Challenges Militating Effective Maintenance of Mechanical Technology Education Workshop Equipment in Colleges of Education in Rivers State

Abstract

The study examined the challenges militating effective maintenance of Mechanical Technology 
Education workshop equipment in colleges of education in Rivers State. Specifically, the study 
sought to: identify some of the equipment available in mechanical technology education workshop 
in Colleges of Education in Rivers State, the human and material challenges militating effective 
maintenance of Mechanical Technology Education workshop equipment in Colleges of Education 
in Rivers State. Three research questions and hypotheses were answered and tested at .05 level of 
significance. A descriptive survey design guided the study. The population of the study comprised 
all mechanical technology education lecturers and Year II & III students. As at the time of the 
study, there was an estimated population of 10 lecturers and 26 mechanical technology education 
students, respectively. The population was manageable, therefore, the entire population was used 
for the study without sampling. Self-made survey questionnaire served as the instrument for data 
collection. It was used to examine the challenges militating effective maintenance of equipment in 
Mechanical Technology Education workshop in Colleges of Education in Rivers State. The 
instrument was face validated by two experts in the Department of Mechanical Technology 
Education in Federal College of Education (Technical), Omoku. Also, the reliability of the 
instrument was tested using Cronbach Alpha Reliability Coefficient tool. The reliability coefficient 
achieved was .80 which confirms the reliability of the instrument. Copies of the instruments were 
administered and retrieved by the researcher at the spot of administration. Frequency, percentage, 
Mean and Standard deviation were used to answer the research questions and to ascertain the 
homogeneity of responses. Also, z-test was used to test the hypotheses. The study found among 
others that maintenance of equipment in mechanical technology education workshop are militated 
by several factors such as inadequate funding, irregular training, unwillingness in the part of the 
school government, poor maintenance skills, lack of interest, laziness, inadequate tools in the 
workshop, insufficient materials in the workshop, insufficient fund for purchasing of 
material/tools/spare parts, inadequate spare parts, absence of manual and non-utilization of 
equipment. Therefore, it was recommended among others that whenever there is an installation of 
new equipment in the workshop, school management should train at least one staff that will be 
able to operate and maintain the equipment whenever it is bad.