Implementing Sustainable Development Goals

“Open planning”: A step towards fluid education models in the 21st century?

Exploring the idea of a new platform for sharing best practices in educational planning & management

Educational planning is a detailed and systematic process. (Source: NORRAG & IIEP-UNESCO)

This article was inspired by an exploratory note commissioned to me in 2019 on “New Trends in Educational Planning” by the IIEP-UNESCO. The views represented here engage only me.

“Educational planning, in its broadest generic sense, 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 its students and society.”

—Philip Coombs, founding Director of IIEP, 1970¹

Introduction

Educational planning in the 21st century / Educational planning in a moving world

Educational planning, for all the attention paid to it since 1950, remains a mystery to most of the people upon whom its successful execution depends.

More than half a century after the creation of UNESCO’s International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP) in 1963, the concept of planning for education is still so fluid.² In large part, this fluidity is, as social scientist Torill Nyseth (2012) points out, rooted in the complex factors of change impacting the world today: factors that necessarily redefine a society’s needs, and by extension therefore, a government’s approach to planning and management.³

Fluidity, however, is more than just a metaphor for turbulence and instability. It calls for new forms of development that are likewise exploratory, open to change, more closely resembling “a voyage of discovery” than a “road map”.

Jean Hillier (2007) argues,

“We need to re-invent planning as a strategic future-oriented activity, taking into account the unknown, open up for new possibilities, towards a planning as becoming instead of planning as fixing”.

The task of moving from “what is” to “what if” calls for a redefining of educational development, if the latter is to be relevant to the dynamic complexities and contingencies of the modern world.

Indeed, today, the same broader social and economic forces of the 1950s and 60s that had given rise to the International Institute for Educational Planning, find their modern-day homologues in the new, universal challenges inherent to the achievement of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda⁵: big, sweeping advances in technology; the race to tackle climate change; increasing urbanization; the successful inclusion of refugees and migrants into host societies… These trends raise important questions.

💭 Can education systems be designed to make use of technological innovations in the classroom, while addressing concerns about decreasing attention spans and cyber-risks?

💭 What role do schools have to play in fostering social cohesion in societies with increasing ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity?

💭 What educational strategy do countries have to ensure the skills need of its labour market — increasingly knowledge-intensive — is being met?

💭 With growing urbanization and increasing acknowledgement of the relevance of local level governance, how do cities plan and develop communities that foster education and lifelong learning?⁶ (Fig. 1)

Figure 1. “Are cities the new countries?” — question represented in an infographic taken from OECD’s Trends Shaping Education report from 2016. (Source: OECD)

These are but a handful of the emerging contexts in which governments, political leaders, administrators, teachers, students, and citizens the world over, are now directly challenged in their capacity — indeed, their collective responsibility — to draw up relevant, impactful education strategies amid real-world limitations.

In Trends Shaping Education (2016), the OECD reminds its readers that these major trends are themselves shaped by education and manifest within it.

Planning and managing education for Agenda 2030

Addressing these interconnected challenges is the crux of the 2030 Agenda, a universal plan of action, adopted in 2015 by the United Nations General Assembly (Fig 2).

Figure 2. The UN’s Agenda 2030 consissts of 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs). (Source)

Through a process involving 193 Member States and global civil society, the Agenda set out 17 global goals known as Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), broad and interdependent, with each SDG having various targets to achieve.

Building on the Millennium Development Goals and seeking to complete what these did not achieve, the 17 SDGs and their 169 targets aim to be even more holistic and universal, organized around five pillars: planet, people, prosperity, peace and partnership.⁷

Upon adoption of this new agenda, the international community recognized that education was essential for the success of all 17 of its goals, a prerequisite for building a fair, sustainable society.

Sustainable Development Goal 4, reposing on the principles of equality and dignity of people, captures global ambitions for education: to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all” by 2030.⁸

The new Education 2030 agenda represents a shift in focus, from basic education to lifelong learning: the former emphasis on schooling has evolved to focus more inclusively on learning. This shift translates into several important implications for countries as they plan and manage their education systems.

Figure 3. Educational planning and management is at the core of: trends in society; changes in education and lifelong learning; and sustainable development as defined by the UN’s 2030 Agenda. (Source: Author)

Building on recent work by the international community to identify new trends (social, economic, demographic, and technological) and their impact on education, work at this intersection should provide a series of interdisciplinary reflections and tools for planning and managing education in the midst of a complex, fast-moving world (cf. Fig. 3).

Towards a platform enabling open, shared learning among countries?

Faced with an increasing series of interconnected social, economic, and environmental challenges that impact our society and its education systems, how can governments throughout the world devise educational strategies that meet the targets defined by SDG 4?

Helping Member States’ respond to these complex challenges is crucial: it is a testament to the real-world impact of countries’ commitment to meeting the 2030 Agenda in practice.

A new platform for exchanging ideas is needed to share the best tools and practices in the field of educational development, as shared by experts, researchers and practitioners the world over, that will support countries as they strive to build fair and inclusive education systems.

As the only specialized organization with the mandate to support educational policy, planning and management, IIEP plays a key role within the United Nations system by developing the capacities of education actors to plan and manage their education systems through training, technical assistance, policy research and knowledge sharing. Such a proposed platform would contribute to this global effort by assisting countries with challenges yet to come.

The field’s long-standing heritage of “taking stock” of recent progress in educational planning and management dates back to its foundation. In devoting himself to writing the first of IIEP’s series of booklets on the topic during the late 1960s, Dr Philip Coombs, the Institute’s founding director, wrote various drafts, as he was “[not] willing to accept a static concept of his subject”.

In the same spirit, an open exchange platform would attempt to address the operative question: what kinds of educational planning and management do countries need in the 21st century to help them address the interconnected challenges of a rapidly evolving world?

By responding to this question from various angles and at different levels, the platform would advance educational planning and management worldwide, offering relevant, up-to-date reflections from scholars and practitioners, in a context of rapid change. These expert insights and learned experiences serve as a dependable storehouse upon which countries can draw as they move forward to adapt educational development for the 21st century.

The overarching objectives of a new platform would be:

1. To explore the interconnected impact of historical, geographical, and cross-sectoral developments on education, and how planning and management must adapt to the particular needs of society, today and tomorrow;
2. To forecast changes in the planning profession, from the profile of planners to the tools, practices, and processes used in carrying out an efficient planning exercise;
3. To strengthen cross-sectoral exchanges and dialogue within an international community of interdisciplinary leading thinkers on educational planning, its related issues and challenges.

Filling gaps from design to execution

Many references on various forms of planning (urban, environmental, etc.) and on various aspects of education (teachers, school leadership, management, etc.) have been published over the last two decades.

However, large-scale works combining the two threads into a single stream — i.e. educational planning and management — are few and far in between.

Furthermore, a lack of reflection on the actors, processes, and limitations in today’s context of educational development leaves more to be desired.

The proposed exchange platform addresses this knowledge gap in the literature, by also playing a key role in leading the evolving discussion in this area, presenting a series of evidence-informed reflections by international experts and practitioners in the field.

In line with its objectives (cf. see above section), the platform’s overall approach should be dynamic and operational, consolidating thematic contributions from researchers and practitioners worldwide, in line with the paradigm, “from design to execution”. Striving to go beyond the traditional confines of the “box”, this platform should aim to include the planning experiences from other sectors and at various levels.

Integrated into the platform, a section detailing “lessons learned and perspectives” will feature an editorial synthesis of external contributions, summarizing key thematic reflections.

Democratizing planning tools for a broader audience

More strategically perhaps, a first, obvious group of users for this platform will be national policy makers and international partners. For these groups, the platform may serve as a guide in the design of appropriate planning processes and tools to address education systems in a fast-changing world.

In the broadest scope of its outreach, this platform should be destined for a wide range of stakeholders, including practitioners, field experts, development partners, researchers, and planners from other sectors, without geographic discrimination.

Editorial oversight to ensure quality of contributions

To substantiate the research and the quality of contributions from the field of educational planning, a number of different committees will be set up to prepare, coordinate, monitor and oversee the overall editorial process from end-to-end (Fig. 4).

Figure 4. Simplified schematic of the different committees and groups constituting the editorial oversight of the proposed platform. (Source: Author).

Committees

A first Scientific/Editorial Steering Committee will be appointed to oversee the general direction and overall content strategy of the platform. The composition of this committee should be a hybrid of the Research & Development Committee well as international and national experts.

The Scientific/Editorial Committee will meet once a year and will be responsible for the assessment and validation of proposals submitted by the Editorial Committee (ex. outline, contributors, overall approach, etc.). It will also monitor the quality of inputs for the final content of the platform.

A second Committee of Experts may also be appointed to orient the themes as necessary and select appropriate contributions for the platform. These experts will be responsible for redistributing the reading of contributions between themselves and other members of the committee.

Drawing on their expertise in research and foresight, the Research & Development Committee will be responsible for conducting preliminary brainstorming, preparing discussions with Editorial Committee and defining the overall process for the collection of inputs.

An Editorial Committee will be composed of R&D Committee members and members from other related fields (ex. Technical Cooperation, Training and Education Programmes, etc.). The Editorial Committee will participate in internal brainstorming sessions based on proposals submitted by the R&D Committee, and will monitor the quality of inputs.

Format of contributions

Inputs for the open exchange platform should be collected in various formats:

• papers;
• interviews (video, audio and written);
• quantitative/qualitative surveys;
• infographics;
• reports;
• presentations;
• etc.

The diversity of formats collected adds to the overall dynamism of the analysis, facilitates entries from different kinds of profiles, and maximizes the range of contributors from whom inputs are to be collected.

Disseminating the platform progressively and collecting user feedback along the way

Intermediary products

Contributions will be disseminated through regular posts on various associated platforms. This will allow reactivity to major trends, prompt analysis and dissemination on emerging issues that impact planning, and encourage direct response to themes featured on the platform.

There should be repeated focus groups and multiple checkpoints with the platform’s intended audience to collect feedback. By generating research insights along the development process, the audience’s needs, goals and desires will be more adequately incorporated into the final product.

International Community of Leading Thinkers, Experts, Practitioners, Scholars on Educational Development

As previously mentioned in this Note (cf. “Objectives” section), this platform also desires to, by virtue of its engagement within global research networks at large, encourage interdisciplinary exchanges and cross-sectoral reflections among an international community of experts and leading thinkers on educational development, planning and management, and its associated challenges. The activities of this platform will engage this international community in intermediary dissemination activities, such as:

1. Blog posts on associated online platforms;
2. Webinars;
3. World cafés;
4. Videos;
5. Podcasts;
6. Social media engagement (Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.)

Contents (Tentative)

The platform will be organized thematically, compiling contributions from a breadth of scholars who can critically write about the current state of educational planning as well as forecast insights into the future of the field. It will include historical narratives as well as pieces that look into the future: by tracing where thinking on educational planning and management has come from, we are able to get a better sense of its direction(s) of travel.

Concepts, processes and actors covered in the proposed platform will span the entire continuum of educational planning.

While educational planning and educational management are part of the same overall process, each term can be understood to emphasize slightly different aspects of planning.

Educational planning is the process of formulating the direction and goals that countries must work toward, identifying major obstacles and the best way to use its resources and environment.

From there, educational management is the process of determining how operations can be optimized and fine-tuned to meet the goals that have been set out in the planning phase.

Themes should include a number of sub-topics for contributions. Furthermore, in addition to general insights, each theme with its subtopics should be collect perspectives highlighting 1) challenges, gaps, barriers and 2) the future (cf. Fig. 5).

Figure 5. A snapshot of part of a tentative skeleton with themes and subtopics organized to inform the research framework and/or information architecture for the platform. The structure would be populated with general insights as well as highlights challenges and futures thinking. (Source: Author)

I propose a few themes and their sub-topics here:

Theme I. Educational planning: a conceptual, geographical, and historical analysis

Examples of broader topics that could be covered:

1. Definitions of educational planning and management
2. Historical legacies
3. Changing approaches according to geographical areas
4. The approach of planning by different sectors

Theme II. Actors

Examples of broader topics that could be covered:

1. Educational planners
2. Central level actors: Ministries
3. Local level actors: how do we plan at the local level?
4. Private actors
5. Global actors: the approach of international actors to educational planning

Theme III. From design to execution: Tools and practices

Examples of broader topics that could be covered:

1. Traditional tools and practices for educational planning
2. New tools and practices
3. Planning cycle
4. Financing for education
5. Monitoring and evaluation in planning
6. Evaluating the impact of educational planning

Theme IV. Implications for educational planning and management in the future

Examples of broader topics that could be covered:

1. Main challenges to educational planning in the 21st century
2. Implications for educational planning in the future: profile/skills of planners

In the current context, the content should almost raise more questions than it answers. Indeed, what skills will planners and education actors need to plan and manage education systems? How can new tools and technological developments be effectively integrated into educational planning and management? How will all the new trends impacting education change the overall planning cycle?

This platform should only spark the beginning of increased collaboration, dialogue, learning, experimentation and practice within the ever-evolving, fluid field of educational planning and management.

Footnotes

¹ Taken from №1 of IIEP’s series of booklets on the Fundamentals of Educational Planning, “What is Educational Planning?” (1970). http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0007/000766/076671eo.pdf

² As described in the Foreword written by C.E. Beeby, General editor of IIEP’s series of booklets on educational planning, published from 1965 to 1970.

³ Nyseth (2012) explores four forms of fluidity as a new paradigm in planning. Cf. References section.

⁴ Balducci, A., (2011). Strategic planning as exploration. Town Planning Review. Vol 82, No 5. pp. 529–46.

⁵ The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in New York in September 2015. The Agenda, comprising 17 Sustainable Development Goals with 169 associated targets, is said to come at a time of “immense challenges” (cf. Declaration, Statement 14). The associated Declaration for Agenda 2030 can be found here: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld

⁶ The OECD’s 2016 edition of “Trends Shaping Education” explores the impact of five main trends on the future of education: globalisation, the future of the nation-state, cities as the “new countries”, changing family structures, and technological innovations.

⁷ The 2030 Agenda actions are organized around the five pillars of planet, people, prosperity, peace and partnership, while the three dimensions of sustainable development remain: social, economic, and environmental. https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/post2015/transformingourworld

⁸ UNESCO Education 2030. https://en.unesco.org/education2030-sdg4

⁹ IIEP-UNESCO’s 10th Medium-Term Strategy (MTS) sets out to assist Member States in meeting the Education 2030 agenda. The MTS can be downloaded here: http://www.iiep.unesco.org/en/our-mission/10th-medium-term-strategy

¹⁰ Research Programmes. IIEP-UNESCO. http://www.iiep.unesco.org/en/our-expertise/research-programmes.

¹¹ Cf. See footnote 6.

¹² Cf. C.E. Beeby’s account in IIEP’s booklet, “What is Educational Planning?” (1970). http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0007/000766/076671eo.pdf

¹³ Cf. IIEP-UNESCO’s internal benchmark study for publications published in the 2000s that share similar structures and objectives as the proposed book, New Trends in Educational Planning: A Reference Book. October 2018. [Staff working document]

If you’d like to learn more about international educational planning in a moving world, feel free to explore the resources below:

Further Reading & References

Burns, T. and F. Köster (eds.). (2016). Governing Education in a Complex World, Educational Research and Innovation. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi-org.ezproxy.uio.no/10.1787/9789264255364-en.

Cockburn, J. & Kabubo-Mariara, J. (2010). Child Welfare in Developing Countries (Canadian Electronic Library). New York, NY.

Cowen, R. & Kazamias, A. (2009). International Handbook of Comparative Education (Vol. 22, Springer International Handbooks of Education). Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands.

Creswell, J. (2019). Educational research: Planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. 6th Edition. Harlow: Pearson.

Frank, A., & Silver, C. (2018). Urban Planning Education: Beginnings, Global Movement and Future Prospects (The Urban Book Series).

Jacob, W., Sutin, S., Weidman, J., & Yeager, J. (2015). Community Engagement in Higher Education: Policy Reforms and Practice (Pittsburgh Studies In Comparative and International Education). Rotterdam: SensePublishers.

LeTendre, G., & Wiseman, A. (2015). Promoting and sustaining a quality teacher workforce. First ed., Vol. 27, International Perspectives on Education and Society. Bingley, England.

Million, A., Heinrich, A., & Coelen, T. (2017). Education, Space and Urban Planning: Education as a Component of the City. Springer International Publishing.

Moore, M., & Anderson, W. (2003). Handbook of distance education. Mahwah, N.J. Erlbaum.

Nyseth, Torill. (2012). “Fluid Planning: A Meaningless Concept or a Rational Response to Uncertainty in Urban Planning?” In Advances in Spatial Planning, Dr. Jaroslav Burian (Ed.). InTech. http://cdn.intechopen.com/pdfs/33243/InTech-Fluid_planning_a_meaningless_concept_or_a_rational_response_to_uncertainty_in_urban_planning_.pdf

OECD. (2018). “Innovative Approaches to Building Resilient Coastal Infrastructure”, OECD Environment Policy Papers, no. 13. Paris. https://doi.org/10.1787/9c8a13a0-en.

OECD. (2016). New Trends Shaping Education. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/trends-shaping-education_22187049

OECD. (2000). The Appraisal of Investments in Educational Facilities. Paris: OECD Publishing. https://doi-org.ezproxy.uio.no/10.1787/9789264180604-en.

UNESCO. (2010). World Social Science Report: 2010. Paris: UNESCO.

Young Digital Planet. (2015). The Book of Trends in Education 2.0. http://www.ydp.eu/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/The-Book-of-Trends-in-Education-2.0-YDP.pdf

👏 Thanks for reading! Special thanks to my amazing colleagues Christine Pinsent-Johnson at AlphaPlus and Amélie Gagnon from IIEP-UNESCO for their thoughts and feedback on this article.

If you’d like to chat/ask questions, feel free to leave a comment, find me on LinkedIn, or connect with me on Twitter.