TEHRAN – In line with the document of the fundamental transformation of education, people who have a popular reputation are being invited as ambassadors to attract public participation for school construction, director of the organization for renovation, development, and equipment of schools has said.

School-building ambassadors have been selected in four provinces of the country so far, and we are going to have one school ambassador from each province, IRNA quoted Mehrollah Rakhshanimehr as saying on Tuesday.

It has always been thought that only a certain number of people who can afford to build a school, but all the people can participate even by buying a brick, he highlighted.

He further explained that a system is set up in which under-construction projects are introduced and users can select each project and pay as much as they can to build the school.

A total budget of 48 trillion rials (nearly $1.1 billion at the official rate of 42,000 rials) has been earmarked to renovate schools nationwide in the current Iranian calendar year (started March 21), an increase of 65 percent year on year, Rakhshanimehr said in April.

The organization for renovation, development, and equipment of schools started operating since the Iranian calendar year 1396 (March 2017- March 2018), which received a budget of 8.5 trillion rials (about $200 million).

However, last year, the renovation budget increased to 29 trillion rials (around $690 million), and this year, we will be provided with a budge 65 percent more than the previous year, he highlighted, stating, the growth is considerable and can cause major developments.

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

He went on to explain that 30 percent of the schools nationwide are old, of which some 12 percent must be completely rebuilt and 18 percent must be retrofitted.

Renovation of schools and meeting the necessary standards requires a considerable amount of budget, however, current government funding and annual budgets are by no means enough.

FB/MG