TEHRAN – 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 on Sunday.

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

Iran has many school-building benefactors amounting to 650,000 people inside and 1,000 people outside the country.

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.

Since 2017, the government has contributed more than 60 trillion rials (nearly $218 million) to school-building donors, he added.

"Brick-by-brick" national plan started in the year 1399 (March 2020 – March 2021), aiming to attract public participation for school construction in deprived areas even by buying a brick.

FB/MG