Strategic Planning And Performance Of Public Secondary Schools In Kisumu East District, Kenya

Abstract

While public organizations arc now encouraging the practice of strategic planning, its influence on organizations performance is still a subject of great debate. Strategic planning is a new phenomenon in most of the schools although a few have started using the plans to be able to establish their mission and their objectives for better performance. The strategic planning practices that are being adopted by the public secondary schools in Kisumu Hast District are similar to those proposed in strategic management theory and are also reported in the literature from other industries or other institutions of higher learning. While previous studies have largely focused on financial measures of performance in the U.S.A.. the U.K.,Turkish, Egyptian and Japanese organizations, this study focused on the public secondary schools in Kenya. The main objective of this research was to investigate the evidence of the influence of strategic planning adopted by public secondary schools in Kisumu Fast District and the performance of these schools in terms of academic improvement, infrastructure development, students and parents’ satisfaction, staff motivation as well as general discipline of the students. I his study was guided by the thought that strategic planning in secondary schools has a positive influence on the schools’ performance. The theory of the planning-performance relationship for organizations effectiveness was examined in this survey study on the thirty eight public secondary schools in Kisumu East district. In this census study, data was collected through self administered questionnaires with the school principals. Data was analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS) computer software and presented in tables then interpreted using descriptive and inferential statistics. Pearson Product Moment Correlation analysis was used to show general support of the opinion that secondary schools performance depends on adoption, implementation and control on strategic planning practices. It was found that 51.53% of the schools had not adopted any strategic planning practice. The schools that had adopted strategic planning performed significantly better than schools that had not. Ibis was because strategic planning was related positively to performance.