PESTLE Analysis for Schools or

Education
27/10/2016 by Mike Morrison 6 Comments
A PESTLE analysis is a tool that can provide prompts to the governors, management and
staff involved in the analysis of the changes in the school’s environment that could impact
future finance, planning and management decisions. It can enable them carry out a more
comprehensive analysis.  

A PESTLE is usually used in commercial organisations as a part of the strategic development of a

business and marketing plan, however a PESTLE analysis can be used as part of identifying the
opportunities and threats (swOT) for operational planning within educational and school
environments.

The PESTLE provides a simple framework within which to consider external factors. 
PESTLE is used as part of a SWOT for identifying the external factors (OT)
 

 
 

Political  A government initiative creates the risk that the

school may fail to deliver the policy or be
diverted away from local priorities etc.
 Changes to curriculum
 The political interfering in the hiring of teachers
 Priority of current administration
 Political instability
Economic  Central or local government funding decisions
may affect school/ establishment finances
 Closure of a private schools
 Migration of teachers from private to public
(The risk of highly valued, key staff moving on
to more ‘up and coming’ schools/ academies)
 Salary of teachers
 Inflation
 Employment rate
 Income of the stakeholders
Social - The social  Demographic profile of stakeholders
aspect covers all the  Social status
potential benefits and  Local population changes (increasing/
drawbacks that can decreasing numbers)
affect a country
 Mother tongue based education
socially.
 Religious belief
 Traditional Filipino values
 Sandwich generation
 Perspective over vocational courses
 Closure of local firms providing employment
 Social networking – blogs, facebook, twitter
 Inclusion of students with special needs
 Level of GAD awareness
 Parental involvement
 Information is accessible to staff anywhere in
the world via the Internet
 Staff were not given enough training or access
to effectively change their habits and how they
expected information to be made available
Technological  Retrofitting of classrooms and facilities
 Risk of selecting the wrong technology at times
of change (i.e. windows -v- open source)
 Manual to automated operations
 ICT skills of teachers
 The prevalent use of social media among
students.
 The availability of online learning platform.
 New computer viruses may affect school/
college operations,
 Disturbing/ illegal images on the internet may
affect ICT security measures etc.
 Move from paper based books to e-book
readers
 Computer hardware being out of date
 Computer software being out of date
 Time to manage IT systems
Legislative  Child protection related policy
 new legislation may create risks of non-
compliance with the law, create new
administrative burdens etc
 Changes to child protection legislation
 Raise the age of school leaving age
  Raise/ lower the age of starting school.
Nursery/ kindergarten
 Change to school opening hours
 Changes to funding of charity-based
organisations.
 Health & safety legislation
Environmental  Geographic location of the school
 Climate/weather and other natural calamities
 Man-made hazards
 The use of eco-friendly products
 The physical structure of the schools
 Waste disposal
 Reduction of green space available for
activities
 Changes to local bus routes
