METHODOLOGIES IN EDUCATIONAL PLANNING

TRADITIONAL METHODOLOGIES/APPROACHES TO EDUCATIONAL

PLANNING

The Social Demand Approach

Based on the UN Declaration of Education as a basic human right
This approach requires the education authorities to provide schools and find
facilities for all students who demand admission and who are qualified to enter.
Approach looks on education, as service demanded by people just like any other
social services e.g. health, water etc.

Advantages of the Social Demand Approach

1. The approach provides the planners with approximate number of places where
educational facilities has to be provided.

2. It is a suitable political tool to meet the need to satisfy the demands of the general
public.

3. Where resources are acutely limited, and where we are seeking to provide those
kinds and quantities of education which will offer the greatest good to the
greatest number, such planning techniques are best.

Limitations of the Approach

1. Ignore the economic perspective of education as an investment

2. The approach has no control over factors such as the price of education

3. The approach has no control over absorptive capacity of the economy for the
trained personnel.

4. The approach does not in any way lay claim to whether the resources expended
are economically allotted and to that extent, the approach is poor.

5. The approach does not provide guidance we need as to how best to meet the
identified needs.
The Man-Power Requirement Approach
The focus of this approach is to forecast the manpower needs of the economy.
That is, it stresses output from the educational system to meet the man-power
needs at some future date.
The approach focuses on 3 main elements, namely:

(i) Specification of the composition of manpower need at some future date

e.g. 2015-2020.

(ii) Specification of man power availabilities e.g. in 1995.

(iii) Specification which reconciles the former specification with the later.
Manpower planning is based on the attempt to forecast the future demand for
educated manpower.
Given the length of time taken to produce educated professional people, such
forecasts may have to be made for some years hence, perhaps fifteen years in the
case of scientists, engineers, or medical doctors.

Advantages of Man-Power Approach

1. Man-Power could usefully call attention to extreme gaps and imbalances in the
education out-put pattern that need remedy. This does not need elaborate
statistical studies.

2. It gives educators useful guidance on how roughly educational qualifications of

the labour force ought to be developed in the future. That is, the relative 02
proportion of people who would have primary education, secondary education
and various amount of post-secondary training.

3. The unemployment and underemployment which may result from some over-
emphasis on man-power approach may become a challenge to move towards
the right kind of education which may be development-oriented, and thereby
creating its own job.

Weaknesses of the Approach

2. It gives educational planner a limited guidance in the sense that it does not tell
what can be actually achieved in every level of education e.g. primary education,
secondary education, etc.
 3. The approach says nothing about primary education, which is not considered to
be work connected. By implication, manpower approach suggests the curbing of
the expansion of primary education until the nation is rich enough to expand it.
Hence, attention is focused on the cream of education that will contribute to
manpower development in the society.
4. Most manpower needs are mostly needed in the urban employment. Thus, the
planner who may be called to plan is not given any useful clauses about
education requirements to those people like semi-skilled and unskilled workers
in the cities and vast majority of workers that live in rural areas.
5. The employment classifications and manpower ratios such as desirable ratio of
engineers to technicians; doctors to nurses etc. and the assumed education
qualifications corresponding to each category of job borrowed ideas from
industrialized countries or economy. This does not fit into the realities of less
developed countries of Africa.
6. It is impossible to make reliable fore-cast of manpower requirements far enough
ahead of time because of many economic, technological and other uncertainties
which are involved.
7. Technique has largely been applied at the level of persons with higher education
and has tended to ignore those with lower levels of education, i.e. the great
majority of workers;
8. Limits itself to headcounts and ignores the effects of movements in wages and
other prices; largely makes use of employment data relating to the public sector
and/or to large private firms, whereas in developing countries the majority of
workers are liable to be in small firms and/or in the informal sector; is based on
the historical relationship between output and labour, which is then extrapolated
forward decades ahead;
9. Man-power or women power

the outcomes of education and training.

iii). To get valuable information for the development of universities/institutions of

higher learning

iv). To evaluate the relevance of higher education

v). To contribute to the accreditation/certification process

vi). To inform education stakeholders i.e. students, parents, lecturers and administrators
 Graduate surveys are popular for “analysis of the relationship between higher
education and work.”
The transition process from the educational system to the world of work
requires the intervention of the labour market which performs a categorization
function in identifying graduates with specific characteristics for a particular
occupation.
When undertaking tracer studies the following issues / variable taken into
account are;

i). Employment characteristics - sector of employment income at the hiring point, and
earnings several years later, job satisfaction, relevance of education /training,
length of time it took to obtain employment (if employed), the nature of the job
landed,

ii). Individual characteristics - age, sex, marital status etc

iii). Community characteristics - urban, rural, regional, religion etc

iv). Educational background - type of school, academic performance; type of education

etc.

v). Family background - family size, occupation, income and educational attainment of
parents etc.
In addition a tracer study entails a follow-up of the career path of graduates to
evaluate the operation of the labour market in terms of:

o recruitment practices,

o wage/salary policy,

o working conditions
Tracer Studies seek to answer the following questions:

i). What are the views of graduates on higher education based on their career
experiences?

ii). To what extent do graduates consider their education and training as wastage or an
opportunity?
iii). To what extent is a curriculum aiming to create new types of learning and
qualifications to prepare for a highly dynamic labour market?

iv). How broad or narrow is knowledge fostered in individual degree programmes in

comparison to the demands of the labour market?
The results of the tracer study could be used in;

(a) An in-depth analysis of the demand of schooling

(b) Providing curricular options and career choice

(c) Enhancing employment through an efficient labour market;

(d) Instituting curricular reform

(e) Providing a meaningful role for graduates in social and economic

development.

(f) Data generated through tracer studies could also be used in educational
interventions to make programmes more relevant to societal needs.

ADVANTAGES

i). Tracer study can be marketing as well as an evaluation tool.

ii). The success of graduates can be advertised, as a marketing strategy to recruit new
students.

iii). Education providers can use the information gathered to adapt their courses to the
demands of the labour market

iv). Information gathered can also be used to modify programmes to attract the ever
expanding market of prospective students looking for personal and
professional advancement

v). Provides information on the regional spread of graduates, the careers successes, etc

vi). Tracing of graduates help in establishing co-operation/contacts between higher

education institutions and their alumni.
DISADVANTAGES

i). It is sometimes difficult to locate graduates and have them complete questionnaires.

ii). Graduate might not always be able to identify the relationship between the
knowledge acquired during study and their professional lives

iii). Research findings are valuable in as much as planners can turn the findings into
concrete reforms.
LABOUR MARKET ANALYSIS (opposes manpower planning)
This approach/methodology presents a major shift from the manpower planning
approach.
While Manpower planning focuses on skilled and formal labour only and is
gender biased (woman power, manpower), Labour market analysis categorizes
labour employed and unemployed, skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled, formal and
informal, male and female
The basis of policy analysis lies in the recognition of the inability of human beings
to anticipate future developments accurately. For example, although nobody
planned for the creation of electronic clock makers or computer literate typists, these
skills sprang up overnight in the labour market, because there was demand for
them.
There are also some conceptual problems in the manpower approach since it
implies that the main purpose of education is employment. That is not true for
education encompasses a wider perspective of producing a human person who
would be able to play a meaningful role in society.
The labour market is a generalized concept representing the interaction between

o the supply (number of persons available for work) and

o the demand (number of jobs available) and

o the wage rate.

Labour-market analysis considers not only the short-term supply and demand for
labour, but their allocation among regions, occupations and industries.
The keyword “planning” is out “policy” and “analysis” has become keywords.
Policy has more modest, short-term affectation than planning.
Labour market analysts constantly adjust short and medium term analyses to
reflect changing conditions while keeping the long-term in mind
The horizon of the manpower planner is long, sometimes as long as twenty years.
The labor market analyst has a much shorter horizon.
Manpower planning makes unrealistic estimates/forecasts. It is difficult to make
reliable forecasts of manpower requirements for a long period of time. Society is
dynamic and political, economic, social and technological changes can take place
any time. In any case, innovations and inventions are by their nature unplanned.
It focuses on the educational profile of workers, rather than their occupation
results.
 A significant focus of labor market analyses is the concern for poverty and equity
rather than strictly production efficiency.
In labour market analysis efficiency is no longer the only criterion of social action
rather equity and poverty considerations are taken into account.
While manpower planners stress technical efficiency (benefit vs technology), i.e.
the best technical way of producing a particular product, labor market analysts
stress economic efficiency (benefit vs cost).
This means that in some cases it may be more economically efficient to have more
or different individuals to provide a given level of service while from a technical
efficiency perspective, fewer individuals are required.
Labor market analysis takes into account the cost involved in increasing the
supply of labor through the provision of a particular type of education or training.
Labour market is usually concerned with correcting present imbalances in the
labor market and in reassessing the situation periodically in order to take additional
corrective action as necessary.

The dos and don’ts of Labour Market Analysis approach

Less Emphasis on More Emphasis on

1. Planning Policymaking and Analysis

2. Manpower Labour Force
3. Counting Heads Measuring Wages
4. Firm Labour Surveys Household Surveys
5. Opinion Surveys Tracer Studies
6. Occupational Profile Educational Profile
7. Public Sector Only Private and Informal Sector
8. Production Efficiency Only Equity/Poverty
9. Technical Efficiency Economic Efficiency
10. Out-Put Labour Relationships Cost-Benefit Analysis
11. Fixed Wages Flexible Wages
12. Manpower Needs Labour Supply And Demand
13. Skill Specific Training General Training
14. School-Based Training Firm-Based Training
15. Free Education/Training Cost-Recovery/Used Fees
16. Public Education/Training Private Education/Training
17. Filling Long-Term Skill Gaps Correcting Present Labour Market
COST EFFECTIVENESS APPROACH
Cost-effectiveness analysis was developed in the 1950s by the United States
Department of Defense
Used as a device for judge among the demands of the various branches of the
armed services for increasingly costly weapons systems with different levels of
performance and overlapping missions
Cost-effectiveness analysis refers to the consideration of decision alternatives in
which both their costs and consequences are taken into account in a systematic way.
It is a decision oriented tool, in that it is designed to ascertain which means of
attaining particular educational goals are most efficient.
For example, there are many alternative approaches for pursuing such goals as
raising reading or mathematics achievement.
These include the adoption of

o new materials or curriculum,

o teacher training,

o educational television,

o computer-assisted instruction,

o smaller class sizes, and so on.

The cost effective solution to this challenge is to ascertain the costs and effects on
reading or mathematics achievement of each alternative and to choose that
alternative which has the greatest impact on raising achievement scores for any
given resource outlay.
Cost-effectiveness analysis is closely related to cost-benefit analysis in that both
represent economic evaluations of alternative resource use and measure costs in the
same way
However, cost-benefit analysis is used to address only those types of

alternatives where the outcomes can be measured in terms of their monetary values.
The purpose of cost-effectiveness analysis in education is to ascertain which
program or combination of programs can achieve particular objectives at the lowest
cost.
The underlying assumption is that different alternatives are associated with
different costs and different educational results.
 By choosing those with the least cost for a given outcome, society can use its
resources more effectively.
Those resources that are saved through using more cost effective approaches can
be devoted to expanding programs or to other important educational and social
endeavors.
To assess effectiveness one must answer the following questions:

1. What is the decision problem?

2. how do we measure effectiveness,

3. which alternatives are being considered and

4. what their effects

Both CBA and CEA involve systematic comparison between cost and outcomes;
however there is an important difference between the two techniques.

i). CBA relies on monetary measures of both cost and benefits.

ii). The most common way of measuring direct benefits of education is to compare the
earnings of the people with different levels or types of education

iii). where benefits or outcomes can not be measured or even approximated in monetary
terms
CEA compares alternatives such as different types of schools e.g. public versus
primary vocational, different combinations of inputs(teachers, books and other
learning materials) or different educational programmes in term of their
effectiveness, measured by variables such as examination results, test scores,
retention or completion rates.
Program objective Measure of effectiveness
Program completions Number of students completing program
Reducing dropouts Number of potential dropouts who graduate
Employment of Number of graduates placed in appropriate jobs
graduates
Student learning Test scores in appropriate domains utilizing appropriate
test instruments
Student satisfaction Student assessment
CEA consists of three steps:
i). The costs of the alternatives must be carefully measured, e.g. expenditure on teacher
salaries, books and learning materials in each school type

ii). The outcomes or educational effectiveness of the alterative must be measured e.g. by
standardized test scores of pupils in each school

iii). Cost and effectiveness measures are combined to calculate on cost-effectiveness

ratios e.g. by dividing the effectiveness of each alternative by its cost to show
the unit cost of achieving a particular objective, such as 1 percent improvement
in pupil achievement
Whereas CEA take to account the quality of education (as measured by
achievement scores) CBA takes to account quantitative measures of schooling e.g.
salary or years of schooling
The most cost effectiveness alternative can then be identified for example the
school that produces the greatest improvement for a given cost or alternatively the
school where pupils achieve the required examination results at least cost

ADVANTAGES of CEA

i). measures of educational effectiveness can be those which a decision-maker would

normally consider, such as improvement in student’s test scores

ii). cost-effectiveness evaluations generally requires less time and other resources than
CBA

DISADVANTAGES:

i). Accurate measures of effectiveness can be just as problematic as the measures of

benefits

ii). A persons ability is not just a function of schooling

iii). Education has multiple objectives and there is no single measure that adequately
quantifies effectiveness
CBA and CEA are closely related and used as complementary not alternatives