One management tool that has been acclaimed internationally as effective in improving the performance of state
owned enterprises as well as government departments is the use of strategic planning. Strategic planning is
important to any organizational work performance because it determines the organisation’s success or failure
(Bryson, 1998). A strategy is a plan that is intended to achieve a particular purpose. It is a disciplined effort to
produce fundamental decisions and actions that shape and guide what an organisation is, what it does and how it
does it with a focus on the future.
Wernham (2004) observes that in a strategic planning process, resources such as people, skills, facilities and
money to implement the strategy must be adequate. Many organizations today are focusing on becoming more
competitive by launching competitive strategies that give them an edge over others. To do this, they need to craft
workable strategies.
In Kenya, the demand for high quality government services continues to grow as citizens' expectations about the
quality and value of those services rise. For instance, policy makers and stakeholders in the education sector are
increasingly under pressure to provide more and better quality services.