Facility Design and Student Achievement

Fiscal Management

Karlo Magno V. Arroyo

Overview

Educational Facilities (facility design) are valuable assets of the school that have to be given priority attention in terms of its establishment, procurement, development, improvement, maintenance, records keeping and accountabilities. These consist of sites, buildings and various educational facilities which are the major support system of the school to enhance the learning capabilities of the students for the maximum development of their skills and potentials.

Educational Facilities Defined

The term “educational facilities” or “facility design” refers to all the physical properties of a school, consisting of the grounds, buildings, and the various facilities within the school grounds and inside the school buildings.

Also known as the school plant or the physical facilities of a school.

Importance of Facilities/Facility Design and Student Achievement

Educational facilities are considered indispensable to a school, they do not only provide housing for the school but also reserve as facilitating agents for all the educational activities that take place in school.

The availability of safe, secured, adequate and satisfactory educational facilities will support the teaching and learning processes and ultimately improve the quality of education for all.

Quality Facility Design Keep Qualified Teachers and Performing Students

As reported in a recent Education Week article claims that school facilities should:

Enhance teaching and learning and accommodate the needs of all learners;

Serve as a center of the community; Results from a planning and design process

that involves all community interests; Provide for health, safety, and security;

Quality Facility Design Keep Qualified Teachers and Performing Students

> make effective use of available resources; and

> be flexible and adaptable

The report presents research that links the condition of school facilities and the level of student achievement.

The report concludes that districts and the state must first work to ensure safe and healthy schools and to ensure conditions that most directly affect student achievement.

Basic Principles On Educational Facilities/Facility Design

Primary Function Of Educational facilities: To provide the proper school environment

that is most conducive to effective teaching and learning.

It shall be responsive to changes in teaching methods and school organization taking into consideration the changes in educational process which has become more active, interrelated, and has become an integral part of the wider community.

Educational Facility Planning and Design Process Principles

1. Maximize collaboration in school planning involving a wide spectrum of representatives from the community.

e.g. Administrative decision-makers, parents, business and community leaders, technical people, teachers, school administrators, and students.

2. Build a proactive facility management program which anticipates facility problems during the planning phase like maintenance and operations of the educational facilities.

Educational Facility Planning and Design Process Principles

3. Plan schools as neighborhood-scaled community learning centers.

RELATED INFORMATIONS:

1. Re Facility Design

What should be considered in designing new public school infrastructure in a city like Marikina? And given the number of school buildings already existing in the city, what can be done to retrofit them to make them hazard-resilient?

Related Informations:

For answers, Inquirer sat down with Jose Danilo A. Silvestre, dean of the College of Architecture who is also a licensed environmental planner, and Nicolo del Castillo, assistant professor of architecture whose specialization is sustainable architecture, both with the University of the Philippines, as well as John Joseph T. Fernandez, dean of University of Santo Tomas College of Architecture.

All three agreed that, given the limited resources of LGUs, which are mainly responsible for the physical facilities of public schools, the new school or retrofitting design should be simple, should use local building materials, and should be easy and inexpensive to maintain.

Related Informations:

2. Re Facility Budget

Naninindigan tayo, ang edukasyon ay susi sa pagbukas ng oportunidad upang labanan ang kahirapan. PNOY

To support these reforms, this administration plans to eliminate all resource gaps classrooms, teachers, textbooks, among others – by next year. With this in mind, we have once again greatly increased the DepEd budget.

 

Related Informations:

• We have raised it by 22.6 percent to P292.7 billion, from P238.8 billion this year.

  In particular, we increased funding for the Basic Educational Facilities and the School Building Program by more than 50 percent – from P17.4 billion this year to P26.3 billion in 2013. All in all, we expect 30,789 classrooms to be constructed and rehabilitated next year, which will finally close the classroom gap.

Conclusion

Maintaining school facilities is important to providing high quality education programs. More importantly, by investing in strong preventative maintenance programs, school can continue to serve students for long periods of time. Modernization of school facilities has faced a number of new challenges in recent years with the advent of the personal computer. As new technologies are increasingly integrated into programs on instruction, the ability to adequately finance the acquisition of this equipment and to have the infrastructure in each school to support this technology is also important.

MARAMING SALAMAT!

Karlo Magno V. Arroyo