Challenges of Implementation of Strategic Plans in Public Secondary Schools in Limuru District, Kiambu County

Abstract

Strategic planning has been used as a management to ol to help improve performance by ensuring that members are working towards the sa me goals and continuously adjusting the direction of the organization to the changing environment on the basis of obtained results. Implementation of strategic plann ing covers the entire managerial activities including such matters as motivation, co mpensation, management appraisal and control processes. However lack of fully implem entation of strategic plans is due to the fact that there are several challenges that have to be addressed the concerned parties. The objective of the study was to determin e the challenges of implementation of strategic plans in Public Secondary Schools in L imuru District, Kiambu County. The study adopted a descriptive research design. Th e study used census survey in which all the 18 public secondary schools were sele cted. Simple random sampling was then used to select 72 respondents. The study u sed questionnaires to collect data. Before analysis, data was edited first to identify and eliminate any errors made by the respondents. The data was then taken through the st atistical package for social sciences after being coded then analyzed and result s presented using frequency tables, pie charts and bar graphs. The study established th at despite the embraced strategic planning there the plans under implementation in mo st schools encountered various challenges as Public Secondary Schools in Limuru Di strict, Kiambu County had low strategic plan implementation. The study found that political changes and economic changes physical environmental changes, social cult ural factors, management policies and competitor’s actions cause the alteration of th e school strategic plan. Based on the research findings, it is concluded that strategic p lanning is a management tool that helps an organization to focus its energy, to ensur e that members of the organization are working towards the same goals, to assess and a djust the organization's direction in response to a changing environment. The study re commends that Principals / Deputies should be equipment with the necessary man agerial skills to help them successfully implement strategic plans in their res pective schools. There is need for public secondary schools to form strategic alliance s with development partners so as to enhance their performance and there is also need to form strategic collaborations which will enhance strategic plan implementation. F uture research should also focus on both public and private secondary schools in Ken ya in order to find out the relationship between strategic planning and their p erformance. Schools should embrace institutional policies which they should en force strictly to ensure they help in the successful implementation of the school’s strat egic plans.