ABSTRACT
It is not surprising that educational planners in less developed countries enter the 70s in a somewhat chastened mood. Over the last decade or more the formidable expansion of educational facilities that has taken place in most of these nations rested upon rather tenuous evidence concerning the role that education plays in the general development process. The notion that schools were the primary vehicle of development was rather an act of faith than a result of solid empirical evidence and in the light of recent events, one can only conclude that in many respects the consequences of educational planning have fallen short of initial expectations and hopes. Indeed, we are all a good deal more cautious now about what we can expect from the schools and we increasingly recognize that the problems of national development are a good deal more intractable than we had initially supposed.
