<![CDATA[This study investigated the relationship between principals' strategic planning and school effectiveness in public senior secondary schools in Kwara State, Nigeria. Four dimensions of principals' strategic planning goal-setting, resource management planning, data-driven planning, and communication planning were examined in relation to key indicators of school effectiveness, namely student academic achievement, teacher effectiveness, and parent and community satisfaction. A correlational survey design was adopted. The population comprised principals and teachers in the 413 public senior secondary schools in Kwara State, and a multi-stage sampling technique yielded 203 usable responses from 275 administered copies of the self-designed Principals' Strategic Planning and School Effectiveness Questionnaire (PSPSEQ), which recorded a Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient of 0.81. Data were analysed using mean, standard deviation, and Pearson Product-Moment Correlation (PPMC) at the 0.05 level of significance. Results showed that principals engaged moderately to highly in all four strategic planning dimensions (overall mean = 3.21, SD = 0.614) and that school effectiveness was generally high (mean = 3.34, SD = 0.667). A significant positive relationship was found between overall strategic planning and school effectiveness (r = .393, p < .05), and each of the four dimensions — goal-setting planning (r = .569), resource management planning (r = .255), data-driven planning (r = .386), and communication planning (r = .507) was significantly related to school effectiveness. The study concludes that strengthening principals' strategic planning practices is essential for sustainable school improvement and recommends targeted capacity-building, stakeholder engagement, and data-driven decision-making in public secondary schools.]]>
