Description:
This book examines the scope of the
infrastructure challenge in Sub-Saharan Africa and the
constraints to scaling up at an affordable cost. It assesses
the experiences of African countries with school planning,
school facility designs, construction technologies, and
construction management over the past thirty years, and
draws lessons on promising approaches to enable African
countries to scale up the facilities required to achieve the
Education for All (EFA) goals and Millennium Development
Goals (MDGs) of complete quality primary education for all
children at the lowest marginal cost. The book is organized
along the following lines. Chapter one reviews the nature
and scope of the primary school infrastructure challenges.
Chapter two reviews the experience of African countries with
school planning and resource allocation norms and how they
have affected the volume, functionality, and distribution of
primary school facilities. Chapters three, four, and five
examine the impact of construction technology and approaches
to construction management on the cost of school
infrastructure and the ability to scale up. Chapter six
delves more deeply into how to set up one of the most cost-
effective approaches to school provision the community-based
approach. Chapter seven looks at maintenance issues. Chapter
eight deals with corruption and chapter nine with donors.
Chapter ten provides an estimate of the infrastructure cost
of the EFA challenge and recommendation for countries and
donors to improve the efficiency of the resources spent for
school construction.