A Study on Space Effectiveness of Classrooms in Higher Education Institutions

Space management is vital for all organisations especially for higher educational institutions. Efficient and effective space usage will control expenditure cost and level of productivity: Space management in higher educational institutions are more critical compared to other institutions. The cost related to the physical sources is the second most important budget after staff salary in higher educational institutions. Therefore, no space in the university and other organisation should be treated as free. This study will determine the space usage for space management in UTHM, Malaysia as a case study. A study on the actual lecture room usage compared with the time table provided by the academic management has been done. There are six factors that need to be emphasized on, such as frequency booked, frequency used, occupancy, utilization, booked but not used and used but not booked. All of these factors are the elements to measure the level of space usage. All of the classrooms in block G3 building, UTHM, will be analyzed. The level of effectiveness was used as the measurement for those factors. Noted that the space management for the institute of higher education are very critical and therefore, space and facilities management have to be the main agenda and need to be managed efficiently. Hopefully through this study, the wasted space problem will not be considered as inconsequential matter anymore.