Educational planners go back to school - Unesco's International Institute for Educational Planning

UNESCO Courier, March, 1989

IN a modern building not far from Unesco's, Headquarters in Paris, forty-four men and women from all regions of, the world are following a rigorous nine-month training programme covering the design, implementation and evaluation of strategies and plans for the development of education.

All the participants are specialists who hold key positions in educational planning or training in their respective countries. One has been responsible for the evaluation of Rwanda's educational reform programme; another is deputy director of educational planning in Oman; a third is a section chief at the State Education Commission in China; a fourth is responsible for the development of basic education in Brazil.

They have been selected from a large number of applicants to participate in the twenty-fourth annual training programme organized by Unesco's International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP). The Institute, which celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary in 1988, has so far trained some 850 specialists from 129 countries. It is acknowledged as the world's leading training institution in its field.

The annual training programme acquaints participants with the most recent ideas and practices concerning the relationships between the educational system and economic, technological, social and cultural development. It is also designed to improve their knowledge of methods of administering educational systems as well as diagnosing and forecasting techniques.

in practice this means that a statistician from Ghana, grappling with a problem of cost analysis and budgetary processes in his country's technical education sector, can compare his experiences with those of colleagues from Brazil, Finland and Indonesia. An economist from India, who is particularly concerned with the relationships between education, employment and the labour market, is able to discuss her problems and learn from some of the solutions already worked out by her counterparts in Canada, the People's Democratic Republic of Korea or Senegal.

The first phase of the 1988-1989 programme took place last September in the home countries of the participants, who began to study specially-produced teaching materials designed by the Institute to update their knowledge of basic educational planning concepts and techniques.

The training methods at the Institute are based on team work and the active involvement of each participant in exercises which, as far as possible, reflect actual working conditions. Simulation exercises, seminars, and work in small groups are combined with lectures, discussions, study visits, computer work and the presentation of experiences in different countries.

During the final stage of the programme, scheduled for April and May, each participant will have the opportunity to make an in-depth analysis of an educational problem concerning his or her country.

The annual training programme is only one component of the IIEP's training activities, however. Each year the Institute organizes several intensive training courses on particular aspects of educational planning and administration, such as the evaluation of educational systems, the utilization of microcomputers in educational planning or the financing of vocational and technical education. These courses, lasting a maximum of four or five weeks, are held not at the Institute's Paris Headquarters but in different countries. Each one caters for some thirty planners from the country in which it is held and often also a few participants from neighbouring countries. So far, fifty-one of these intensive courses have been held, in countries ranging from Jamaica to Thailand and from Burundi to China, providing specialized training to some 1,800 participants.

IIEP offers a whole spectrum of other training opportunities, including an individually-tailored visiting fellows programme and a series of workshops and seminars. Yet training is only one side of the Institute's activities: an equal share of its resources goes towards research.

In carrying out its research programme, IIEP's basic aim is to increase understanding of the social, economic and political aspects of education in order to facilitate planning for educational development and reform. In the twenty-five years since its foundation, the Institute has carried out research projects on a wide range of topics n most of Unesco's Member States. Some of these projects have been focused on the orientation and the organization of educational planning processes in individual countries; some have been concerned with developing the methodologies used in educational planning; and others have examined the implications for planning of specific policy issues.

The Institute is currently drawing together the results of over twenty case studies undertaken during the past five years on subjects as diverse as educational training policy for the computer industry in Mexico, the effects of literacy programmes in Kenya and the Republic of Tanzania, and the role and utilization of the information base in Tunisia.