Old Schools Razed, Rebuilt, Retrofitted

Close to 1,158 school buildings are under construction and 4,230 existing structures are being renovated and retrofitted with an aim to augment educational spaces and well as provide safe school environments across the country.

The renovation projects cover 17,143 classrooms (3% of all classrooms in the country). 

From among the 1,158 projects, 990 are reconstruction of the existing old and unsafe buildings after their complete demolition, while the rest are new constructions, IRNA quoted Mohammad-Taqi Nazarpour, deputy minister of education and head of the Organization for Renovating, Developing, and Equipping Schools, as saying.

“Since 2013 when the incumbent government took office, 34,657 new schools were constructed,” he said. In addition to the government funds for the projects, a considerable amount of money came from donors.

Learning space per student has increased from 4.6 sq meters in 2012 to 5.7 sq meters in 2015, according to the organization, but the figure is not equal in all parts of the country. 

Currently, 30% of the schools are old and in dire need of renovation or reconstruction. There are 559,243 classrooms in the country, of which 1,360 are mud-made and unsafe. 

Alireza Rashki, head of the organization’s office in Sistan-Baluchistan had said recently that the province has 576 mud-made schools, of which 180 were demolished this year and rebuilt with concrete. 

Nazarpour added that mud-made schools are still seen in provinces of Azarbaijan, Khuzestan, Kerman, Gilan, Lorestan, Hormozgan and Kohgiluyeh-Boyer Ahmad.

  Safe Heating

The plan to equip all classrooms with safe central heating systems that was initially projected to wrap up next month is now expected to be completed by the end of the next fiscal year in March 2018.

Out of the 211,000 classrooms with unsafe heating appliances, 157,637 were equipped with safe heating systems in the past five years, and nearly 53,000 are still unequipped, Nazarpour said.

From February 1998 to 2012, there were at least seven school fires due to faulty heating systems that led to the death of four students and severe injuries to 63.

In 2012, a heater caught fire in a girl’s primary school in Shinabad village, West Azarbaijan Province as a result of which two students lost their lives and 26 others were injured.