Design and Procurement Guideline for Primary School Furniture challenges-chat

Functional school furniture essentially contributes to the comfort of students and facilitates learning. But school furniture in developing countries tends to be poorly designed both structurally and ergonomically, poorly suited for its intended purpose, often using materials of inappropriate quality and origin. 

© UNICEF Olivier Asselin;

QUICK FACTS

Start Date: 2012-11

Status:

Focus Areas: ,

Region: All

Country: All

Keywords: school furniture…

Overview

Context:
School furniture presents a particularly burdensome problem for many UNICEF country offices. UNICEF procures and supplies large quantities of furniture, particularly in Africa and Asia, yet does not have a defined management process, generic designs, generic specifications or centralised guidelines on how to manage the procurement process.

Objectives:
The purpose of this project is two-fold:
1. To develop new, innovative furniture design models that are strong, durable and child-friendly. The designs will be simple to build, low in cost, and be able to be constructed by local industries, manufacturers or artisans. Field testing will be needed to evaluate the prototypes developed.
2. To develop a local procurement guideline document presenting a management approach that covers all aspects of furniture planning, design, production, delivery and maintenance. 

Impact:
The design models and the guideline are aimed to support UNICEF education and supply officers in the field to procure and deliver child friendly, quality and sustainable school furniture globally. The design models will be generic, therefore adaptable to local conditions and/or standards.

Meet The Team

  • Bo Strange Sørensen
    UNICEF Supply
    Supply Division
    Project Officer
  • Tabinda Syed
    UNICEF Supply
    WSEC
    Logistics Specialist

Current Partners/Roles

This project has no partner organizations yet.

Project Updates

 

Learning mission to Indonesia

In December 2012 staff members from UNICEF Supply Division conducted a mission in Banda Aceh, Indonesia with the goal of learning about school furniture and gather further information for the project. 

As part of the post-tsunami rehabilitation programme in Indonesia, UNICEF provided temporary school tents, transitional schools, and rebuilt permanent schools to replace destroyed and heavily damaged school buildings within the Aceh region. 

All transitional and permanent schools were entirely equipped with classroom furniture including: chairs, desks, blackboards, cupboards etc. It was a large scale procurement and logistic effort which took place between the years of 2005 and 2010. 

The main purpose of this mission was to gather and record experiences, results and lessons learned under the post-tsunami furniture intervention. Now that the school furniture had been in continuous use for the past 2-3 years, it was a perfect opportunity for us to visit schools in urban and rural settings.  We then were able to conduct a post-occupancy assessment of the quality and appropriateness of the furniture, by observing its flexibility and durability in use.  

The complete travel report including classroom furniture evaluation can be found under Resources in the main menu. 

9 weeks 1 hour ago by bssorensen

Get Involved

For more information and discussions check out the Challenge page.

 

Resources

 

School furniture learning mission – Indonesia

In December 2012 staff members from UNICEF Supply Division conducted a school furniture learning mission in Banda Ache in order to asses classroom furniture implemented in UNICEF constructed schools between the years 2005-2010.