Social demand [...] is most commonly used to mean the aggregate ‘popular’ demand for education, that is, the sum total of individual demands for education at a given place and time under prevailing cultural, political and economic circumstances. If there are fewer classrooms and places than there are serious candidates to occupy them, one can say that social demand exceeds supply (page 37).
Coombs, P. 1970. What Is Educational Planning? Fundamentals of Educational Planning, 1. Paris: UNESCO-IIEP.
Within limits, public authorities can influence the size of social demand, though as a practical matter it is far easier to stimulate an increase than to reverse the process. For example, if a government can afford to, it can arbitrarily boost social demand by requiring school attendance and, beyond the age of compulsion, by making education free (even, in the extreme, by compensating students or their parents for the income and work forgone). Short of these measures, governments can use propaganda to stimulate the private (voluntary) demand for education. But the culture itself, the climate of attitudes and convictions about what education can do for people, is undoubtedly the most influential factor of all in determining the social demand for education, provided people can pay for it (page 38).
Coombs, P. 1970. What Is Educational Planning? Fundamentals of Educational Planning, 1. Paris: UNESCO-IIEP.