TEHRAN- Barekat Charity Foundation has announced that the construction of around 200 new schools in underprivileged areas will be completed by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2024).

The 2,000th school built by the Foundation was inaugurated in the previous year, IRIB reported.

Currently, more than 705 other schools are being completed in different parts of the country with the cooperation of the Organization for Development, Renovation, and Equipment of Schools.

Newly built schools

In August, the Organization for Development, Renovation, and Equipment of Schools announced the number of newly built schools across the country has increased by 104 percent over the past two years.

On a daily basis, 47 new classrooms have been constructed all over the country during the past two years, IRNA reported.

More than 10,000 new classrooms are projected to be inaugurated by the end of the current Iranian calendar month (September 22), the report added.

On July 11, the 25th conference on honoring school-building benefactors was held at the Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults in Tehran.

Addressing the conference, First Vice-President Mohammad Mokhber said investing in education and manpower training is the root and basis of any country's development, and this starts from schools, IRNA reported.

Last year (March 2022-March 2023), benefactors donated more than 160 trillion rials (about $320 million) to build and equip schools across the country, he added.

Half of the schools across Iran are built with the participation of benefactors, Mohammad Reza Jafari, CEO of the School-Building Donors Association, has said.

About 40,000 donors are active and involved in building schools across the country, he stated, adding that over 49 percent of schools, amounting to 150,000 classrooms, in the country are built with the participation of school-building benefactors.

Construction of sports spaces, libraries, and developing smart schools are among the current needs in school construction, he stressed.

On January 10, the first national event of Future Schools was held with the aim of promoting the use of knowledge-based technologies in schools.

The Organization for Development, Renovation, and Equipment of Schools in cooperation with Barekat Foundation organized the event.

The event highlighted the role of technology in modernizing schools as well as educational and sports spaces.

The Majlis (Iranian Parliament) has approved a special budget to support building schools nationwide.

Accordingly, the Ministry of Education should spend one percent of the revenues of state-run companies and the net profits of banks and private institutions to build schools in deprived areas in line with the goal of promoting educational justice.

Barekat charity Foundation

In the Iranian calendar year, 1386 (March 2007-March 2008) Barekat Charity Foundation 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.

The Foundation pursues the implementation and completion of health and treatment projects in deprived and rural areas of the country with the aim of economic and social empowerment, improving health and hygiene indicators, and providing medical services to the people of deprived and less developed areas.

In March, Mohammad Torkamaneh, the CEO of the Foundation, said some 53,000 development projects have been implemented in deprived areas across the country by the Foundation.

Starting or completing a total of 58,000 projects in rural and underprivileged regions is on the agenda, he added.

The projects include building schools, hospitals, libraries, laboratories, mosques, emergency medical centers, bridges, roads, and water supply networks, he noted.

A total of 31 trillion rials (nearly $62 million) for the eradication of deprivation in rural areas was approved by the Majlis (Iranian Parliament) in the budget bill for the past Iranian calendar year (March 2022-March 2023).

MT/MG