1.1 Introduction
Maintenance culture in Nigeria is one of the lowest around the world, especially, in our principal towns and cities where the majority of public properties are located. Maintenance culture defines the values, way of thinking, behaviour, perception, and the underlying assumptions of any person or group or society that considers maintenance as a matter that is important (priority) and practices it in their life. When a person or group has maintenance culture, they would have the attitude to maintain, preserve and protect the public facilities (Suwaibatul et. al, 2012).
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Research hypothesis and questions, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
Maintenance culture is an attitude which is sadly lacking in Nigeria, whether in the home, office, school or factory. Mbamali (2003) added that poor maintenance culture has become a widely recognized problem in Nigeria which has poorly affected the quality of public properties. Public property is property that is dedicated to public use and is a subset of state property. The term may be used either to describe the use to which the property is put, or to describe the character of its ownership (owned collectively by the population of a state). This is in contrast to private property, owned by an individual person or artificial entities that represent the financial interests of persons, such as corporations. State ownership, also called public ownership, government ownership or state property, are property interests that are vested in the state, rather than an individual or communities (Wikipedia, 2015).
Kolawole (2002) as cited in Odediran (2012), opined that maintenance culture requires correct diagnosis of defects, current remedial measures, sound technical knowledge of material usage, management resources as well as formulation and implementation of integrated plan and policies to sustain utility. Maintenance management culture should be imbibed in organisations. Building maintenance should be carried out to correct defects or prevent and avert such defects in order to minimize cost that would have been incurred should such defects occur.
Sodiki (2002), believes the maintenance of a building should begin as soon as a builder leaves the site. The ability to maintain a building should be considered at the design stage. At this stage materials to be used in the structure should be considered with respect to ease of maintenance, repair and replacement. This great responsibility is placed on the building maintenance and works department of these universities. It requires good maintenance style, leadership, efficient work planning, and material management for effective planning, execution, controlling and management of available resources to achieve. This therefore necessitate the need to examine maintenance management culture of Secondary Schools.
Maintenance culture is not universal in nature, it is usually derived or learned through a person making maintenance a natural daily practice that can be followed and emulated by others (Florence, 2011). These cultures are not easy to develop. It takes time and occurs in response to changes to the individual himself/herself. Thus, it is not something that is impossible to implement if the method made the maintenance culture is known to be performed. When the determinant factors of maintenance of development are identified, the maintenance will be a daily practice that is understood by each individual about what their duties are.
Therefore, in Oyo State Nigeria where the research was carried out, the activities that was conducted is to assess the Factors Influencing Maintenance Culture of Secondary School Building Project.
1.3 Statement of Problems
Maintenance culture development in Nigeria can be achieved through the implementation of the leadership factors that should be done by someone who was called leaders toward culture maintenance practices among all his followers. Maintenance tasks will not be regarded as a burden, but as a good practice that should be implemented for the next stake. This is where the need of the leadership qualities in a leader by showing a serious commitment to the work done by providing a work plan that can be easily understood and followed by everyone. However, this study assesses the maintenance culture of Secondary School Building Project in Oyo State Nigeria.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of Study
The aim of the study is to assess the Factors Influencing Maintenance Culture of Secondary School Building Project in Oyo State Nigeria. In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows:
- To determine ways of enhancing the quality of Secondary School Building Project through improved maintenance culture.
- To determine the factors affecting maintenance culture of Secondary School Building Project in Oyo State Nigeria.
- To examine the level of maintenance culture employed in Secondary School Building Project in Oyo State Nigeria
1.5 Research Questions
The study came up with research questions so as to be able to ascertain the above stated objectives. The specific research questions for the study are stated below as follows:
- What are the ways of enhancing the quality of Secondary School Building Project through improved maintenance culture?
- What are the factors affecting maintenance culture of Secondary School Building Project in Oyo State Nigeria?
- What are the levels of maintenance culture employed in Secondary School Building Project in Oyo State Nigeria?
1.6 Research Hypothesis
In order to pursue the objective of this study, the following generalized statements have been designed to guide and aids in obtaining the result for the experiment to be conducted. For this work, the null hypothesis will be represented with H0 while the alternative hypothesis will be represented with hypothesis H1.
- H0: There are no significant factors affecting maintenance culture of Secondary School Building Project in Oyo State Nigeria
- H1: There are significant factors affecting maintenance culture of Secondary School Building Project in Oyo State Nigeria
1.7 Significance of Study
The findings from this study will educate the government and policy makers, stakeholders in building and the general public on the need for improvement in maintenance culture as a way of improving the quality of public property. This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.8 Scope of Study
The study focuses on the Assessment of Factors Influencing Maintenance Culture of Secondary School Building Project in Oyo State Nigeria.
1.9 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).
1.10 Definition of Terms
Predictable Maintenance: This is regular periodic work that may be necessary to retain the performance characteristics of a product as well as that required to replace or repair the product after it has achieved a useful life span.
Schedule Maintenance: This is also a type of preventive maintenance that takes place at predetermined interval of time, number of operation, mileage etc.
Unplanned Maintenance: This is the maintenance that takes place at no predetermined plan. It is referred to as semi -emergency maintenance.
Unpredictable Maintenance: This is the work resulting from unforeseen breakdowns or damage due to external causes.