INSIGHTS FROM THE STRATEGIC PLANNING TRAINING

Day 1 Reflections I have been to a strategic planning session during my SMILE-CSA under the auspices of the National Educators' Academy of the Philippines. Our facilitator then was Mr. Mendoza, who a lecturer at the Asian Institute of Management. We were exposed to the VVMOKraPI (Values, Vision, Mission Objectives Key Result Areas and Performance Indicators. VVMOKraPI became the mantra for the 10-day training that we had for our school management course. I completed the course with an output that we promised to implement in our respective schools. (I was then a Head Teacher III at Lawaan Elementary School.) Upon returning, I immediately asked permission from the superintendent to implement it. I texted her for her initial reaction. The answer came and it's a big no. When I reasoned that it was encouraged by NEAP to implement our School Improvement Plan. The reply was something I could not forget until now. "Tell your NEAP people that I am also knowledgeable about school management!" At that time School Improvement Planning is not yet known to school administrators. I was one of the five school administrators whose BSMC output was an SIP. We follow the Mendoza format in our SIPs. But when it was formally instituted, changes in the format came. VVMOKraPI is no longer used. The consultants seem to be competing in inventing terms to use. Then came this call to attend the Capacity Building on Strategic Planning, of which Assistant Superintendents and Planning Officers were the intended participants. The lecturers, who are from the AusAID Human Resources and Organizational Development, introduced again the familiar VMOKraPI, minus the values part. It's back to basic! It seems our consultancy services thrives on rehashing concepts when it is no longer in vogue. But honestly speaking, VMOKraPI is the best planning format. It simplifies things into logical components. Objectives are broad while Key Result Areas are areas of concern. Performance indicators are means of verification, in quantifiable and hence measurable-terms. This training is just one of the many capacity building programs by the Department of Education to prepare the agency for the full implementation of the Enhanced Basic Education Curriculum, otherwise known as K to 12, which became a law just recently. I look forward to learning more after five days of this training. After all, it's just the first day! Good luck to the strategists from Regions X, XI, XII, CARAGA and ARMM, whose participants have not yet arrived as of this writ Day 2 Reflections Day 2 begins with a plenary lecture about OPIF, a new term for me. I have been in a higher position for two years now but I have not attended any planning or budgeting sessions/trainings/seminars. I have heard about results-based planning but it is only now that I have been fully informed about the factors that comprise this framework. So it helps that people in the critical positions be trained in this kind of planning process skills acquisition. People in the TEEP or BEAM regions are lucky because they have been exposed to this kind of training before. External Assessment offers another way of looking at things. Sometimes I tend to mixed up things in doing assessment-like that in the Laguna case- but then the coaches are up to the challenge. They gently pointed out what could have been the proper placement of factors to make our tabular presentation more logically coherent. I look forward to learning the whole strat plan cycle before the week ends.