Supreme Special: Creativity and Planning in Schools

CONCEPT OF PLANNING:

The term planning simply put is the preparations carried out towards optimum use of available resources to achieve specified goals or objective. UNESCO (2003) defines planning as a means which makes it possible for us to work out a systematic outline of activities to be undertaken in order to meet the direct objectives of a country within that countries possibility and aspiration. Tarda (2016)

• Planning is futuristic

• Planning is mainly for the achievements of set goals and objectives

• There is need for planning because resources are hardly ever enough ,so it helps reduce wastages and ensures judicious use of available resources

EDUCATIONAL PLANNING:

Educational planning is the application of the principles of planning to education. Combs cited in Akpan (2000) views educational planning as the application of rational systematic analysis to the process of educational development with the aim of making education more effective and efficient in responding to the needs and goals of the students and the society.

IMPORTANCE OF SCHOOL PLANNING

• This enables all stakeholders to work towards a common vision. A leading cause of employee discontent (for businesses, non-profits, and even schools) is that employees don't understand how the work they're doing helps their organization. With a well communicated and executed strategic plan, everyone is informed of their school's goals and how their actions are contributing to the achievement of these goals.

• Planning effectively organizes schools and their staff, it encourages commitment by showing staff members that their work is essential, part of a larger strategy to help their school succeed.

• Planning defines how success is measured. In order to achieve success, it's important to know what success means. A school with a strategy can monitor its progress toward keep outcomes and evaluate where and how it may have gotten off track.

• It ensure the harmonization of the interest of the major stakeholders like the students, parents, teachers and the school community.

• Planning reduces waste by ensuring that the available resources are rationally allocated among competing educational demands and programs.

CREATIVITY AND SCHOOL PLANNING

Creativity is a big deal in the 21st century classroom. Many countries include it as a core aim for their students in national curricula and even countries such as Singapore that come top of world education league tables are recognizing the need for more of it in their schools. This surge of interest in creativity among teachers, school leaders, academics and governments is partly driven by a growing belief that a fast-paced global economy requires workers with the flexibility of mind to adapt to constant change rather than follow a traditional career path. We live in a world where increasingly complex problems require creative solutions and where individuals' lives can be enhanced by the greater feeling of satisfaction that comes with having opportunities to explore their own creativity. Creativity in this context is not performance-related, arts-based model of creativity, such as playing a musical instrument, painting a picture, acting a part in a play, writing a unique song, poem or story. This is in contrast to a broader definition of creativity as the ability to make connections between two previously unrelated ideas or context. Creativity and planning are a wonderful duo, they can hardly be effective without each other. Creativity facilities planning that is, it translates planning from the traditional way to a more globally accepted way, creativity dares school planning to explore new areas, creativity is show cased through school planning. Creativity enhances curiosity in school planners, the difference between schools that succeed and those that fail is creativity and planning. Creativity and planning births success, policy making and implementation are void of monotony with creativity and planning, they are vital tools in the journey of success of any organization, creative planning is what schools need to withstand competition and changes that are inevitable. Creativity and planning brings tremendous results.

CONCLUSION

There is a popular Nigerian parlance 'which says he who fails to plan, plans to fail' .Doing the same thing and expecting a different result is availing yourself breakfast to your competitors, the riskiest place to be is at a spot. Educational planners in Nigeria should recognize the place of creativity in their plans, researches should be financed by the Government, training should be carried out on regular basis to expose teachers to innovations and the trends in education. Education should be recognized as the life wire of any nation, the developed world is called developed because of emphasis on education and the preparedness to do anything positive to achieve educational goals for her citizens.

KRYSTAL IBHADE TAMUNOSIKI

krystaltaminosiki@gmail.com