Future world population trends: implications for educational planning
Williams, P.
EDC Occasional Papers 1: 50-72
1981
Document Number: 510711
The paper considers the problems for educational planners of changes in school enrolment which are caused by demographic changes. The work of the educational planner is dominated by his concern with the problem of phasing and in particular with attempting to maintain dynamic balance between independently determined population change and determinable resource provision. The differing challenges posed to the educational planner by rapidly rising or rapidly falling school enrolment or with a picture of fluctuating trends are outlined. It considers problems such as: (1) deriving enrolment projections from population forecasts; (2) the horizon for enrolment forecasting (limits of accuracy); (3) the challenges to correct forecasting of enrolment rates in both developed and underdeveloped countries; (4) the challenge to the educational planner of rising enrolment rates (or falling rates) and of the combined effects of mixtures of population rate change and enrolment rate changes.