| dc.description.abstract | Parents, family and society want the best for their children. Education is a key pillar of a
successful and bright future as it empowers the individual and enables him or her to
achieve independence. However it should not be only about success in national
examinations. Since parents may not have total control of their children when they are in
the school going age, they seek the best school for them. Kenyan schools operate in a
competitive environment. The ones that achieve high performance are well respected and
students will normally compete for admission because good grades mean better career
choices in future. It is therefore important for the administrators of similar schools and
educational policy makers to learn the strategies employed by these schools. Catholic
secondary schools meet the expectations of parents not only in academic success but also
the content of character that the children will have after they are out of school.In addition
the schools are also competing to attract both parents and students by striving to achieve
higher academic performance and overall school rankings. To compete effectively the
organization should formulate competitive strategies that will enable it achieve
competitive advantage. Competitive strategies include differentiation, cost leadership,
focus, collaborative strategy and resource based strategy. The Government of Kenya has
education as one of the pillars in the Vision 2030.The introduction of free primary
education led to an increased number of students graduating from primary school seeking
secondary education. Consequently an increased number of secondary schools have been
established to sustain the high demand leading to competition. The state and nature of
competition is determined by the five forces. The strongest competitive force determines
the profitability of an industry. This becomes the most important force to consider when
formulating strategy. Since the purpose of competing is to achieve better and superior
performance than rivals, organizations will always seek to be the best. The organization
will achieve competitive advantage or that edge over competitors when it copes with the
five competitive forces and attracts buyers. The objective of this study was to find out the
strategies employed by catholic schools sponsored by the Catholic Archdiocese of
Nairobi. A survey was carried out on the 20 schools that are sponsored by the archdiocese
and it was found out that differentiation, collaborative strategies, discipline and value
based education system are some of the strategies that are employed by these schools in
order to achieve the high performance that they are associated with. It was concluded that
integration of Catholic religion plays a unique role and most catholic secondary schools
have widely adopted differentiation and collaborative strategy to gain competitive
advantage. The schools have used their unique nature of character and moral
development of students to distinguish themselves from other schools. The schools also
form collaborative partnerships with other schools to share ideas on winning
strategies.Thus these competitive strategies adopted have enabled them achieve
competitive advantage over rivals which in turn has led to superior academic
performance and school rankings and ultimately the expectations of parents and students
are met. The study is based on three theories namely game theory, resource based view
and stakeholder theory. | en_US |
