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The purpose of this paper is to present previous studies and reports which have shown that most school buildings in the USA suffer from inadequate physical conditions. As American school buildings become “older”, it is essential for every school district to have an effective facilities maintenance management plan of its facilities. Therefore, the main purpose of this study is to identify and analyze how facilities maintenance is planned, managed and carried out by large public schools in the State of Texas, USA.

Guidelines taken from the literature drove the development of a survey questionnaire, which was sent to 320 school facilities managers from four major metropolitan areas in Texas. Elementary, middle and high schools with enrollments of 750 students or more were selected from the Texas Education Agency's web site. The responses were received in a secure database established at an online web site, where participants' identities were kept confidential.

The overall findings of this research indicate a poor quality of facilities maintenance management practices exists in large public schools in Texas. Nevertheless, the study also found that schools following the guidelines set by the US Department of Education tend to have comparatively more detailed and contemporary information about their facility's condition. As a result, these schools are able to predict the projected needs of the school, including its maintenance needs.

The results of this study can be adapted and used by any public school that would like to provide high‐quality school facilities for healthy and supportive teaching and learning environments.

The purpose of this paper is to argue that taking the educational purposes of schools into account is central to understanding the place and importance of facilities to learning outcomes. The paper begins by observing that the research literature connecting facility conditions to student outcomes is mixed. A closer examination of this literature suggests that when school facilities are measured from an engineering perspective, little connection to learning outcomes is evident. By contrast, when school facilities are rated in terms of educational functions, a connection to learning outcomes is apparent.

The paper provides an empirical test of the educational relevance of how school facilities are measured. Using the schools in a Canadian division, the condition of school facilities was measured in two ways, including both conventional, engineering tools and a survey capturing principals' assessments. School facility ratings using these alternate measurement methods were correlated with schools' quality of teaching and learning environments (QTLE).

Two central findings emerge. First, engineering assessments of facilities are unrelated to the QTLE in schools. Second, educators' assessments of school facilities are systematically related to the QTLE in schools.

The findings indicate that more research needs to be directed at developing sound tools for measuring school facilities in terms of their educational relevance. In addition, school administrators need to reconsider policies that devalue the contribution that facilities make to learning outcomes.

A growing body of research connecting the quality of school facilities to student performance accompanies recent efforts to improve the state of the educational infrastructure in the USA. Less is known about the mechanisms of these relationships. This paper seeks to examine the proposition that part of the explanation may be the mediating influence of school climate.

Teachers from 80 Virginia middle schools were surveyed employing measures including the School Climate Index, a seven‐item quality of school facilities scale, as well as three resource support items. Data on student SES and achievement were also gathered. Bivariate correlational analysis was used to explore the relationships between the quality of facilities, resource support, school climate, student SES, and student achievement. In addition, multiple regression was used to test school climate as a mediating variable between the quality of facilities and student achievement.

Results confirmed a link between the quality of school facilities and student achievement in English and mathematics. As well, quality facilities were significantly positively related to three school climate variables. Finally, results confirmed the hypothesis that school climate plays a mediating role in the relationship between facility quality and student achievement.

As we face fundamental issues of equity across schools and districts, leaders struggle to convince taxpayers of the need to invest in replacing and/or renovating inadequate facilities. Deeper understandings of the complicated interplay between the physical and social environments of school, and how these dynamics influence student outcomes, may help educators build a compelling case.

This research aims to examine the difference in the availability, adequacy and functionality of physical facilities in centralized and decentralized schools districts, with a view to making appropriate recommendations to stakeholders on the reform programmes in the Nigerian education sector.

Principals, teachers, members of the board of education including parents and community leaders were surveyed from centralized and decentralized school districts on availability, adequacy, and functionality of schools facilities.

Emerging data revealed that decentralization enhances the availability, adequacy and functionality of schools physical facilities.

The implication of the findings is that decentralization is a more efficient method of managing schools' infrastructure because it promotes accountability and reduces official corruption in schools administration.

Findings from this research provide practical solutions to the problem of physical facilities inadequacy in the Nigerian school system.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of school facility conditions on the delivery of instruction from the perspective of school principals in the USA.

By employing a multivariate correlational research design, the paper empirically investigated whether the quality of ten facility conditions affects the delivery of instruction after controlling three school and three student characteristics that also may affect the delivery of instruction. The conceptual framework of this paper envisions the physical capital, along with the human and social capitals, as one of the three main core elements for effective teaching and learning. The conceptual framework of the study incorporated facility conditions identified by Schneider and Castaldi. Consistent with the literature, the conditions of school facilities in the conceptual framework included mainly cosmetic factors. The FRSS 88: Public School Principals' Perceptions of Their Facilities: Fall 2005 data set of the National Center for Educational Statistics is the main data source of the study. The data set included a nationally representative sample of 1,037 public school principals.

The findings of the study indicated that six of the ten facility conditions are statiscally and positively associated with the delivery of instruction. These six facility conditions significantly predicted the delivery of instruction after controlling other extraneous or plausible variables. Facility conditions accounted for 43 percent of the explained variation on the delivery of instruction with a medium‐sized effect.

Because of its service‐oriented nature, the human factor has long been the primary focus of educational research. Organisational settings, where workers function and interact, and the contextual factors that shape organisational behaviour have attracted little attention among educational researchers. The findings of this study provided much‐needed evidence to educators, policymakers, and legislators who are in dire need of research‐based guidance on the effects of school facilities. The paper supported the notion that educational facilities do matter and they affect the delivery of instruction. The findings of the study may also have implications to other fields (i.e. heath, business, and manufacturing) in regard to the effects of facility conditions on the effectiveness of personnel at any workplace.

This paper contributes to the field by offering a nationwide perspective of school principals on the effects of school facilities on teaching.

The objectives of this paper are to present an assessment for the consideration of fire safety during the design stages of school facilities in Saudi Arabia; and to present the development of a fire risk assessment survey tool whereby existing school facilities can be evaluated for the purpose of identifying and eliminating fire hazards, and meeting the minimum requirements of current legislation.

The paper classifies the factors that make school facilities a high‐risk type of buildings to fire; reviews causes of fires in schools and identifies potential high‐risk areas to fires in school facilities; and reviews design and operation factors controlling fire severity.

Investigating the consideration for fire safety in the design phase of public school facilities in Saudi Arabia indicated that the design office at the Ministry of Education is active in providing the following fire safety requirements: fire detection and notification systems including smoke detectors and fire alarms; fire suppression and extinguishing systems including automatic sprinkler systems, standpipe and hose system and portable fire extinguishers; and means of egress and evacuation systems including exit doors, emergency lighting and directional signs. The fire risk assessment survey tool developed in this paper consists of 61 items to assess fire protection equipment, exitways/stairs, interior decorations/interior finish integrity, fire hydrants and lanes, electrical wiring, laboratories, and maintenance measures.

The paper provides practical value to design professionals of school projects and school staff and facilities managers responsible for the day‐to‐day operation of school facilities.

The purpose of this paper is to present an IDEF₀ framework model for the post-occupancy evaluation of school facilities, and the findings of a case study to demonstrate the applicability of the framework.

The framework model consists of five sequential processes, namely: first, identify the performance requirements of school facilities; second, conduct a walk-through evaluation and a focussed group discussion; third, develop and administer a user satisfaction survey; fourth, analyze the collected data and report the findings; and fifth, develop a plan of remedial actions.

The case study demonstrates the applicability of the framework through presenting the findings of an indicative evaluation of the major technical and functional elements of performance carried out on a school building in city of Khobar, Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. The school users were satisfied with the qualities of the thermal comfort, visual comfort, fire protection, functional spaces in the school and the interior and exterior appearance of the school. The case study also resulted in developing a plan of remedial actions to improve the performance of the school.

The framework model provides a descriptive and systematic approach for evaluating the technical and functional performance of existing school facilities. The approach followed in collecting the data, designing the user satisfaction survey, analyzing and reporting the findings can be applied to any school building, upon the needed customization, irrespective of location.

The paper is particularly beneficial for design professionals, school administrators and facilities managers responsible for the design and operation of school facilities.

The purpose of this paper is to identify and assess the significance of various factors affecting maintenance costs of public school facilities.

Detailed literature review resulted in identifying 54 factors that were categorized under nine groups. This was followed by a questionnaire survey completed by 60 experienced professionals. The relative importance index was used to determine the in-group ranking, as well as the overall ranking of these factors.

The study established that the five most significant factors affecting the maintenance cost of public school facilities were “not providing operations and maintenance manuals to maintenance group” in the “construction phase” category, “ignoring maintainability studies in design” in the “design phase” category, “specification of low-quality materials” in the “design phase” category, “selection criteria of contractors” in the “regulations and contracting” category, and “lack of quality control during work execution” in the “construction phase” category.

The present research represents the first research covering the maintenance cost of public school facilities in Saudi Arabia. The study also presents the unique landscape of facility maintenance in the Saudi Arabian context. The outcome of this research has the potential to significantly cut down unnecessary costs rooted in expensive maintenance of public school facilities, enhancing the quality of these facilities. The findings also underscore the necessity of collaboration and coordination of the various key disciplines toward the realization of cost-effective school facilities.

The level of deterioration of educational facilities, such as leaking classroom roofs, inadequate good seats, obsolete offices, broken shutters and doors, outdated school buildings, power plants and office equipment like ICT media, laboratories, offices and workshops, despite the involvement of Alumni association in the maintenance of educational facilities for the effective actualization of school objectives was a worrisome nightmare in Kogi state. This, therefore, prompted the researchers to explore the Alumni’s participation in plant maintenance for effective implementation of the universal basic education (UBE) programme in public junior secondary schools in Kogi state. The purpose of this study was guided by the research question which stated that to what extent does the Alumni Association participate in plant maintenance for effective implementation of the UBE programme in public junior secondary schools in Kogi state?

A quantitative research approach using a descriptive survey was adopted for the study. The sample was drawn using a proportionate stratified sampling technique comprising 387 participants which consisted of 191 (49%) urban junior secondary school principals and 196 (51%) rural principals in selected UBE junior secondary schools. Alumni’s Participation in Plant Maintenance Questionnaire was used as an instrument for data collection. The data were analysed with the aid of mean and standard deviation for the research question and z-test statistics at 0.05 level of significance and the value of z-crit. of 1.96 was used to determine the rejection or otherwise of the hypotheses.

The descriptive analysis revealed that the average mean set of 2.64 pointed to the fact that the respondents averagely agreed that there was a high extent to which Alumni participate in plant maintenance in urban than rural areas for effective implementation of the UBE programme in public junior secondary schools in Kogi state. This indicates that Alumni contribute to the management of UBE schools in Kogi state, especially in the areas of funding, infrastructural facilities, discipline, politics and quality control. This finding also shows that the contributions of the alumni to educational institutions are still unclear if they have made contributions to education in some areas and none in other areas making their relevance to plant maintenance unclear.

In terms of practical implications, the study has contributed to knowledge in that it is the first of this form of a study carried out in Kogi state, and as such the findings of the research will make contributions to the physique of information on plant maintenance for the profitable implementation of the UBE programme in Kogi state. Besides, the degree of plant preservation for the implementation of the UBE programme among applicable stakeholders in Kogi state is nevertheless at a low extent.

Researchers have conducted studies that show how non-state Alumni members contribute to the administration of education across different states. Some of these studies revealed that Alumni members have assisted schools in the provision of teaching and learning materials at the senior secondary or tertiary education level. There are no sufficient studies to show how these Alumni members have contributed to the implementation of the free education programme, especially in public junior secondary schools in Kogi state and this is the gap this study intends to fill.

Since the 1970s, the North Carolina Legislature has authorized its counties to levy four local option sales taxes (LOST). Proceeds from two of them are partially restricted for school capital needs; two other LOST are used to augment counties' general revenues that may also affect school capital funding. Experiences from other states have raised concerns that the adoption of LOST may increase inequality in school finance, but the empirical results have been mixed. Using a data set of one hundred North Carolina county school districts from 2004 to 2006, this study examines how public school facilities are funded, and investigates whether the adoption of LOST aggravates or alleviates inequality in public school capital revenues in the state.