Keywords

Strategic Planning in Education, Educational Administration, Educational Management.

Introduction

In Malaysia, since independence in 1957, the Federation has provided a large, great and continuous focus to build and improve its national education policy and system. This is clearly demonstrated in significant financial investments in education, comprehensive education plans, and subsequent policy reforms to meet the country's aspirations to grow in tandem with global demands. In fact, the Malaysian education system can be regarded as an example model developed to support national development and economic growth. In order to achieve a successful educational quality, Ministry of Education (MOE) must pay more attention to the key factors such as in the field of human resources (Gholamhosseini et al., 2012; Okwukweka & Obiageli, 2015; UNESCO, 2006).

In fact, strategic management and strategic planning at school is not an accident, but can also be viewed as an effort or process, and this management require strategic planning into a comprehensive school daily performance (Okwukweka & Obiageli, 2015; Toorani, 2012). Although the effectiveness of strategic planning has been debated quantitative and qualitative studies (Bell, 2002), however, in Malaysia context is still undeveloped. This study will explore strategic management and strategic planning in school. However, not all organizations are success with their strategies (Widodo, 2018), there are some issues must be solve before implementation strategic management in school. Is it worth the strategic management and strategic planning at school? Or it is just a documentation that does not value the quality of education at school?

Literature Review

The Importance of Strategic Management in Education

Through the education system, strategic planning provides potential and opportunity for planners to act proactively to the future, technology, and the environment as a whole. Reality an education improvement strategy should place effective teaching practices as a key strategy for improvement and strategic management is a risky management (Yureva et al., 2016). In strategic planning, the future we want to be defined must be initially defined through the partnership and collaboration of the various networks of concerned educational partners concerned. Then, the learning system for planning such a future can be designed. In other words, the image of the appropriate education system and policy should be provided at the stage, and then an agreement is reached through a consecutive technical analysis, analysis, and modification and the most important strategic management success key factor in any education is human resources to achieve a successful organization as school (Amoli & Aghashahi, 2016). Through investigation of strengths, weaknesses, current opportunities and threats within and outside the organization, strategic planning idea can be planned (Kaufman & Herman, 1991).

Comparing the desired situation and existing needs explains the basic educational needs associated with product, output, and interim results. Sub-requirements are also measured relative to the relationship between inputs and processes. Meanwhile, operating programs are developed and implemented after being able to differentiate requirements such as target educational goals or performance criteria through requirements such as resources, methods, techniques, and procedures (Latorre & Blanco, 2013).

There are various terminology used in strategic management and various approaches to implement. There is not one perfect way to carry out strategic planning. Each part of the institution has its own interpretation of approaches and activities in strategic management. However, what is generic to strategic management is a typical level that involves similar activities conducted in similar order. Indeed, management has involved four basic stages: analysis, planning, implementation and evaluation. Strategic management is a continuous stage such as evaluating system critical analysis, planning policy formulation and evaluation, action planning, management and monitoring, and finally reviewing and evaluating. Our own view is that strategic planning is complex, chaotic, and frequently detached from daily activities and decision-making. Meanwhile, experiences and lessons learned from implementation, monitoring and evaluation provide feedback to tailor the activities that have been carried out and subsequently the policy formulation and action planning (UNESCO, 2006; Mintzberg, 1994; Sevier, 2003).

Platforms of Strategic Management

Sector analysis

Through sector analysis, it is the first platform for sector development planning. Therefore, subdivision studies, situational analysis, diagnosis, and eventually are sometimes used interchangeably. Basically, this sector analysis comprises data collection and critical analysis of features related to the education sector. Planners and managers need to carefully observe the internal and external aspects of the education system. In other words, sector analysis plays a role in how the system works to meet the needs of the societies and the subsequent economic demand of learning numerous driving forces behind the education policy system and external conditions (Chris & Moeng, 2014; Chang, 2008; UNESCO, 2006).

Policy Design

In policy designs, key points such as the education sector policy represent the government's public commitment to the future orientation desired by this sector. Clearly defined policies are able to play an important role of operation as a reference for action. In addition, it can help to guide future decisions and actions in the development of education, including intervention of international and bilateral cooperation agencies, in a coherent manner. It is therefore important that education policies promote the coordination and success of programs and projects. Policy formulation for education is a needed step in promoting the emergence and application of programs, programs and ultimately effective action projects. In addition, strategic planning can best understood as matching the activities of an organization to its environment and to its resources capability and education policies are defined in the following three-fold dimensions; access, participation, including issues of gender and equity; quality, internal level competence, and relevance and external effectiveness; the success of management through governance, decentralization and resource management (Johnson & Scholes, 1989; UNESCO, 2006).

Action Planning

The national policy should establish a framework through its implementation by providing key goals and priorities, as well as the best strategies for achieving it. It should be ensured that human and financial resources are available to implement the policy. Additionally, action planning is a tool for explaining some of the goals and strategies related to education policies, programming activities, timing, disclosing the resources needed, distributing institutional and administrative responsibilities, setting up budgets, and so forth. It is because planning in schools over the last two decades has been categorised in a number of ways (Bell, 2002; Wallace, 1994; UNESCO, 2006).

Methodology

This study is a micro case study using teachers as a sample. Although many strategic planning studies using case studies in higher education (Srinivasa et al., 2015; Machado & Taylor, 2010; Ozdem, 2011; Akyel et al., 2012), however the studies involved education in schools are still undeveloped. Category of this study is qualitative because it’s allowed us to define the experiences of the individuals studied from their own perception, using their own language and also their own expressions and experience (Creswell, 2014). Design of this study is using intrinsic case studies. An intrinsic case study is carried out when we want to understand a particular case in a more in depth manner. It is conducted to collect information about case and understanding the factors behind the case. We are used triangulation to increase the validity of a case study. Triangulation is the process of gathering information from diverse sources and different perspectives. Triangulation in this study are starting from the content analysis, to semi structured interview and finally observation. The framework of this study has shown as Figure 1 below.

Results And Discussion

The study conducted at the school to see the workload of teachers in implementing strategic management. Method triangulation involves the use of multiple methods of data collection about the same of phenomenon (Polit & Beck, 2012). Sampling is purposive and from three teachers was involved in this study in one of the primary and secondary school in Malaysia. Glaser & Strauss (1967) recommended the concept of saturation for achieving an appropriate sample size in qualitative studies. For this micro case study, saturation involved only three teachers. The information of the teachers is shows in Table 1.

Table 1: Interview Session
Interview Session
INTERVIEEW	GENDER	QUALIFICATION	EXPERIENCE
RA (1)I-12/4	Female	Degree of Education	10 Years
RA(2)I 12/4	Male	Degree of Education	9 Years
RA (3)I 12/4	Female	Degree of Islamic Education	3 Years

In an interview session, we used semi structured interview in this study. Level of language used is according to the language proficiency of the respondent. Through semistructured interviews, we have conducted an interview involving respondents. Meanwhile, through triangulation, the data can be more confident and convincing with a result. Indeed, triangulation is one of the powerful techniques that facilitate validation of data through cross verification from two or more sources. The purpose of triangulation in this study to increase the reliability and validity of the results (Bogdan & Biklen, 2006).

Teachers argue about the documentation to prepare. “Many documentation must be prepared” (RA (1) I-12/4). Documentation is big issues in strategic management and strategic planning because there are many programs and activities in the school that must be prepared through documentation. “Just for documentation, then leave it” (RA (2) I 12/4). The analysis of the responses shows evidence of lack understanding in implementation strategic management and strategic planning. “We search on the internet (strategic management and strategic planning), then we changed their school name to our schools name” (RA (3) I 12/4). Meanwhile, the teachers still do not know the importance of strategic management and strategic planning (RA (3) I 12/4). “Why we must do this?” (RA (3) I 12/4). Documentation is important to proof the activities. Moreover, this is supported by one of the teachers “Documentation is important” (RA (1) I 12/4).

Conclusion

This study provided an important opportunity to advance the understanding hidden impact of strategic management and strategic planning in school. Strategic management and strategic planning require special training for teachers. If teachers do not understand the needs of these subjects, they will cause teachers' workload. Clerical work should easier by technology. Evidence can be suggested by virtual without the need for a lot of paper. This is because evidence needs to be stored by the teacher for the Malaysian Quality Education Standard 2 File (SKPMG2). This shows the increasing burden of teacher workload. This study has successfully explored that one of the factors that caused the burden of teachers is strategic management. Strategic management has led to increased clerical work for teachers. Effective strategic management is needed to make improvements. Costs such as paper use are increasing so as to meet the required evidence. The implications of this study can be used by policy makers and practitioners to develop better work environment for teachers in future. Teachers' understanding of the documents is also important. It turns out that teachers only provide strategic management without understanding the effectiveness of the activities to be carried out. For the conclusion, each policy to be implemented by MOE must have good research and planning to not waste people's money and effect to the teacher’s workload. We hoped that this study will realize the authorities to act more effectively in the future.

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