TEHRAN – During a trip to the city of Tabriz on Friday, President Masoud Pezeshkian met with Karim Mardani-Azar, a distinguished school-building benefactor.

Mardani-Azar, and his late brother, have contributed to establishing over 440 schools with 550 classrooms all over the country.

They have also supported the construction of several hospitals and medical centers, ISNA reported. 

Benefactors contribute to constructing over half of schools

Some 51 percent of the schools in the country are constructed with the help of benefactors, the government spokesperson, Fatemeh Mohajerani, has said.

“The participation of school-building benefactors has significantly increased in recent years so that about 48 to 51 percent of the schools are built thanks to their financial assistance,” IRIB quoted Mohajerani as saying.

Benefactors’ participation in constructing schools shows their commitment and will to improve educational opportunities and develop educational infrastructure; their efforts can have positive, profound impacts on the education, students, and the future of the country, she noted.

The official went on to say that the current administration focuses on expanding educational infrastructure and building new schools, to replace the prefabricated ones, with the help of benefactors even in areas where there are only one or two students.

“Education, educational equity, and the elimination of educational deprivation are among top priorities of the current administration,” the official highlighted. 

Benefactors have pledged to provide 200 trillion rials (around 250 million dollars) for constructing schools in the current Iranian year that started on March 20, Mohammad Reza Jafari, CEO of the Association of School-Building Donors, has said.

Over 50 percent of benefactors have contributed to building 8,000 classrooms so far this year, IRIB quoted Jafari as saying.

Referring to the number of semi-finished projects to be constructed by benefactors, he said some 1,856 schools and 9,746 classrooms need more budget to be completed. 

Moreover, a total of 3,206 school projects with 1,6157 classrooms are on the agenda to be built, but these projects need the support of the government to be built, Jafari noted.

According to Somayeh Hashemi, a member of the international committee of the Association of School-building Benefactors, more than 6,000 Iranian women who are residing out of the country are actively engaged in constructing schools. With the contribution of these benevolent persons, each school expanded to six or seven schools, IRNA reported.

She made the remarks on December 28, 2024, on the sidelines of the first national school construction conference held in Torbat-e Jam, Khorasan Razavi Province.

In the Iranian year 1401 (2022-2023), benefactors allotted 46 trillion rials (about 57 million dollars) for school construction and collected the needed amount in festivals.

In 1402 (March 2023 – March 2024), their contributions almost tripled, as they increased by 115 trillion rials (almost 144 million dollars).

MT/MG