for sustainable development?
  4. To what extent is the use of experts/professional important is educational planning for sustainable development?
Research hypothesesThe following hypotheses were formulated to guide the study. 1. There is no significant influence of forecasting in educational planning for sustainable development. 2. There is no significant influence of target setting in educational planning for sustainable development. 3. There is no significant influence of using data in educational planning for sustainable development.
Research methodology
This study adopted survey descriptive ex-post facto design. The design was adopted because the variables under study had already occurred before the researcher conducted the study. The population of this study consisted of all education stakeholders in selected states of south-south of Nigeria. Data was collected from the state and federal educational institutions in the selected states in the study area.
The study sample was made up of four hundred and ninety-nine (499) education stakeholders randomly selected from a population of five thousand (5,000) stakeholders of education. These states and institutions are Cross River State, Akwa Ibom State, River State, Bayelsa State, Edo State and Abia State respectively.
The instrument used for the study was the Nature of Educational Planning for Sustainable Development of School System (NEPSDSSQ) which was made up of fifty 50 items structured to present the respondents with a fixed set of choices. Four (4) point likert scale was used to rate the perception of the respondents on the issue of planning education; Strongly Agree (SA), Agree (A), Disagree (DA), Strongly Disagree (SD).
The instrument was validated through submission of copies of the instrument to two experts in measurement and evaluation to confirm their face validity. . Ambiguous and irrelevant items were dropped and the instrument was reviewed and improved upon. The reliability of the instrument was determined through test-retest method using 100 respondents. The subjects used in the trial testing did not constitute part of the main sample of the study although they had similar characteristics as the respondents. This was to avoid bias.
Results