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.