SHAREHOLDERS’ OBSERVATIONS ON THE PROVISION, APPLICATION AND PRESERVATION OF SCHOOL FACILITIES IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN NORTH – CENTRAL ZONE, NIGERIA
ABSTRACT
The study is titled, ‘‘Stakeholders’ Perceptions on the Provision, Utilization and Maintenance of School Facilities in Secondary Schools in North – Central zone of Nigeria’’. The study employed descriptive survey design. Three (3) objectives were set among which are to: examine stakeholders’ opinions on the provision of instructional facilities, welfare/health, games/recreational and infrastructural facilities in secondary schools in North – Central zone of Nigeria; and ascertain stakeholders’ opinions on the utilization of instructional facilities, welfare/health, games/recreational and infrastructural facilities in secondary schools in North – Central zone of Nigeria. Three (3) research questions were raised in line with the objectives which include, how are instructional facilities, welfare/health, games/recreational and infrastructural facilities utilized in secondary schools in North – Central zone of Nigeria? what is level of maintenance of instructional facilities, welfare/health, games/recreational and infrastructural facilities in secondary schools in North – Central zone of Nigeria? Also, three(3) Null hypotheses were postulated which were stated among others that there is no significant difference in the opinions of stakeholders’ on the utilization of instructional, welfare/health, games/recreational and infrastructural facilities in secondary schools in North-Central zone, Nigeria. there is no significant difference in the opinions of stakeholders’ on the maintenance of instructional, welfare/health, games/recreational and infrastructural facilities in secondary schools in North-Central zone of Nigeria. Literature reviewed was on the concepts of perception, provision, utilization, maintenance of school facilities, theoretical framework, emperical studies. The total population for the study was 99,110 participants. This consists of 2,781 principals, 28,380 PTA Officials, 37, 450 public secondary school teachers, 24,090 private secondary school teachers and 6,406 Ministry of Education Officials. A total of 3,210 respondents took part in the study which consisted of 338 principals, 1,014 PTA Officials, 1,690 teachers, 56 Ministry of Education Officials, 56 Teaching Service Commission Officials, 56 Officials of Quality Assurance, The instrument used was a questionnaire. The questionnaire was duly validated and reliability coefficient of 0.97 was obtained. Hypotheses were tested using Analysis of variance (ANOVA) at 0.05 level of significance. Findings from this research work revealed that instructional materials as well as needed games/recreational facilities, welfare/health facilities and Infrastructural facilities were not adequately provided, while the available ones were not maximaly utilized and poorly maintained as expressed in the opinions of Stakeholders in North-Central zone of Nigeria. The following conclusions were made among others that Instructional materials such as visual, audio, audio/visual, equipment, textbooks and ICT materials are not adequately provided, while the available ones are not maximally utilized and not adequately maintained.The study recommends among others that state governments through Ministries of Education, TESCOM should provide adequate instructional materials such as machines, audio, visual, audio-visual materials, textbooks and ICT materials.Further
studies can also incorporate the public and private primary schools in the same zone or other
zones of the country
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Quality and standard education can only be achieved when there are adequate provision, utilization and maintenance of school facilities such as instructional facilities, welfare/health facilities, games/recreational facilities, and infrastructural facilities in schools. These facilities must also been maximally utilized and properly maintained to make teaching and learning more effective and efficient. The main objective of secondary school education according to National Policy on Education 2014 is providing education for individual to have a useful living within a society; a higher education. In specific term, the objectives of secondary school education include: provide opportunity for primary school leaver to have higher education, diversified curriculum to cater for different talent, foster national unity, inspire students‘ desire for self- improvement and achievement, provide vocational and technical manpower in area of commerce, industry, agriculture etc. develop and promote Nigeria language, art and culture, raise a generation of people who can think for themselves, respect the views and feelings of others, respect the dignity of labour, appreciate those values specified under our national broad goals and live as good citizen.
As a result of the above laudable goals and objectives, the stakeholders in education have invested a lot of resources in educating the young ones so that they can be useful for themselves and the society at large. Therefore, school can be referred to as a vehicle through which the purpose of education is achieved through the process of teaching and learning. To this end, the teachers and the learners that are involved in this process of teaching and learning need to be properly accommodated. This is the essence of school facilities.
School facilities, otherwise refered to as educational facilities include instructional facilities, welfare/health facilities, games/recreational facilities and infrastructural facilities which help to facilitate educational programme. The school facilities also include the school building, playing-ground, furniture, classroom, library, hostel offices, black-board, school record etc. The conditions of the school facilities should be conducive for the all-round development of the student- physical, emotional, social, cultural, aesthetic, and moral. In order to achieve this purpose, good learning environment should be created by providing, utilizing and maintenance of the school facilities. Peter (2015) sees school facilities as the sum total of building, equipment, textbook including the surrounding where teaching and learning takes place. This includes all permanent and semi permanent structures in the school. School facilities are very essential to achieving positive outcomes in the teaching and learning process.
The school facilities are the pillar and support of all teaching and learning activities. The site, size, arrangement and other aspects of the classroom, support facilities such as laboratories, toilets and other equipment can either be welcoming or repulsive to teachers and students alike. This simple fact has been noted to profoundly influence the acts of teaching and learning. So school facilities such as: instructional facilities, welfare/health facilities, games/recreational facilities and infrastructural facilities, are an essential part of human life and finds in many different forms which are shaped naturally by individual interests but also by the surrounding social construction.
From above, good quality and standard of school depend largely on provision, utilization and maintenance of school facilities. Provision of school facilities are defined as the state of making available needed materials in school for effective teaching and learning while school facilities utilization is the degree or extent to which an item has been put into effective use, various degree of utilization include: Non-utilization, under-utilization, maximum utilization, optimum utilization, over utilization. Also, school facilities maintenance entails ensuring that the facilities are kept near original state as possible.The provision, utilization and maintenance of the school facilities mentioned above may determine to a large extent the achievement of aims and objectives of education. Hamdallah, Ozovehe, and Olanrewaju (2013), observed that the basic focus in any institution is on plant and administration of facilities, because, effective and efficient running of the system depends on proper maintenance and use of available structural units and facilities. What prevails in most public school facilities which were installed over fifty years ago have undergone wear and tear. This is because they have been used above their estimated a mortal age and as such are begging for both minor and major repairs. On the other hand, some of these facilities such as building and physical structure are so poorly constructed that they do not last as they are expected (in terms of human resources, they are so poorly maintained that they are not working effectively).
As there too much emphasis on speeding up the process of teaching and learning process, learning environment must be given a look environment that it deserves. A beautiful, healthy and always refreshing learning environment can only be achieved by adequate provision of essential facilities. This will help in creating a congenial educative environment. Kibuthu, Ndirangu & Udoto (2016) noted that the school physical facilities require proper planning to provide inspirational setting for learning. Therefore it can be said that the school facilities are an essential aspect of educational planning because unless schools are well suited, buildings adequately constructed and equipment adequately provided much teaching and learning may not take place.
In Nigeria, the National Policy on Education (2014) clearly states that government will make effort to provide school health services to all educational institutions. Also the Federal Government guidance on minimum standards (2010) in schools nation-wide recommends that quality assurance is the management of goods, services and activities from the input stage, through processes, to the output stage of production. It aims at preventing quality problems and ensuring that only conforming products reach the customer. Indicators of quality in the basic education context include quality teachers and learners, quality content of curriculum, quality instruction, child friendly learning environment (physical and aesthetical) and quality outcomes (including academic achievement).
However, the situation in most of public schools is contrary to the national policy on education which proposes that it will make provision that ensures even and adequate distribution of educational system. Since school facilities are the space interpretation of the school curriculum, facilitating teaching and learning processes, it is therefore positively related to students‘ academic performance. It also ensures effective delivery of school curriculum, standard in educational productivity in terms of quantity and quality of product, rapid growth in a nation‘s educational sector and consequently rapid economic growth.
To this end, well provided, utilized and maintained school facilities will ease the inculcation of scientific skills and attitude in our student; it will enhance the comfort, safety of pupils and teachers, thereby increasing their performances. The quality of education received by the students bears direct relevance to the availability or lack of school facilities and the overall environment in which learning takes place. Provision of adequate and sufficient school facilities, when properly utilized and maintained is thus expected to reflect positively in the academic performances of students.
Without adequate provision, utilization and proper maintenance may affect student achievement as observed by Alsuiadi (2015) that, poor school facilities have been identified as probably affecting students negatively, resulting in high levels of absenteeism or dropping out of school due to the lack of a welcoming ambiance, modern classrooms, laboratories or sports grounds, all of which have come to be seen as obstacles to achievement. Based on the above perspectives, the present study intends to investigate the stakeholders‘ perceptions on the provision, utilization and maintenance of school facilities in secondary schools in North Central Zone, Nigeria.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
A review of previous educational programmes in the country shows that resource inadequacy has long been a major education shortcoming (Olelewe, Nzeadibe & Nzeadibe, 2014). The level of educational resources provided for the implementation of education programmes is inadequate and irregular. State of school facilities in secondary schools generally have called for a great concern among stakeholders in the education sector. The perceptions of Ministry of Education Officials, principals, teachers and Parent Teacher Association (PTA) officials may be as a result of inadequate provision of school facilities, over utilization as well as poor maintenance culture of few available facilities in secondary schools.
There is no doubt that inadequate school facilities were responsible for the poor performance of students in external examinations like Junior SCE and SSCE.
The problem of school facilities has been linked to poor students‘ performance in both internal and public examination. The recently released 2017/2018 Senior
Secondary School Examination by West African Examination Council, (WAEC,
2018) results showed the decline in performance when compared with those of 2016 and 2017 editions. Ogundare (2018) quoted Okebukola and Olukoya that
52.97 percent of the total candidates obtained the pass grade level in 2016 and 59.22 percent in 2017. 2018 performance with 923, 486 (representing 49.98%) obtained credits and above in at least five subjects, including English Language and Mathematics which is the benchmark for university admission, out of the total
1, 572, 396 candidates who sat for the examination. This year‘s performance regressed by about 10 percent. Among the indirect factors for decline, according to former executive secretary of the National University Commission (NUC), Professor Peter Okebukola is gross inadequacy of facilities for teaching and learning in most schools. Inadequate infrastructure and teaching tools, especially in science and technical schools, quality of facilities in most schools today, especially the government owned schools, including teaching and learning equipment and materials. He further observed that, more than 70 percent of all government secondary schools national are ill equipped with infrastructural facilities, including science laboratories and workshops, tables and chairs and other items that could make classes conducive.
Provision, utilization and maintenance of school facilities in secondary schools has been investigated by number of researchers like Muhammad, Muhammad, Khalid, Javed and Muhammad (2015) who found that public secondary schools provided better facilities as compared to private secondary schools in Punjab, Pakistan. Anike (2015) study revealed that private schools are more equipped with health infrastructure facilities than public secondary schools in the study area. Ayeni and Ogunbameru (2013) found that the relationship between teachers and students on the utilization of ICT facilities was low.
Izobo-Martins, Dare-Abel and Ayo-Vaughan (2014) showed that user attitude, maintenance culture and lack of fund have major influence on the present condition of the existing infrastructures. Okyere-Kwakye (2013) study revealed that facilities like furniture for pupil, urinal and toilet facilities and classroom blocks, were available but not adequate. Rufai, Umar & Idris (2013) found that, inadequate provision of infrastructural facilities is due to low level of funding of educational institutions, particularly TVE institutions in Nigeria and this made it impossible to actually achieve the aims and objectives of TVE as outlined by the
Federal Republic of Nigeria (FRN) in the National Policy on Education (NPE) (FRN, 2014. In the same vein, Tadesse and Maeregu (2014) discovered that school facilities were unavailable, less in quantity and quality and that created a great challenge on teaching and learning activities that in turn had a negative impact on the improvement of the quality of education. Their studies however, were not on the perceptions of educational stakeholders on the provision, utilization and maintenance of instructional facilities, welfare/health facilities, games/recreational facilities and infrastructural facilities. Therefore, this study was set to investigate stakeholders‘ perception on the provision, utilization and maintenance of school facilities in secondary schools in North Central zone ,
Nigeria.
1.3 Objectives of the Study
The main objective of this study is to examine the opinions of stakeholders on the provision, utilization and maintenance of school facilities in secondary schools in North Central Zone of Nigeria. Basically, the study was set to:
- examine stakeholders‘ opinions on the provision of instructional facilities, welfare/health facilities, games/recreational facilities and infrastructural facilities in secondary schools in North Central Zone of Nigeria;
- ascertain stakeholders‘ opinions on the utilization of instructional facilities, welfare/health facilities, games/recreational facilities and infrastructural facilities in secondary schools in North Central Zone of Nigeria; and
- assess stakeholders‘ opinions on maintenance of instructional facilities, welfare/health facilities, games/recreational facilities and infrastructural facilities in secondary schools in North Central Zone of Nigeria.
1.4 Research Questions
The following research questions will be answered in the cause of this study:
- What are the stakeholders‘ opinions on the provision of instructional facilities, welfare/health facilities, games/recreational facilities and infrastructural facilities in secondary schools in North Central Zone of Nigeria?
- To what extent is the utilization of instructional facilities, welfare/health facilities, games/recreational facilities and infrastructural facilities in secondary schools in North Central Zone of Nigeria?
- What is the level of maintenance of instructional facilities, welfare/health facilities, games/recreational facilities and infrastructural facilities in secondary schools in North Central Zone of Nigeria?
1.5 Research Hypotheses
The following null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study:
Ho1: There is no significant difference in the opinions of Ministry of Education Officials, principals, teachers and Parent Teacher Association (PTA) officials on the provision of instructional, welfare/health, games/recreational and infrastructural facilities in secondary schools in North Central Zone of Nigeria.
Ho2: There is no significant difference in the opinions of stakeholders‘ on the utilization of instructional, welfare/health, games/recreational and infrastructural facilities in secondary schools in North Central Zone, Nigeria.
Ho3: There is no significant difference in the opinions of stakeholders‘ on the maintenance of instructional, welfare/health, games/recreational and infrastructural facilities in secondary schools in North Central
Zone of Nigeria.
1.6 Basic Assumptions
For the purpose of this study, the following assumptions would be made
that:
- If there is adequate provision of instructional, welfare/health, games/recreational and infrastructural facilities in secondary schools in North Central Zone of Nigeria; there will be a conducive environment for teaching and learning process.
- Maximum utilization of instructional, welfare/health, games/recreational and infrastructural facilities in secondary schools in North Central Zone of Nigeria would not only guarantee students‘ health/welfare needs but it would also provide staff with medical attention
- Proper maintenance of instructional, welfare/health,games/recreational and infrastructural facilities in secondary schools in North Central Zone of Nigeria would increase their life span and make ready for the use of teaching and learning.
1.7 Significance of the Study
The findings from this study would add to the body of existing knowledge on provision, utilization and maintenance of school facilities like instructional facilities, welfare/health facilities, games/recreational facilities, and infrastructural facilities in secondary schools.
The results of this study will assist government and private individual to see to the pointer to the need for adequate provision of school facilities such as instructional facilities, welfare/health facilities, games/recreational facilities, and infrastructural facilities in secondary schools.
The outcome of this study will help teachers to put these facilities into effective use for teaching and learning. This is because, teachers are the users of facilities and effective utilization will go a long way to achieve desired educational goals.
The theory techniques of this study will be of significant benefit to teachers and school principals on various methods of maintenance of the available school facilities in their schools in order to achieve the major aim of education.
Another useful aspect of this study is that, it will help the educational planners, administrators and policy makers in giving special attention or cognizance to school facilities as an aspect of educational management in the area of school facilities maintenance in secondary schools.
1.8 Scope of the Study
This study is limited to the provision, utilization and maintenance of school facilities in secondary schools in North Central Zone, Nigeria. The study is also be limited to instructional facilities, welfare/health facilities, games/recreational facilities and infrastructural facilities in both public and private secondary schools in the study area. The scope of this study will cover all the states in North Central Zone, Nigeria (Benue, Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger and Plateau) including the Federal Capital Territory (F.C.T) Abuja.
SHAREHOLDERS’ OBSERVATIONS ON THE PROVISION, APPLICATION AND PRESERVATION OF SCHOOL FACILITIES IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN NORTH – CENTRAL ZONE, NIGERIA