Conditions of Public Secondary Schools in Rivers State, Nigeria

This study focused on the current maintenance condition of Public Secondary Schools in Rivers State that were built in the 1970’s, factors responsible for their poor state of disrepair and measures undertaken in the past to maintain or improve the public schools infrastructure. To achieve the objectives of this study, 120 questionnaires were designed and 78 were retrieved to collect data from 6(six) public schools out of 58 public secondary schools in Rivers State. The field survey comprised officials from the Department of Education, school teachers, principals and parents of students. The data was analysed with descriptive statistics. The study discovered that there are multiple factors that led to the dilapidation of public schools infrastructure. The major factors includes vandalism, overcrowding, neglect, lack of maintenance, incompetent contractors, lack of security, inadequate government intervention, inadequate funds allocated to schools for maintenance works, deferred maintenance, mismanagement of funds, and no sense of ownership by users, teachers, parents and community members. The study proposed a multi stakeholder framework for the proper maintenance of public schools infrastructure. The study recommended that the government should adopt appropriate maintenance strategy to improve the schools and achieve educational sustainability.