An investigation of the condition of maintenance of facilities at public primary and high schools in Alfred Nzo East District, Eastern Cape Province, South Africa

Abstract

Most of the facilities at public primary and high schools in South Africa are in a dilapidated state with little maintenance. Therefore, this study intends to investigate the condition of maintenance of facilities at public primary and high schools in Alfred Nzo East District, Eastern Cape Province. The rationale for the research is the importance of maintenance of facilities at schools to guarantee safe and secure learning environments for the learners and educators. Unfortunately, school governing bodies in have neglected maintenance at schools due to a lack of knowledge about maintaining facilities and inadequate funding. This study will intervene by investigating the condition of facilities and developing recommendations which will support the maintenance of facilities to create good learning environments for learners and educators in order to improve education at Public Primary and High schools in the area. To collect quantitative data, questionnaires were administered to schools in Alfred Nzo East District and the condition of the schools was assessed using a prepared condition assessment tool. Alfred Nzo East District has a total of 218 schools, which were the target population. The schools were clustered into their circuits and schools in each cluster were then randomly sampled to get the required sample of 138 schools, from the target population of 218 schools. Two district officials responsible for school maintenance were sampled to make a total of 140 sample. Upon carefully analysing the collected data, it was established that the school facilities are in a state of disrepair and schools have turned into death traps for the occupants. The cause for dilapidating school infrastructure was found to be poor level of understanding of those people responsible for school infrastructure maintenance, inadequate funding, poor planning and monitoring which cause poor implementation of maintenance. To change the current state collaboration between the role players and capacitation is required, such as school governing bodies, district infrastructure officials and provincial department. Proper allocation of funds and other resources; proper planning and utilisation of existing funds were found to be vitally important. The employment of handymen or women for each school was identified as key to address challenge of poor maintenance of the school facilities.