School Principals’ Strategic Planning Competences and their Influence on Academic Performance in Public Secondary Schools in Makueni County, Kenya
| dc.contributor.author | Sila, Killian Muendo | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2025-02-04T09:46:12Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2025-02-04T09:46:12Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2024-10 | |
| dc.description | A Research Project Submitted in Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Award of the Degree of Master of Education (Educational Planning) in School of Education and Lifelong Learning, Kenyatta University, October 2024. Supervisor Mukirae Njihia | |
| dc.description.abstract | Academic performance across Kenyan public secondary schools has been upheld as the main indicator of the progress in the country’s success in the educational sector. Despite the immense commitment by the Kenyan government to improve the academic performance in the secondary education, the achievements have been meager, as public secondary schools in most parts of the country such as Makueni County continue to record deteriorating performance. This raises a question on the effectiveness of many aspects in the schools, particularly the school planning, which has shared the largest portion of the blame. The school principals are mandated to oversee the daily operations of the schools for enhanced academic performance. It is therefore imperative to establish their strategic planning capabilities, and how such capabilities enhance the school academic performance. This study specifically assessed how the school principals’ human resource planning capabilities, technology leverage planning, school culture planning competencies and strategic direction setting competencies influence school academic performance. The study was anchored on contingency theory of leadership and it utilized a descriptive research design. The study targeted the 371 public secondary schools in Makueni County, where the school principals and the teachers were the target population. Using a 10% threshold, 38 schools were randomly sampled, from where the school principals were purposively selected. Using a sampling formula, 368 teachers were sampled randomly from the 38 schools. A questionnaire wasused to survey the teachers while an interview schedule was used to collect data from the school principals.The data wasanalysed both qualitatively and quantitatively. Quantitative data was analysed using SPSS where descriptive statistics wereused. Content analysis wasused to analyse the qualitative data. The findings revealed that human capital development was one of the school principals’ strategic planning competences which play an essential role in enhancing academic performance of the schools. It was however revealed that most of the schools lacked appropriate skills as a result of ineffective embrace of human capital development by the principals. The results further revealed that integration of ICT in teaching and learning was a strategic planning competency by the school principals, although most of the schools in Makueni County lacked effective use of ICT in teaching and learning as the principals were not at the forefront of leading the integration of ICT. School culture alignment was also found to be an essential school principals’ strategic planning competency, although most schools lacked principals committed to align the school culture with the strategic goals and objectives. Lastly, the findings revealed that while setting strategic direction was recognized as an essential strategic planning competency among the schools, most principals did not portray this competence and this was a driving force towards poor academic performance of their schools. The study concluded that the poor academic performance in secondary schools in Machakos County was strongly linked to ineffective school principals’ strategic planning competencies such as human capital development, integration of information technology, strategic direction setting and alignment of school culture. The study therefore recommended the essence of school principals to strengthen their strategic planning competencies as far as human capital development, school culture alignment, ICT integration and strategic direction setting are concerned so as to enhance academic performance of their schools. | |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://ir-library.ku.ac.ke/handle/123456789/29514 | |
| dc.language.iso | en | |
| dc.publisher | Kenyatta University | |
| dc.title | School Principals’ Strategic Planning Competences and their Influence on Academic Performance in Public Secondary Schools in Makueni County, Kenya | |
| dc.type | Thesis |