Education is largely absent in recent work on the history of development and modernization. Yet it was central to the political project of many leaders of decolonization and figured prominently in five-year plans and other development schemes. The article highlights the central role of education in concepts of development and social planning in the Middle East. This could take the form of central plans but also of statistical and computer-generated projections of future educational and manpower needs. After showing how different concepts of planning education were circulated at the level of international organizations, the article investigates the first Egyptian five-year plan. It looks at the Egyptian Institute of National Planning in Cairo, highlighting that Egyptian planners drew on a variety of different experts and institutions from the US and the Soviet Union to the GDR and India. While the late 1960s ushered in more scepticism toward formal planning and projection, the emphasis on expertise, knowledge and skills as central variables of modern societies has endured.