GASPRO International Journal of Eminent Scholars

                                                                                   ABSTRACT

Stakeholders’ changing expectations and increasing concern for improved teaching and learning in educational institutions in recent times calls for rethinking education planning and management. For the tertiary education environment, deploying the ideas of strategic management becomes necessary. However, there appears a lack of clarity about how tertiary education managers can appreciate and operationalize strategic management in its educational progarmmes, align its programmes to the environment and ultimately achieve success in educational service delivery. In this paper, there is an overview of management as well as education planning and management which offers insights into the basic elements inherent in the management process and what education planners and managers do in their various institutions. In response to the challenges currently being faced by tertiary education institutions reflecting the changing times and expectations, key strategic management rationalities are presented to guide managers of these institutions in effectively responding to the demands of the time. In particular, the paper suggests a modeling of academic programmes in the tertiary education institution using SWOT analysis that throws up the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the institution; determining the mission, vision and objectives of the institution, formulating education strategy and its implementation; in particular, the paper emphasized the need for SMART objectives and the need for education strategy evaluation and control which is useful in determining the effectiveness of such education strategy and taking corrective actions whenever required in order to position the institution towards realizing set educational goals.

KEYWORDS: Strategic management, Rationalities, Tertiary Education, Planning management.