The era of rented government school buildings will be over within three years, Saeed Bin Saleh Al-Ghamdi, a senior Ministry of Education official said here on Thursday. In a statement issued here, he said, 1,800 education projects with an estimated cost of SR6 billion are currently in progress. Those projects include 3,000 new school buildings which will raise the proportion of government school buildings in the country to 85 percent, leaving the ministry holding the bag of 25 percent of rented school buildings. Currently there are nearly 7,764 government schools, out of which about 4,700 schools operate in rented buildings. Al-Ghamdi said the school buildings would be provided with advanced educational technology and they all will have indoor sport facilities and artificial turf-covered areas. Commenting on new projects endorsed in the new budget, Al-Ghamdi said he expected the launch of 800 new projects to the already existing 1,800 projects. “They include restoration, construction of classrooms and sport fields, in addition to buildings for educational supervision centers and health units.” He said the Ministry of Education is coordinating with the Ministry of Finance to solve the problem of shortage in land plots in areas in need of school buildings. He said a joint committee from the two ministries was formed three years ago to work on providing land plots for schools. The education ministry bought a number of land plots in Riyadh, Jeddah, Makkah, Dammam, Taif and other cities, and yet the need is still there for further 2,000 land plots in different areas, he said. Al-Ghamdi said 20 percent of the SR425 million new building project to house the ministry offices in Riyadh has been completed. It will be fully operational in two years.
