6 Things with Planning

Planning is any essential element in any successful organization no matter the size of the organization.

For every plan to be successful make it go through these 6 stages in your school.

Pre- planning : This is preparing to plan, as funny as it sounds it involves looking into what will be needed for the planning process and making them available.
A condusive environment, what do we what to plan
Adjustment of resources and machinery necessary. All that is needed to plan materials and structures so as to have a feasible plan
Outline the planning procedure. How to get the resources. When to get the resources needed for this our plan.
Set up procedures for collection and analysis of information / data for every stage of planning

Planning: This is the actual planning, it includes diagnosing the project- What we want to  achieve at the end of the planning,
formulating Policies - these are the rules & guidelines to help us achieve this plan (it must be written out & made public).
establishing priorities - now which activity should come up first and which is next in a very rational manner.

carrying out feasibility studies - this is what to sell? how to sell? who to sell to? who to sell it? how much? what is the competition like? location of target market? how do we manipulate demand?

costing of the project - after doing all the above things, how much does each cost us,considering other necessary things that is peculiar to your plan, then we put all the cost together, it becomes the total cost of the plan.

Plan Formulation: This is presenting a set of decisions we intend taking as regards our proposed plan in form of a proposal to the appropriate authorities and to provide a line of action to bring the plan into implementation.
It consists of
What is proposed?
Why is it proposed?
How to implement what is proposed? This is taking actions to implement, bring to reality what is planned.

Plan Elaboration:  After the approval of the plan. This is not implementation straight away but involves dividing the plan into specific and achievable duration of time. It involves dividing our plans into what we can achieve if all resources are available and all hands are on deck- dally, weekly, monthly, bimonthly, etc dependent of the size of the plan.

It is more or less like building a house for example we want to roof the duplex- how many carpenters do we need, how  many days will it take, how many how per day will be on roofing the building, etc

For a school, what to we want to achieve a smaller objective that is apart of the big objective, how many staff do we need, like our many days should this take, how many hours in a day should we allot to this, closing time, evaluation time of the day, salary/ wage structures, what we we have left after all this?

At the end of the day we know how long  in reality it will take us to achieve this plan


Plan Implementation: This is the core stage , because if all other process have been consider. If this is left undone it is all NOTHING. Here our  plan is been executed. All little efforts here now becomes very visible, the running of a para-organization has started. Structures are used to carry out tasks, administration of activities is very visible, keeping of records now is very visible.


Evaluation of plan: So now that we have started we need to keep a check on ourselves and the project. This can be done weekly or monthly.
What have we done so far?
Is this want we intend to achieve?
What is it that needs to be corrected?
What has been effective?
What has not been effective?
What challenges have we experienced so far?
How can we tackle them quickly?
Do we need re-oreintation?

Celebrate, Inspire and motivate your team with every little success made, it renews the energy

Effective and efficient planning isn't a day job

Team work keeps plans alive

Good planning = Good projects

Top Notch School Event

S

chool Events are those activities that we have like an award ceremony, End of session party, Carol Service, Open Day, Cultural day, Children's day and the likes.

School events are actually a means of publicizing your school, it tells me what kind of school this is, where this school is going in the nearest future.

Parents gets to invite other parents, child's family relations get to come around, societal figures may come, it may get to be on the Internet, etc as the world is going global etc.

With all this we wouldn't want to leave a wrong or bad impression on the hearts on everyone.

We need to identify :

What kind of event are we holding?  ( is it end of session, PTA night, Children's day, etc)

Outline WHY do we want to hold this event? (Aims, objectives, goals, of the event)

Who are we expecting at our event? ( list out all the names of the invitees and they must be relevant to the goal of the event)

How long will this event take? ( is it in Hours/ days/weeks? )

Who can handle the planning of this event well amongst all the available hands with me? ( maybe a teacher, head teacher, who is best at event planning that will all become a member of the events planning committee after identifying them, your number of committee is dependent on the size of the event, elect the proactive, efficient member to assist the Chairman of the Committee, or to Chair the Committee)

The Committee are to identify:

What do we need to have a successful event( the relevant resources needed to meet the outlined goal of the event - the colours, environment, location, venue, Master of Ceremony (MC), programme of the day, food, decoration, power supply, gifts, security,music, etc)

How do we get them?

How much will they cost?

Draft a budget for the event?

Send an invites to all the invitees

Assign tasks to carried out by other member of the committee

Give deadlines ( not so long) to every assigned task and ensure follow up on the individuals daily, weekly

Hold Frequent meetings to get feedbacks, make corrections, evaluate and chart the course again, create social media platform to encourage seamless communication amongst committee member

Sender Reminders to Invitees a week before

A DAY TO THE EVENT
Identify the time the event is actually starting

Contact the Master of the Ceremony (MC)

Go the event center/ hall ensure the place is ready for the next days program

Go with a Checklist of what ought to be ready and tick the ones that have been done, work more on what is not done yet.

On the D-DAY:
Go with the checklist again, check all over again

Everything should be ready an 1hour before the event start

who is in charge of what during the event?

Get the Mc available an hour before the event.

Have a BEAUTIFUL event....

Make your EVENT count....

And your School is heading for the top.....

We can do Better

Arise o, Compatriot
Nigeria's call Obey
To Serve our father's land
with love and strength and faith
The labour of our heroes past shall never be in vain
To serve with heart and might....

That is a part of our National Anthem, it says "to serve our father's land with love" .... hmmmm, when we love someone or something we are ready to go the extra mile for the person and  that thing.

"The labour of our heroes past Shall never be in vain...." Hmmmm, some of our past leaders lost their blood and lives as they fought for the things we are now enjoying in Nigeria, so what is wrong with us this younger generation in position of authority to do the right thing......

What do you think our education sector will be on the next few years....

Will Nigerian education would have been better that people from overseas will fly in to study in Nigeria rather than what it is right now?

Will it be that only private schools will be up to the standards of the world?

When our very own government owned schools should be a role model.

We need to plan to achieve this with a stipulated day, month, week, year attached to our plans as deadline

I will suggest some solutions to some identified problems of Educational Planning in Nigeria.

The cart before the horse syndrome - This means doing the last thing first. Nigerians we need to always follow due process, and be patient and not boycott the laid down procedures. There ought to be a plan formulation, plan preparation, plan coordination, plan implementation, plan evaluation, etc should be done well efficiently by the appropriate authority dutifully. I would suggest that planning should be done by professional programs and project planners that are independent from external influences.

Unprogressive administrative Traditions: This involves  some subconscious administrative activities that has been in place for a long time in the system but so far it has not helped the system rather it has crippled it. It is high time we do away with irrelevant bureaucracy, nepotism, tribalism, flimsy conflicts, etc within our education system. We need to be re-oreientated on some administrative practices and their impacts on the education system and the economy at large, afterwards  we set up new rules practices and sanctions to inculcate and encourage the new the practices.

Weak Database: Hmmm, it is in our subconscious to always be untruthful with information especially with governmental parastatals, may be because we were once bitten now we are shy (smiles). But for how long do we want to continue like this? We don't have accurate data about all our schools both qualitative and quantitative data. We need to be wise and get information from other means that are connected to schools at different levels through banks, Teachers Registration Council of Nigeria (TRCN), Birth registrations, external examinations, etc. We need to re-orientate the general public we need to inculcate better values into our society. Wrong data equals wrong planning, wrong planning equals wrong results.

Lack of Public support: We Nigerians we need change right, we need to trust us one more and we will not disappoint you again, we need answers from you, understand your real needs we need your views, what you think, even ideas from you. Educational Planners should partner with reputable organizations, get social support, organize orientations through various available platforms- social Media, conduct online surveys, etc.

Politics: Politics and Education, hmmm we cannot separate politics from the educational system because education is a segment of our political system too. But we need to identify irrelevant and relevant politics in the educational system, in terms that will this politics help or deteriorate the educational system. Yes  we  know that the authorities that decides for our education system is our political systems. We need to evaluate so far has partisan politics help the sector or made it worse.... So far it has made it worse so we need to take a new turn. We can't keep doing the same thing and expect the same results, Nigeria!

Inadequate Resources: Resources like Professional Educational Planners, Professional Curriculum planners and writers, Excellent statisticians, etc. Currently in our Educational system we have so many square pegs in Round holes, people who really are qualified for the Education sector are in other sectors of the economy because this economy has not really made an impact and members of the sector are looked down on. Its high time we only accept round pegs on square holes, square pegs in square holes, Education Professionals in other sectors should please be return to this sector. Also, our personnel should be well motivated not just only those at the very peak of this education sector, all needed and relevant educational resources should be adequately provided at the right time. Our available resources should be judiciously used, not mismanaged.

Proper Implementation  : During implementation process there might be itch, but it is advisable to stick with the plans no matter what. We need People are don't easily change their minds to do this implementation.
It must be regularly inspected, evaluated to know if this is exactly what we took so long to plan.

Our Nigeria Education System can be better, if only we take other directions to aim at a better / same goal.