Along with expanding enrollment and attention paid to early childhood care and education (ECCE) worldwide, there is a growing pre-primary workforce. In 2009, this workforce stood at more than 7.5 million people, with the largest growth seen in South and West Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa (ILO, 2012). Despite progress, the availability of trained pre-primary teachers still lags behind that of the primary workforce (Neuman, Josephson and Chua, 2015: 29).

Neuman, Michelle J., Kimberly Josephson, and Peck Gee Chua. A Review of the literature: early childhood care and education (ECCE) personnel in low- and middle-income countries. Early childhood care and education working papers series, 4. Paris: UNESCO, 2015. 

If the vicious cycle of inequality is to be broken, then child care and education have to start very early, before primary school. In most developing countries, early childhood education is restricted to urban middle-class children. Children from rural areas and low-income families not only are denied access to this kind of education, but they enter primary school later than other children (Caillods, 2006: 2).

Caillods, Françoise. 2006. "Quality and equality". IIEP newsletter 24, n^o 1: 2.

A cluster of schools in Namibia consists of five to seven schools on average. Most schools are basic education schools, but some also contain upper grades. The school with the most resources and complete education cycle serves as the cluster centre. The cluster centre should be central and accessible to its satellite schools and ideally have access to other commercial services. Cluster centres are the focal point of contact and coordination between cluster schools. They act as meeting places and sites for in-service training, since they contain materials such as audio-visual aids and duplicating facilities (Giordano, 2008: 52). , At the World Conference on Education for All in 1990, most developing countries reaffirmed their commitment to providing universal access to a first cycle of education to their school-age children. As a result, primary enrolments throughout the developing world have grown, fuelled by grants, expanded lending and by substantial domestic allocations of resources. Little attention was paid at the conference to the consequences of enrolment expansion in relation to the resources needed for secondary-schools. However, it was clear then that in many developing countries secondary school participation rates could not grow rapidly without changes in the structure and nature of their financing (Lewin and Caillods, 2001: 1).

Economic growth can be a powerful factor in education development, provided it is sufficiently equitable to reduce poverty and raise household demand for education (UNESCO 2015:22).

The primary concern of these stakeholders is the provision or production of the inputs to the education process. Because of economies of scale, most of these Producers are national organizations, even in countries with a high degree of decentralization. In the USA, in which school districts can use whatever textbook they want, most districts buy complete sets covering all grades from one of five national publishers (Welsh and McGinn, 1999: 79).

Increased private non-state engagement was encouraged by macro-planning processes and frameworks that were enthusiastic about such involvement, particularly through public-private partnerships (PPPs) (Srivastava, 2014).

Srivastava, Prachi. « Under-financing education and the rise of the private sector: the case of India ». In Revue internationale d’éducation de Sèvres, 2014.

The development of an effective EMIS is a complex and expensive undertaking under the best of circumstances. During emergencies, it is even more challenging because multiple organizations are generally involved in the provision of education, making it difficult to establish common data requirements and to coordinate data collection from the various organizations. In designing EMIS, therefore, it is important to consider the needs of all the groups that will rely on the information, including central ministry planners, officials of other national ministries (for example, finance), regional and district education officials, donors, and NGOs. Ultimately, for EMIS to be effective as a planning and management tool, national needs, not donor requirements, must be the primary force behind the development of the system. Despite the difficulties associated with the development of an EMIS, emergencies may provide an opportunity for establishing a better functioning EMIS than was in place before the crisis (IIEP, 2010: 156).

IIEP-UNESCO. 2010. Guidebook for planning education in emergencies and reconstruction. Paris: UNESCO-IIEP.

Micro-planning and information systems must be amended to better capture rural issues and trends. Developing access in an appropriate way requires reliable data on out-of-reach children. Remote and school-less areas are often not adequately covered in government surveys (Atchoarena and Gasperini, 2003: 396).

IIEP and FAO. Education for rural development: towards new policy responses. Paris: UNESCO-IIEP, 2003. 

This assessment led the Hungarian authorities in the 1960s to set up a system based on a rather different approach to that used in the previous decade. The new system merely involved the mechanical matching of educational output to manpower needs. It adopted a comprehensive socio-economic approach covering a long period (15-20 years) and was largely based on demographic data to avoid imbalance between the long-term trends displayed by the education system, the economy and society. Hungary thus shifted from rigid, directive planning to more flexible and indicative planning (Bertrand, 2004).

At the beginning of the 1960s, educational planning was seen as a must for the newly independent countries in order to allow them to move ahead quickly and systematically with their human resource development. Planning Units were set up in Ministries of Education but were highly dependent on external expertise (IIEP, 2010: 9).

Carron, Gabriel, Khalil Mahshi, Anton De Grauwe, Dorian Gay, and Sulagna Choudhuri. 2010. Strategic planning: concept and rationale. Paris: UNESCO-IIEP.

On the contrary, the need for collecting data, evaluating the efficiency of existing programmes, undertaking a wide range of studies, exploring the future and fostering broad debate on these bases to guide educational policy and decision-making has become evenmore acute than before. One cannot make sensible policy choices without assessing the present situation, specifying the goals to be reached, marshalling the means to attain them and monitoring what has been accomplished. Hence planning is also a way to organize learning: by mapping, targeting, acting and correcting (Kellaghan and Greaney, 2001: 5).

Kellaghan, Thomas, et Vincent Greaney. 2001. Using assessment to improve the quality of education. Fundamentals of Educational Planning 71. Paris: UNESCO-IIEP.

In France, the educational priority areas (ZEPs) were created in 1982. In 1996, they comprised 1,300,000 pupils in 544 schools (primary schools, collèges and lycées, particularly vocational lycées) whose catchment areas pose especially acute social problems and where school achievement indicators point to particularly weak performance (Auduc, 1988: 33).

Auduc, Jean-Louis. 1988. Training Teachers to Work in Schools Considered Difficult. Fundamentals of Educational Planning 59. Paris: IIEP-UNESCO.
 

Indeed, whether we are considering education as a social or a private investment, allowance must  be  made  for  the  fact  that  some  students  do  not  complete  a course while  others  repeat  parts  of  the  course  in  order  to  gain  a qualification. Ideally, separate cost-benefit calculations should be made for  dropouts,  repeaters  and  those who  complete  a  course  in  the minimum time. For despite the implications of the word ‘wastage’, it is likely that even an uncompleted course may yield some economic benefits that must be compared with the costs of one or two years’ education.  In  fact,  most  countries  do  not  have  data  that  permit measurement of the benefits associated with part of a course. As a result, the simplest solution is to calculate the average length of courses,allowing for dropouts and repeaters, and to use this as the basis for the calculation of total costs rather than the minimum or ‘normal’ length of courses. This will give the total cost that must be borne by society in order to produce a qualified student, or the average cost to the  individual  after  allowance  for  average  rates  of  repetition  and wastage (Woodhall, 2004: 33-34).

Woodhall, M. 2004. Cost-benefit analysis in educational planning. Fundamentals of Educational Planning 80. Paris: UNESCO-IIEP.

Worldwide, enrolment in higher education has been growing steadily: Between 2000 and 2014, the number of students in higher education institutions more than doubled, rising from 100 million to 207 million. In the same period, the global higher education gross enrolment ratio increased from 19% to 34% (UNESCO, 2017:1).  

UNESCO. 2017. Six ways to ensure higher education leaves no one behind. Policy Paper 30. Paris: IIEP-UNESCO

A necessary pre-condition for reaching UPE is to have all children of school admission age entering school. While policies adopted since Dakar have brought about major progress in access to schooling, school systems have not always been able to retain the large flow of new entrants, making achievement of universal primary enrolment and completion difficult (UNESCO, 2008: 53).

UNESCO. Education for All by 2015: will we make it? EFA global monitoring report, 2008. Paris: UNESCO, 2008.

A necessary pre-condition for reaching UPE is to have all children of school admission age entering school. While policies adopted since Dakar have brought about major progress in access to schooling, school systems have not always been able to retain the large flow of new entrants, making achievement of universal primary enrolment and completion difficult.

All girls and boys,  women and men,  should have equal opportunity to enjoy education of high quality, achieve at equal levels and enjoy equal benefits from education. Adolescent girls and young women, who may be subject to gender-based violence, child marriage, early pregnancy and a heavy load of household chores, as well as those living in poor and remote rural areas, require special attention. In contexts in which boys are disadvantaged, targeted action should be taken for them. Policies aimed at overcoming gender inequality are more effective when they are part of an overall package that also promotes health, justice, good governance and freedom from child labour (UNESCO, 2016:13).

UNESCO. 2017. Unpacking Sustainable Development Goal 4: Education 2030; guide. Paris: UNESCO.

This criterion refers to a universally accepted goal of schooling: the quest for fairness in access to educational opportunities, resources and outcomes by gender, social class, race, language origins and geographical location of students. Equity can be assessed in terms of inputs – do all students receive an appropriate amount of funding and resources from the state, commensurate with their needs? Do students with special needs get appropriate schooling? Equity can also be assessed in terms of outcomes – do all students finish their schooling with sufficient skills and a fair opportunity to progress in life? (Belfield and Levin, 2002: 46).

Belfield, Clive R., et Henry M. Levin. 2002. Education privatization: causes, consequences and planning implications. Fundamentals of Educational Planning 74. Paris: UNESCO-IIEP.

Los sistemas de escuelas satélites tienen que abordar problemas difíciles en lo tocante a la progresión de los alumnos de un grado al siguiente. La estructura del “núcleo” que se aplica en Bolivia trata de garantizar que los niños terminen la educación básica en el “consolidador” o colegio central. Otra estrategia consiste en crear escuelas satélites que ofrecen el ciclo integral de primaria, como las que se han implantado en comunidades rurales aisladas de Burkina Faso (UNESCO, 2010 : 217).

Past reputation is not sufficient for financial sustainability even if heroic efforts are made in terms of internal efficiency (i.e. re-evaluating roles and responsibilities within the university) and external efficiency by increasing the employability of graduates (Williams and Kitaev, 2005: 134).