TEHRAN – A national plan titled "brick-by-brick" aiming to encourage people to donate money for building schools in deprived areas of the country has so far collected 80 billion rials (about $2 million at the official rate of 42,000 rials).

The plan started early last [Iranian] year (March 2020-March 2021) and was highly welcome by benevolent people, Mehrollah Rakhshanimehr, director of the Organization for Development, Renovation, and Equipping Schools, said, IRNA reported.

To date, around one million individuals have contributed to the plan, he added.

Rakhshanimehr had previously said that some 30 percent of the country’s schools have been constructed by benefactors, adding there are 450 school-building charities in the country.

There are some 107,000 schools nationwide with 530,000 classes, 160,000 of which are dilapidated, not meeting safety standards. 

Some 4.5 percent of the national development budget proposed in the bill for the current [Iranian calendar] year (started on March 21) has been earmarked for school building; a three-fold rise compared to the last year’s figure.

The next year’s proposed development budget is about 1,040 billion rials (some $25 billion).

Some 37 billion rials (around $880 million) was spent in the past Iranian calendar year on building schools, he said, adding the figure will rise to 51 billion rials in the current year.

Education Minister Mohsen Haji Mirzaei has said that 85 billion rials (nearly $2 million) has been spent on average per day for renovating schools nationwide over the past three years.

MG