Indoor air quality measurements in South African primary school classrooms of various building infrastructure types

In the resource-constrained South African education sector, infrastructure which is considered as temporary or backup in other countries is used as permanent classrooms, primarily but not exclusively in lower-income areas. Children’s cognitive performance and comfort are directly impacted by indoor air quality. Temperature, relative humidity, particulate matter and CO2 levels, substantial determinants of air quality, have not been studied across different classroom types. We measure these parameters every 11 minutes in various classrooms at schools in Stellenbosch, South Africa. These classrooms consist of a range of different infrastructure types. Container classrooms with and without insulation, mobile (prefabricated) classrooms, and brick classrooms of different configurations are included. Measurements are concurrently sampled over ten months (249 days, still ongoing), across multiple seasons with relevant metadata including ambient weather conditions, school days and times, and in the (South) African context, electrical availability, which impacts air conditioning usage. Measured classroom dimensions, building materials and air conditioning methods are included. This dataset provides valuable insights into true learning conditions in South African school classrooms.