CHALLENGES FACING IMPLEMENTATION OF STRATEGIC PLANNING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS

Strategic planning has been employed in schools as a transformative tool to re-engineer institutions of learning resulting into improved performance. School strategic plan can guide an organization to clarify further direction to identify its priorities, diversify its products and services and be ready to handle changing circumstances. Despite the efforts made by most secondary schools to implement the strategy, its desired outcomes have not been achieved due to various challenges facing its implementation, hence the need to conduct the current study. The study was targeted 1 County Quality Assurance and Standards Officer, 150 Principals, 200 Deputy Principals and 500 Heads of Departments. Saturated sampling technique was used to select the County Quality Assurance and Standards Officer. 75 Principals, 75 Deputy Principals and 250 Heads of Departments were selected purposively using stratified probability sampling technique. Reliability of the questionnaire was established by the test- retested try-out which was conducted in non-participation institutions. Validity of the instruments was ensured by presenting the instruments to three experts from the Department of Educational Management and Policy Studies of Moi University who examined the content of the instruments and advised the researcher on the face validity. Improvements were made according to the suggestions made by the experts before the instruments were finally taken into the field. Both; administrative problems and involvement in the process were found to be the major challenges facing strategic planning implementation The study recommends frequent training for school administrators on how to reduce both; administrative problems and involvement in the process as the major challenges facing implementation of Strategic Planning in Secondary Schools.