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Iraq has approved a project to build 6,500 schools across the country within a strategy to accommodate the rising number of students.
Education Ministry spokesperson Karim al-Sayed said the progress achieved in school buildings and expansion of existing schools over the past three years represents an exceptional leap forward, the largest in decades.
He noted that "this sector has suffered from accumulated problems and security and technical challenges for more than ten years, exacerbating the shortage of schools and overcrowding problems.
"In recent years we have seen the opening of 1,959 schools, including 1,000 model schools built by Chinese companies along with the renovation of more than 3,700 other schools,” he told the official news agency.
“We now have plans included in the Iraq Development Fund to build 6,500 new schools…the ministry still actually needs nearly 7,000 schools, while completely eliminating overcrowding and double shifts requires more than 10,000 schools, especially in densely populated governorates,” he said.
(Writing by N Saeed; Editing by Anoop Menon)
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