English abstract
This study aimed to identify what extent the headmistress of Muscat's basic education schools apply strategic planning by answering the following question: "How similar are the characteristics of schools' plans, to the characteristics of the strategic planning. Also, it discussed how schools principals apply the strategic planning in their schools and what obstacles they face. Accordingly, the study suggested some ways to help applying the strategic planning in basic education schools effectively.
In an attempt to achieve the goals of the study, a questionnaire was set to identify to what extent the headmistress of basic education schools apply strategic planning in their schools. It consisted of 21 items divided into three dimensions: (strategic planning's characteristics; ways of applying the strategic planning; the difficulties of applying strategic planning). The questionnaire was piloted in Muscat educational region. The total number of distributed samples of the questionnaire was 45, whereas the given back were 42.
The statistical treatment of data was carried out using mathematic means, standard deviation and class. The Internal Consistency Coefficient has been calculated for each step of the questionnaire using Cronbach Alpha method, T-Test which involves calculating the differences between averages of two independent samples.
The most important findings of the study are as follows:
1- Results indicated that there is a correspondence between the school's plan characteristics and the strategic planning's characteristics, from the assessments of the sample subjects' point of view.
2- There were no significant differences between the average rating
of the sample, on either domains of the gender and theor cou educational qualifications at level (α = 0.05) among averages of assessments of sample subjects for all questionnaire's dimensions.
3- The estimations of the assessments of sample subjects, concerning the difficulties of applying strategic planning in their schools, were high.
In reference to the theoretical and practical findings of the study, the researcher comes out of a training course proposal aims to qualify basic schools principals, all around Oman, to be able to implement strategic planning in their schools.
