An Assessment Of The Influence Of Stakeholders In Implementation Of Strategic Plans In Public Secondary Schools In Machakos Subcounty

ABSTRACT

The study focused on assessment of the influence of school stakeholders in

implementation of public schools strategic plans’ in Machakos Sub County as the main

objective and parent influence, government influence, board of management influence

and teachers influence as the Independent variables. The Descriptive design was used in

the research design. The target population of the study consisted of was all 62 public

secondary schools registered in Machakos Sub County by 2014. Simple stratified

sampling technique was used. The sample comprised of 19 schools which were stratified

according to categories of national, Extra County, county and sub county schools. The

main research instrument used in the study was questionnaires comprising of structured

questions to collect qualitative and quantitative primary data developed in accordance

with the research objectives and questions. Data capturing was done using SPSS

software. Descriptive statistics were computed for presenting the data. The inferential

statistics was used to come up with the forecasting models and validation of the same

models. The study found out that through parents influence; School fees defaulter’s

affects implementation of the school strategic plan and Parents level of education

influences implementation of the strategic plan. The study revealed that through

government influence; government policies have positively influenced implementation of

the school strategic plan and to a moderate extent; the Government trains principals on

strategic plan formulation. Respondents further indicated that in Board of management

influence; Board of management is actively involved in planning the school strategic

plan, there is adequate gender representation among the Board members and the age of

the Board of management members influences the implementation of the school strategic

plan. Teacher influence indicated that teachers influence the implementation of the school

strategic plan through active involvement in extra curricula activities of the school, the

parents are provided with a forum for educational discussions with teachers, creation of

an active guidance and counseling department, involvement in the discipline of the

students, giving Teachers opportunities to develop in their career and frequent discussion

of discipline of the students with parents and finally in terms of moderating effect of

resources on the relationship; the respondents were of the view that resources actually

moderates the relationship between school stakeholders and implementation of public

schools strategic plans’ in Machakos Sub County. More specific; Availability of School

finances have influenced the implementation of strategic plan, Enrolment trends in the

school have forced schools to change the school budget thus affecting implementation of

the strategic plan and some projected sources of funds have influenced changes in the

strategic plan. The study also found out that independent variables significantly

influences dependent variable (r2= 0.722). At the same time by introducing the

moderating variable the explanatory power improved significantly.