ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the debate over the role of educational planning in development throughout the Third World, with particular reference to the South Pacific. It argues that further research on education and its role in developing countries is essential. A consideration of education and development in the context of established planning models can be misleading, and a revised approach is necessary. Dependency theory, while providing for a much more coherent and critical analysis of education and development, presents problems as a structural framework for the examination of educational planning. Access to knowledge would enable the masses of the Third World to gain greater economic independence. The maintenance of burgeoning educational systems also became an increasing burden on the public purse of Third World countries attempting to cope with a range of social and economic problems in the world recession of the late 1970s.
