Utilization of teaching space facilities in colleges of education in Ghana: A case study of OLA College of Education, Cape Coast

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to assess the utilization of teaching space facilities at Our Lady of Apostle College of Education at Cape Coast in the 2006/2007 academic year. The study sought to provide information on time, space and global utilization rates in order to plan for short and long term admissions of student into the College. The research design adopted in the study was the case study. Purposive, stratified and simple random sampling techniques were used to select samples for the study. Two sets of questionnaire were used to collect data on teaching space facilities and an interview guide was also used to collect data on the number of times the rooms were in use by the students. The methods used in analyzing data were frequencies and percentages presented in tables. Furthermore, various indicators such as time, space and global utilization rates were computed and the rates were compared with the recommended target rates set by the University Rationalization Committee (URC, 1988) Report on the efficient use of teaching space facilities in colleges and universities in Ghana. The study revealed that the special rooms were over-utilized in terms of space, but they were under-utilized in terms of time during teaching and learning sessions. Further, the general classrooms were efficiently utilized throughout the period of the study. The study recommends that new special rooms should be built to ease congestion of students during teaching and learning sessions. It is recommended that from time to time, seminars or workshops on timetabling and space allocation should be organized for principal and tutors who are responsible for time-table preparation at the College.