Encapsulation of Problems Associated with Maintenance of Federal Universities Hostel Buildings in Southeast Nigeria
Ndulue L1*, Nwagbara A2 and Nnadi EOE3
1,3Department of Quantity Surveying, Enugu State University of Science & Technology, Nigeria
2Department of Architecture, Enugu State University of Science & Technology, Nigeria
Submission: October 14, 2021; Published: October 25, 2021
*Corresponding Author: Ndulue L, Department of Quantity Surveying, Enugu Enugu State University of Science & Technology, Nigeria Civil Eng
How to cite this article:Ndulue L, Nwagbara A, Nnadi E. Encapsulation of Problems Associated with Maintenance of Federal Universities Hostel Buildings in Southeast Nigeria. Civil Eng Res J. 2021; 12(3): 555839. DOI 10.19080/CERJ.2021.12.555839
Abstract
The emergent population of students in tertiary institutions is rising annually, hence, it is imperative to make sure that buildings are performing not only optimally but functionally throughout their life cycles. Poor maintenance policy framework has been identified as core issue confronting hostel buildings in Nigeria, thus this research is aimed to evaluate the hostel building maintenance practices employed in Nigeria federal universities. This research met its objectives through documentary analysis from direct field observation and a survey questionnaire. A reconnaissance survey was undertaken in other to have adequate knowledge of the issues under investigation. Findings shown further that Poor funding, lack of maintenance practice and culture, function of the building are the top identified factors which. The test ascertains the agreement among the university and found out to be the same. Their level of homogeneity of variance is the same while the F-sig of 26.178 is higher than the significance value of 0.05. The work thus recommended good maintenance policy and proper funding of hostel building.
Keywords: Dilapidation; Hostel building; Infrastructure; Maintenance; Management
Introduction
Buildings are fundamental part of a nation’s heritage, skyline and distinct character. They are designed and built to sustain their initial functions and beauty for both the present and future users. The condition and quality of buildings in which we live, work and learn reflects a nation’s well-being [1]. A very important educational asset that characterise virtually all institutions of higher learning across the global north and south is student’s hostel building. Ezeigweneme & Egolum [2] alluded that at the point of securing admission into the university, students become very anxious about the possibility of where to reside so as to have full focus of their academic activities. According to Olagunju [3], buildings cannot remain new all through their entire lifetime. Maintenance problems start to creep in once building projects are completed and maintenance needs to be carried out on them to sustain the performance of the buildings and keep them in good condition. The emergent population of students in tertiary institutions is rising annually, hence, it is imperative to make sure that buildings are performing not only optimally but are functional throughout their life cycles. However, educational process and learning activities may be interrupted if the buildings experience poor performance conditions, thus affecting the students’ academic achievement [4]. According to the National Universities Commission (NUC) (2003), the numbers of students who seek admission into Nigeria Universities are terrifically increasing on an annual basis with no analogous improvement in the hostel’s facilities to accommodate the teeming population of the students. Adenuga, Olufowobi, & Raheem [5] avowed those public buildings in Nigeria, including higher institution buildings, are in very poor and deplorable conditions. He further noted that though millions of Naira is spent to erect these buildings, they are left, immediately after commissioning to face steady and rapid deterioration, decay and dilapidation. A typical case in point is the federal universities in the south-eastern part of Nigeria specifically University of Nigeria, Enugu campus; Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka campus and Federal University of Technology, Owerri. The appalling state of some of the hostel buildings in these three Federal Universities desires special attention. Against this background, and with the growing intake of students on these weakened building facilities, this study is aimed at evaluating the hostel building maintenance practices employed in Hostel buildings of Federal Universities in Southeast Nigeria, with a view to proffering sustainable and effective hostel building maintenance management systems for these institutions.
Review of Literature Related
Badu & Amalov [6] defined a student hostel to mean studenthousing facility built by private developers either alone or in partnership with the university to accommodate and cater for student needs. In the same vein, Hornby [7] sees hostel as a building in which boarding and lodging are provided (with the support of the authorities concerned) for students, workmen in training. Primarily student housing environment gives comfort, convenient and safety to students and it have great influence on the creation of favourable atmosphere for learning to achieve the desired educational needs of students. Odediran, Opatunji, & Eghenure [8] sees maintenance as “the blend of every activity carried out to retain an item in or restore it to a satisfactory condition. Ikpo [9] equally asserted that maintenance embrace all actions, which inject a new or better life into a building or system. Emphasising on the prime rationale placed on building maintenance, Wahab & Basari [10] asserted that the major justification for building maintenance are: To ensure that assets are maintained to reasonable standards at least cost; To ensure that the structure continues to attain the functions expected of it; To enhance the quality of the facility to meet modern day requirements; To prolong the life span of the building; To preserve the physical characteristics of the facility and eliminate the probability of early failure, and To ensure the safety of the users. Major maintenance problems in buildings are electrical problems 15%, plumbing works 28%, cracks 26%, painting works10%, floor works 5%, and lift maintenance 16% [11].
Building maintenance problems and the underlying causes
Building maintenance is required only quite later after the building is completely handed over. At the early stage, defects may occur due to the design of the building. Throughout the construction process, the design changes, and negligence in construction and supervision and so on become the sources of maintenance problems. Normally six- or twelve-months warranty period against defects will be set as provision of the construction contract. During this period, the contractor shall repair any defect, if found, with its own cost. After that period ends, the building manager should be responsible to provide more maintenance program. It is expected to respond that the building is fully functional and producing gains in economic life [12]. Poor maintenance work is due to insufficient supervision by the maintenance organization. However, it has been noted that the inadequate training to the employees can leads to poor building maintenance. Specification of unsuitable materials is always a problem in maintenance works [13]. Meanwhile. It is essential to carry out regular maintenance as Low [14] asserts that poor maintenance of public buildings and infrastructure can lead to accidents and injuries. Buildings and facilities that are not properly maintained can cause discomfort and lead to accidents and injury to people. The consequences of poor maintenance and causes of the incident like bad service problem, improper work implementation, poor management, poor maintenance culture and lack of work ethic among those involved in maintenance [15] affirming the position of Low [14] above.
Effects of building maintenance problems
A building defect is a physical occurrence that causes building to be less valuable, effective, healthy, and something that cases weakness. Defects create hazards leading to series or fatal injuries. Most defects can at their early stages be discovered through visible or detectable symptoms. If not promptly identified and rectified, minor defects can develop into serious ones causing failure or collapse, endangering lives and becoming more costly to rectify. Many security problems can occur to the occupants if the maintenance works by maintenance organization is not completed or takes a long time to respond [13]. Buildings and facilities that are not properly maintained can cause discomfort and lead to accidents and injury to people [14]. The cracks in plaster and other finishing affected the appearance of the structure and did not pose any safety concern. Defective tiles can further affect the visual appearance of floors and walls [16]. Defective building construction not only contributes to the final cost of the product but also to the cost of maintenance which can be substantial. Defective construction may lead to complete failure of structure. The construction industry all around the world is getting modern, advance, and growing day by day with the help of information technology age. Housing Project represents a significant part of our society. Construction defect has become a global issue faced by practitioners and researchers around the world. Defects can affect success of construction project significantly. More specifically, it has major impact on maintenance cost, time, productivity, sustainability aspects and on customers’ satisfaction as well Lateef & Idru et al. [17]. In the study conducted in Malaysia, Khozaei & Khozaei et al. [18] studied the factors that predict undergraduate student’s level of satisfaction with the student hostels of the University Sains Malaysia. The resultant survey data were analysed using factor analysis, student t-test and simple percentages. The study found out that satisfaction with fees, distance from university facilities, room safety, room size, hostel security, and hostel facilities were the most critical factors which predicted the undergraduate students’ satisfaction with their hostel. It was revealed by the study that there was a significant difference in the satisfaction level between inside – campus and outside- campus hostels students. Ugwu & Nwoji [19] assessed building maintenance in Nigerian university system, using University of Nigeria, Nsukka as a case study. The study adopted a hybrid method that include questionnaire survey, structured interview, and case study projects. Findings revealed that about 80 percent of the building in University of Nigeria,Nsukka, requires one or more maintenance work. In the students hostels, 61.70 percent of the hostel need door maintenance, 59.50 percent need to have their toilet facilities maintained. While 72.40 percent of the hostels need to have their plumber, work maintained. The study concluded that lack of maintenance policy and funding is the major cause of public building deterioration in University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The study also recommended that a holistic maintenance framework should be adopted in line with international best practices.
Methodology
The study is carried out within the federal universities located and operational in southeast for more than 10 years which are University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka and Federal University of Technology, Owerri. Geographically, Enugu, Awka and Owerri are located approximately between latitude 6°27’ 35’’ and longitude 7°32’ 56’’; latitude 6°12’ 37’’ and longitude 7°4’ 20’’; and latitude 5°25’ 35’’ and longitude 7°1’ 33’’ north of the equator respectively. The population of 3,400 students for the study was derived from the total population of students residing in the selected hostels or hall of residence in the three universities under investigation. This population figure was restricted to students’ population in the selected hostels for the 2019/2020 academic session only. Although, there are several hostels in each of these universities, for the purpose of this study; two hostel buildings (one male and one female hostel) were evaluated in each of the institutions. For University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus Kenneth Dike hall (male hostel) and Jerreton Marriere hall (female hostel) were selected. For Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Block C (male hostel) and Block A (female hostel) were chosen. Also selected in Federal University of Technology, Owerri is hostel ‘A’ (male hostel) and hostel ‘D’ (female hostel). Questionnaire survey, direct observation and personal interview were methods adopted to gather data required. A well-structured questionnaire was designed to seek respondents’ (students residing in the school hostels, hostel porters, physical planning unit (works department staff) and staff of students’ affairs department) opinions on hostel building maintenance practices in their institutions. However, direct field observation was carried out to supplement and substantiate the data obtained from the questionnaires. A reconnaissance survey was undertaken in other to have adequate knowledge of the issues under investigation. To calculate the optimum sample size for the study, William’s (1978) model of sample size determination as adopted by Kerlinger and Lee (2000) was employed.
The formula is given as:
Where: = required sample size.
N= Population
E = error margin of 0.05
1 = constant
Based on the above calculation, a sample size of 358 respondents was obtained. Nevertheless, the sample size was approximate to 360 for easy approximation comprehension. Furthermore, additional ten (10) university staff was selected from the physical planning unit (works department), student affairs and hostel management staff of each of the three university respectively. Stratified random sampling technique was employed in drawing samples from the population in the study area. This is to guarantee that a better representative sample of the three institutions under investigation was achieved. However, simple randomly sampling technique was used to select the number of respondents from each of the strata. Before the actual field survey, a test of validity and reliability of the questionnaire was conducted. However, simple percentages, frequency counts, mean and standard deviation the methods were used in analysing the primary data. The one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used when the interest is to investigate whether the means from several independent groups differ F test was also carried out to test the significant of variables.
Data Presentation, Analysis and Discussion of Findings
Current state of students hostels buildings in universities in southeast: Data was collected to evaluate the conditions of existing student hostel buildings in the selected institutions. Variables such as floors, walls, roofing etc were analysed to verify their condition and shown in table 1. Plumbing services including fittings and piping, disposal of waste and so on is identified as the most affected part of the building elements. This is closely followed by electrical fittings and ceiling. The poor state of these major elements is shown in table 1 and reflected in figure 1. The defects in the buildings were identified and it was observed that blocked pipes is the major issues, followed by leakages in the pipes and doors and windows defects. Other major identified defects shown in table 2 includes loose wiring and faulty electrical fittings among others.
Source: Authors, 2021
Factors responsible for defects of building elements/ components: It is pertinent to find out the factors responsible for the defects of the building elements. The responses gotten from the respondents were analyzed and presented in table 3. The usage of the building, that is, its functionality was rated as the foremost causes of defects in a building as shown in figure 2 Other key causes include the effect of vegetation and lack of maintenance culture. It is necessary therefore to confirm the probable effects of lack of building maintenance on the users or the institution at large. This was shown in table 4. It was revealed in figure 3 that lack of hostel building maintenance do responsible for poor building aesthetics and psychological appeal. It could as well affect the academic performance of the students. Other features include poor ventilation, poor lighting and so on (Figure 4). Examined the factors leading to maintenance problems in hostel buildings in the selected institutions. Poor funding, lact of maintenance practice and culture, function of the building are the top identified factors which were all in agreement with the previous cited authors in the literature. The findings were further tested as shown in tables 5-7 to ascertain the agreement among the university and found out to be the same. Their level of homogeneity of variance is the same while the F-sig of 26.178 is higher than the significance value of 0.05
Conclusion and Recommendations
To summarize, this study has shown various factors resulting to several defects of hostel building in Nigeria public universities based according to the objectives of this study. Based on the results discussed, the following conclusions can be drawn:
a. Plumbing services including fittings and piping, disposal of waste and so on was identified as the most affected part of the building elements.
b. It was revealed that lack of hostel building maintenance do responsible for poor building aesthetics and psychological appeal. It could as well affect the academic performance of the students. Other features include poor ventilation, poor lighting and so on.
c. The defects in the buildings were identified and it was observed that blocked pipes are the major issues, followed by leakages in the pipes and doors and windows defects. Other major identified defects include loose wiring and faulty electrical fittings among others.
As a result of this research, the following recommendations can be suggested:
a) The need to re-evaluate at intervals the conditions of the facilities in the hostel’s buildings.
b) Establishment of maintenance policies that would help the infrastructures.
Holistic packaging of the tender procedures of construction projects in Indonesia with more reference to the SDL concept, especially for the terms that tend to be cost-oriented and the terms that can limit the interaction between actors before and during the tender process.
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