Public education buildings require a plan for the conservation and maintenance of its various systems and facilities. In practice, it can be seen that there are major challenges in managing the maintenance of the Federal Universities in Minas Gerais State involving a lack of financial resources, disqualified and insufficient workforce, lack of investment in the Information Technology sector specific for this purpose, absence of a plan or program for maintenance, absence of specific actions in maintaining structured steel constructions, lack of technical staff for the preparation of inspections, reports and memorial, among others. Faced with this disturbing reality, this study aims to propose guidelines for maintenance of the buildings of public educational institutions, in order to improve the quality of maintenance of these buildings. The methodological approach adopted is the exploratory case study. An investigation of 11 public educational institutions of Minas Gerais is performed. The main contributions of the work refer to the proposition of maintenance management guidelines such as the knowledge of the buildings, the management through software and maintenance program to be used and replicated for other educational institutions of similar characteristics.