Implications for educational planning and policy - Concluded

This historical analysis of educational policy formulation in Nigeria has a lot of implications for both educational planning and policy. Most of the colonial educational policies had the shortcoming of not taking into account our local peculiarities and not involving Nigerians in their formulation. It is also essential to integrate all the good parts of earlier education policies, whether colonial or post-colonial, into any proposed education policy.

The participatory model of planning education and formulating educational policies is the most appropriate for a multi-ethnic nation like Nigeria. Nigeria has about three hundred and fifty four ethnic nationalities. Each of these groups strive to get the best and a fair share of the available educational services (Fabunmi, 2003). In order to minimize conflict and protest, it is good for both educational planners and policy makers to involve adequate representatives of the society, particularly stakeholders in education, in educational planning and policy formulation.