Introduction
Educational planning involves a scientific process and orderly thinking. In other words, it is a process of applying scientific and rational procedure to the process of educational growth and development so as to ensure efficiency and effectiveness of the educational system. According to Coombs (1970) in Nte (2005) the nature of educational planning 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 students and society.
In many less developed countries of the world today educational planning is a recent concept. This is so because the recent interest in planning education in these developing countries arose from the recognition of the importance of education in the social and economic development of the society.
In order to utilize the scientific process in achieving a better output in planning and sustainability of the system, Nosiri in Nte (2005) suggested that the planning of education must go through the following steps; it is necessary to first recognize and define the problem involved in the planning process by identifying when to get started, who should be involved or be represented in the planning programme, hold public meetings where major educational policies and objectives are broken into requirements. In addition, identifying what needs to be done in respect of the general plan, consider the problems in several dimensions by forecasting the possible forces and alternatives (Okeke, 2006).
In addition, Kneze & Richy (1975) in Nte (2007) observed that in planning education there is need to appraise the political, economic and social environments that will face the schools at some future point in time. In view of this Ejiogu (1999) is of the opinion that school organizational planning should involve a clear identification and definition of the desired end results of school operations. Also that planners should design and interpret what cash department, divisions and units or segment of the educational system should be doing (when, where and how) in such a way that these various activities would be properly co­ordinated and integrated within the system. Provision should be made in that plan so that all the personnel (staff) in the school are aware of the school policies for their own guidance in their daily operations and be prepared to handle emergencies as planning involve meaningful anticipation of critical problems.
In the planning process, this has become pertinent in that projecting or developing a scenario of the desired goal to be pursued and the administrative roles to be played in the type of future school environment envisaged, often determine change in learners which may be evident in the projected new environment.
From the foregoing, it means that, in the application of the plan for sustainable development of the school system, there is need for planners to redefine the plan through examining and matching the plan against existing policy of the education, particularly in the areas of the capital operating budget and budget for performance in the aspect of expenditure.
Inspite of this observation, Okeke (2006) research study on problems of applying planning to education revealed that the effort of planners is often fraught with some basic public and fundamental problems which border essentially on the nature of education. He stated further that the objectives of education service are exceptionally difficult to establish within the profit oriented democracy in vogue whose values in all intent and purposes are uncertain. Accordingly, there exists a basic tension between the requirements of planning and freedom. This conflicting principles between planning and freedom constitute problem in itself, the researcher is in support of the above contention and added that to achieve planning, basic education must be re-orientated to address sustainability of the school system and expanded to include critical thinking skills, skills to organize and interpret necessary data and information, skills to formulate reliable policies and the ability to analyze issues that confront education consumers. This situation is deemed highly essential for a realistic and successful education plan in the society today.
Statement of the problem
A major function of planning education is to achieve rapid social development at a minimum cost. A situation where planning education using whatever process, methods and technologies has failed to achieve positive results call for a critical re-examination of current planning practices in the south-south of Nigeria. The besetting problem with planning education in the south-south of Nigeria seems to be the fact that education planners and school administrators involved in the planning process are nonchalant about effective use of data, experts, professionals and work as a team towards result oriented plan for sustainable development of the education system.
The inability of planners to accurately forecast and identify the priority needs of education consumers left much to be desired. Sometimes, institutional leaders politicize the issue of planning and go through a time-consuming and often an expensive and disruptive process in developing a reliable educational plan only to see it abandoned and ignored as anything that is truly useful. This deficient situation has contributed to the failure of most educational plans and inability to sustain development of the school system. Very often strategies to achieve the set targets of the plan are hardly met with success such that projects and programmes envisaged are not implemented/executed within stipulated time frame.
From the foregoing, it is obvious that in the face of all these problems, the two to three years education plan cannot provide reasonable solution to the education sector and above all sustainable development of the nation’s economy. It appears that there is something culpably wrong with planning education in the south-south of Nigeria. These problems require very urgent remediation.