AWARENESS, ACCEPTANCE, AND APPLICATION OF STRATEGIC PLANNING AMONG MINISTRY OF EDUCATION OFFICIALS IN SOUTH WEST NIGERIA

Abstract

Nigeria embraced the use of State Education Strategic Plan (SESP) and State Education Sector Operational Plan (SESOP) spanning between 2010 and 2020. This was based on the belief that strategic planning is capable of boosting education performance and also improves strategic planning awareness, acceptance and application. Yet, scientific evidence established that only few organizations follow strategic planning practices beyond the first year, owing to low level of strategic planning knowledge and negative attitude of top officials. To this end, the study examined strategic planning awareness, acceptance, and application among the ministry of education officials in South West Nigeria. The study adopted an expo-facto design to survey views of Ministry of Education officials. The population comprised of all the ministry of education’s senior and operational officers including Directors and Deputy Directors in the five States that participated in SESP-SESOP (Phase II). Using simple random sampling technique, twelve officials per each of the five States were selected resulting in 60 respondents out of which four failed to return their questionnaires. A validated questionnaire, titled “Perception of Ministry of Education Officials on Strategic Planning” subdivided into Awareness, Adoption, and Application, with a Cronbach alpha reliability coefficient of α=.74, was developed and used for data collection. Data were analysed using percentages and mean averages while multiple regression was used to know the contributions of strategic planning awareness and acceptance to its application by ministry officials. The findings revealed that although the levels of strategic planning awareness, acceptance, and application vary from State to State in South West Nigeria, on the average, the strategic planning awareness (average mean=3.20), acceptance (average mean=3.02) and application (average mean=3.17) were high respectively (high ≥ 2.5). The findings further revealed that only strategic planning acceptance made a singular significant contribution to its application (β=0.556, p>0.05) while the joint contribution of awareness and acceptance to strategic planning application was also significant (F=13.527, p=0.00). The paper concluded that contrary to expectation, the acceptance level was comparatively low despite its significant contribution to strategic planning application. The paper therefore, recommended a deliberate nurture of values of change to boost levels of strategic planning acceptance without reverting to their traditional practices.