Rather than describing shortcomings of educational planning or proposing new techniques, this paper draws on a 25th anniversary International Institute for Educational Planning seminar to show why planning is more dispensable than ever. Planning units should be strengthened and enabled to collect and analyze data, help detect major trends and developments, and assist decision-makers with a framework for programming activities. Educational planning should cease to be one ministry's monopoly and become the common concern of all major government departments and educational institutions. Educational planning must contend with intense global political changes; accelerating population growth; austere economic and financial conditions; and an educational context characterized by diversified supply and demand, lack of large-scale, inspiring projects, and persistent centralized educational bureaucracies. Current planning practices range from global indicative planning to strategic planning, subsector planning, programming, and project preparation for short-term objectives. Planners must know societal trends, communicate with political leaders, make plans more flexible, allocate educational improvement resources efficiently, and have access to essential information. Planners' responsibilities are outlined, and consequences for training and research are discussed. (MLH)