Strategic Planning and Teacher Performance in Public Secondary Schools in Mwala Sub-County, Machakos County, Kenya

Strategic planning is a critical management tool for enhancing organizational effectiveness in public secondary schools. In Kenya, the Ministry of Education mandates all public schools to develop and implement strategic plans to guide improvement. This study examined the influence of strategic planning on teacher performance in public secondary schools in Mwala Sub-County, Machakos County, Kenya. The study was guided by four specific objectives: to determine the relationship between academic strategy and teacher performance; to establish the extent to which resource allocation strategy influences teacher performance; to examine the influence of human capital strategy on teacher performance; and to examine the influence of strategic leadership management on teacher performance. This study is theoretically anchored in Edward Freeman’s Stakeholder Theory (1984). A descriptive research design was employed. The target population comprised 72 principals, 72 deputy principals, and 912 teachers from 72 public secondary schools. Purposive sampling was used to select all 72 schools, principals, and deputy principals, while stratified random sampling selected 92 teachers, yielding a sample size of 236 respondents. Data were collected using questionnaires and analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. The findings, tied directly to the objectives, revealed a very strong positive relationship between each strategic planning variable and teacher performance. In addressing the first objective, academic strategy revealed a strong correlation with teacher performance (R = 0.956), accounting for 91.3% of the variance. For the second objective, resource allocation strategy likewise indicated a strong correlation (R = 0.913), explaining 83.3% of the variance in teacher performance. Concerning the third objective, human capital strategy showed a very strong correlation (R = 0.945), explaining 89.3% of the variance. Lastly, for the fourth objective, strategic leadership management reflected a near-perfect correlation (R = 0.943), accounting for 88.9% of the variance in teacher performance. The study therefore concludes that academic strategy, resource allocation, human capital, and leadership management are key predictors of teacher performance, and recommends structured strategies, transparent resourcing, mentoring, and leadership training to enhance teacher growth and effectiveness.