Principals’ and Teachers’ Opinions on Strategic Planning Activities in Schools

When organizations realize that they will not be able to adapt to the changing and developing world with their traditional management approach, new management approaches are accepted. Organizations must adapt to these changes to realize their aims. Thus, the new management styles have begun to be carried out based on plans prepared through strategies. They follow and adapt to new managerial approaches. Strategic management is a management technique that plans the future of organizations by taking the necessary measures. Planning-based management approaches started in Türkiye in the 1960s. In the following years, a management approach based on strategic planning was adopted. With the "Public Financial Management and Control Law" enacted in 2003, management practices based on strategic planning have been made compulsory in all public institutions in the country. Educational institutions and schools were also subject to this change. The aim of this study is to reveal the teachers’ and administrators’ views about strategic planning practices carried out in schools.  340 participants determined by simple random sampling method are administrators and teachers, working in Sivas public schools on strategic planning activities were searched. The data of the study were obtained by using “the Evaluation of Strategic Planning Applications in Schools” scale.  The scale consists of 3 dimensions and 22 items. SPSS 25.0 package program was used in the transfer and analysis of research data. Results show that the schools are managed in accordance with the strategic planning and the administrations have an understanding that facilitates the strategic planning.  Since they have a regular strategic planning policy, it has emerged that schools are suitable for strategic planning practices. However, according to the perceptions of administrators and teachers, strategic planning practices are carried out at “medium” level in schools. This result means that strategic planning studies are not done sufficiently in schools. It was found that there was not enough preparation and implementation process for strategic planning. Based on this results, these suggestions were made; more effective in-service training programs should be implemented, active participation of all stakeholders in the process, and teachers should be made aware of the importance and necessity of strategic planning studies.

Keywords

Strategy, Strategic Management, Strategic Planning, Planning in Education, Stratejic Plannining in Schools