Theory versus Practice in Planning Education: The View from South Africa

Figures & data

Table 1. Response rate and margin of error for respondents by category of professional registration

	Responses	Planners registered on SACPLAN database at the time of the survey	% of planners on the database who responded	The resultant margin of error with a confidence level of 95%
Professional planners	122	2245	5.5%	9.0%
Candidate planners	74	1262	5.9%	11.0%
Combined professional and candidate planners	196	3507	5.6%	7%
Technical planners	9	308	2.9%	32.0%
Total registered planners	205	3815	5.37%	7%
Not registered and unknown	14

The values in italics are the combined values of professional and candidate planners.

Table 2. Extent to which South African planning education is perceived to be meeting the needs of planners in South Africa

Overall, do you feel your formal education and training prepared you for work as a planner?
		Frequency	Valid Percent
Valid	Yes	158	76.0
	No	50	24.0
	Total	208	100.0
Missing	System	11
Total		219

Figure 1. Perceived usefulness of skills and competencies taught in planning schools in South Africa.

Figure 2. Type of work done by planners throughout their careers, as the main or second most common task in each job.

Figure 3. Ranking of technical skills by respondents where one is the most valuable, and eight is the least valuable technical skill.