TEHRAN - Barekat Charity Foundation, affiliated with the Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam, will inaugurate 150 new schools in the coming school year which begins on September 23.

Mohammad Torkamaneh, the CEO of Barekat Foundation, said on Thursday that 150 schools with 632 classrooms will be inaugurated in rural and underprivileged areas of the country, Mehr reported.

Sistan-Baluchestan province with 45 schools holds the lion’s share of the newly-built schools which will host 12,500 students, Torkamaneh added.

The charity foundation has so far built 1,950 schools with 10,000 classrooms across the country, he said, adding that more than 250,000 students are studying in the schools.

Barekat Charity Foundation is planning to build a total of 2,700 schools using new ideas and technologies. Torkamaneh said in August that Barekat Charity Foundation is planning to build a total of 2,700 schools using new ideas and technologies.

The Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and training camps, and green management of schools, will be taken into consideration in the construction of these schools, he said.

Some 3,750 villages across the country are covered by the Barekat Foundation's school-building activities.

Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam was founded in 1989. In the Iranian calendar year, 1386 (March 2017-March 2018) Barekat Charity Foundation- the social arm of the organization- with the aim of promoting social justice was established.

Socio-economic empowerment of communities by encouraging entrepreneurship prioritizing breadwinner women, developing infrastructures such as water supply and power grids, building roads, constructing schools and increasing educational spaces, promoting health for all, and granting non-repayable loans and insurance, especially in less developed areas and regions most affected by 1980s war and natural disasters are of the priorities of the charity foundation.

School building benefactors

School building benefactors have allotted a total of 34 trillion rials (nearly $130 million) to construct educational spaces across the country over the past [Iranian calendar] year (March 2021-March 2022), ISNA reported.

Due to the promotion of the culture of participation in school construction, school-building donors allotted trillion rials (nearly $130 million) last year, which was 170 billion rials (around $650) in 1998 when the Association of School-Building Donors was established, Education Minister Yousef Nouri said in April.

According to Nasser Ghofli, the director of the Association, 400 school-building charities have been registered in the country so far.

Benefactors have proposed 28 trillion rials (nearly $102 million) to be included in the budget bill for the current Iranian calendar year (March 2022-March 2023) for building and renovating schools, Mehrollah Rakhshanimehr, director of the Organization for Development, Renovation, and Equipping Schools, said.

School-building donors allocated more than 30 trillion rials (nearly $111 million) to construct educational places nationwide in the [Iranian calendar] year which ended in March 2021.

MG