Planning Educational Futures

Over the last decade the commitment to national and regional planning in education has rapidly grown and the technology of educational planning has vastly improved. This is true in the highly industrialized nations as well as in the less developed nations. It is true where there are market dominated economies and in the socialist states. While the degree of centralization or decentralization of planning efforts varies with governmental style, probably over 80% of all countries have at the national level an administrative unit responsible for planning. Gone now are the grand ethical issues over whether to plan or not to plan. Gone are the debates over whether educational planning is compatible with "open societies" and "participatory democracies." Even for those intensely concerned with protection of the democratic ethos the question now is how to define the parameters of democratic or participatory educational planning.