Venezuela

Pilot project of a Community Education Centre built in Guayana City with UNESCO's technical assistance support. The project was constructed, using local materials and techniques, with the active participation of students of a technical school located near the site. Their participation as labour was part of their training.

The Educational Community Centre caters for the requirements of formal education (primary school) as well as for adult education (skills training in the workshops and literacy courses in classrooms). It also serves as a cultural centre to meet the needs of a human settlement of approximately 1,000 families. The project was published by UNESCO under the title "Construcciones Escolares Gestionadas con Participacion Comunitaria en Zonas Sub-urbanas de Venezuela".

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For further information please contact:

Mr Eduardo MillBR>Av. Venezuela Edif Frontera
El Rosal Caracas 1060

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Xth International UNESCO/UIA Seminar on Management and Maintenance of Educational Spaces in Rural or Periurban Areas, 8-12 April 1991 Caracas, Venezuela.

UIA Working Group
"Educational and Cultural Spaces"
Objectives of the seminar

Management and maintenance of educational spaces, although extremely important, are very often neglected due to lack of sufficient funding. In many countries the budget allocated for maintenance is so small that it has no impact. This problem occurs practically in all urban and non-urban areas, but it takes a particular form in the case of the rural and periurban areas. Two factors are of importance in these two areas, a technical and a social, which make the problems of maintenance more complex. The main objective of the seminar was to raise the awareness of the participants as well as the countries they represented.

Some of the specific points of the seminar were:

- Presentation of a study on evaluation of maintenance manuals (Venezuela)

- Presentation of recent studies in various countries;

- Presentation of case studies in various countries;

- Discussion of policy, programme financing, organisational structure and community participation;

- Formulation of recommendation.

The following countries participated in the seminar:

Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Finland, France, Greece, Morocco, Nepal, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, U.S.A, Venezuela.

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Considerations and recommendations:

The Foundation of Educational Buildings and Furnishing (FEDE) in Venezuela is the organization responsible for maintenance of educational facilities at the national level. It started in 1978 with the creation of "Committees of Maintenance" at several levels, and continued to upgrade its programme according to its experience. In 1989 FEDE published a maintenance manual with the collaboration of UNESCO. Maintenance has to be considered as a cultural phenomenon and it is the task of the government to promote the idea of maintenance at all levels on the basis of a global concept. The building design therefore has to meet the needs, and planned materials and techniques have to be chosen according to the expected lifetime of a building.

Maintenance starts the moment a building is in its best condition. A global plan of maintenance involves two phases, firstly the planning and secondly the operation. The quality of the architectural design already has a major influence on future maintenance. Participation of the community in the planning and construction phase of educational buildings creates awareness among the future users of the necessity for maintenance and encourages them to take responsibility for "their" educational building and facilities. It is the governments' task not only to create educational committees concerned with maintenance at different levels, but also to promote public awareness in the area and offer training courses for administrators, teachers and users. Emphasis has to be put on decentralisation, so that decisions can be taken with full responsibility at all levels. This will require adequate training at all levels.