The study is aimed at analyzing the factors that affect formulation of strategic plans in secondary schools in Mombasa County and its environs. The study looks at various variables namely leadership, training, resources allocation and education policy frameworks as the main challenges. The paper concludes that the above variables to a large extent affect formulation of strategic plans in schools. Finally, the paper recommends that there is need to equip schools leaders with the necessary leadership skills, train all he stakeholders, allocate adequate funds to school and develop clear guidelines and create mechanism to monitor formulation of strategic plans in schools. As such he study reveals that the education offices should to play a major part in providing high end human resource that is critical in addressing the challenges of strategic plans formulation so as to be improve their competitiveness. Much more empirical research of this subject is also recommended.It is a desk study that relies on secondary information such as previous research and analysis of scholars, newspaper/magazines as well as journals and articles that are related to the subject.Strategic planning has become a common phenomenon in all business organizations, schools included. It has been defined by various scholars differently. A strategy is a set of activities or processes that an organization intends to use in order to achieve its set goals and aims (Pearce, 2009). Strategic planning and thinking involves making choices and decisions about the long-term future of an organization (Pearce, 2009). A strategic plan helps to provide direction and focus for all employees. Clive (2005) defines strategic planning as a setting out decisions and actions that result in the formulation and implementation of actions designed to achieve an organizations objectives. However, it has now become a major challenge amongst various secondary schools in Kenya.