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Article Title: Infrastructural Development and Quality Assurance in Nigerian Higher Education
by Uche Chineze M; Okoli, N. J and Ahunanya Stella

Abstract:
The infrastructural facilities and physical environment give educational institutions their appropriate shape and atmosphere for teaching and learning. These facilities and the environment also portray the quality of the institutions in terms of their staff/students friendliness, attraction to outsiders, aesthetics, healthy, safety, currency and relevance. The infrastructural development in higher education is complex and cost intensive. Thus to ensure their quality and maintain global standards is very challenging. The infrastructural development in higher education involves provision of buildings, classrooms, hostels, staff quarters, workshops, laboratories, ICT centers, libraries, health centers and sports facilities. Provision of stimulating learning environment and safety is also a major consideration in infrastructural development. Maintenance, renewal and innovation are other determinants of the quality of the infrastructural development effort of the institutions that will attract the students, staff and foreigners to the institutions. Environmental beautification and sanitation give the aesthetic impression that guarantees the serenity and good climate for teaching, learning and research activities, healthy and secured lives in the school and its communities. Using infrastructural development quality indicators checklist, this study aimed at assessing the level of quality and how staff and students friendly the facilities in the four institutions of higher learning in River State of Nigeria are. This was considered in terms of their availability, adequacy, relevance, student friendliness, staff friendliness, maintenance, renewal and innovation culture and global competitiveness and acceptability. The findings indicate that the level of the quality of infrastructural development in the higher institutions is low: the available facilities are not enough, not maintained and not safe, not clean, not student centered. Thus the quality assurance of these facilities is not guaranteed as they cannot match global standards if nothing urgent is done to improve the quality. Recommendations were made based on these and other findings.

Keywords: infrastructural development quality, physical facilities, environmental safety and sanitation, global acceptability of infrastructural facilities, maintenance culture, higher institutions

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