THE BAHARI GIRLS PLANNING MEETING: Not Planning is Planning to Fail
By Prof. Dr. Halimu Shauri
Email, thecoastnewspaper@gmail.com
The late Hon Robert Ouko, then Minister for Foreign Affairs of Kenya was categorical that “failure to plan is planning to fail”; interpreted to mean that when we plan we are likely to succeed and when we don’t plan we are also planning to fail.
Thus, both success and failure are planned by those involved.
At the Bahari Girls National School, we take this advise seriously. At every beginning of the year, before we open school for first term, we sit and plan.
Our planning meeting involves all the departments, academic and non-academic. This ensures that the school operations receive a buy-in by both teaching and non-teaching staff.
“We recognise that we cannot ignore the ideas and thoughts of the implementers of our plans.”
When you include the voices of those who would be implementors of your plans you are rest assured of success. This is because, apart from their buy-in into the plan, they feel involved and recognised thereby owning the plan as their own.
Once a plan is owned by those who would be implementors, they make sure it succeeds because failure of the plan means their failure.
We recognise this strength as a school and hence we adopt a whole-of-school approach.
Yesterday, 3rd January, 2025, we converged at Mangro Hotel in Diani to plan for this year. We involved heads of academic divisions, non-teaching staff, Parents Teachers Association, management and the board for discussion into how we want to run things this year.
I am happy to report that we have an elaborate plan for 2025. We ideally factored in many success scenarios for last year and challenges with possible solutions.
We acknowledged that things are dynamic and so is the environment in which the school is running, but we agreed to be dynamic too as a school. We look forward for a successful year and welcome back our stakeholders to the school from Tuesday.
By Prof. Dr. Halimu Shauri
Dean & Consultant Sociologist
BOM CHAIRMAN:
THE BAHARI GIRLS NATIONAL SCHOOL
