SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Two Chinese companies will build 1,000 schools in the country in the space of two years, an Iraqi official said on Sunday.
The country needs a total of 8,000 schools “to fill the gap in the education sector”, state news agency quoted Hassan Mejaham, a housing ministry official, as saying.
On Thursday, the prime minister’s office said Iraq and China had signed 15 agreements in the presence of Premier Mustafa al-Kadhimi to build 1,000 schools.
AFP reported that the deals were signed with Power China and Sinotech.
Power China will build 679 schools and Sinotech will build the remaining 321, according to AFP.
The Iraqi official said construction of the schools is due to be completed in two years, with the first delivered a year after work begins “very soon”, AFP said.
He added that Iraq would pay for the project using oil products.
A second phase will see the construction of an additional 3,000 schools, with 4,000 more to be built in a final phase, AFP reported.
“Decades of conflict and under-investment in Iraq have destroyed what used to be the best education system in the region,” UNICEF said on its website, adding that “one in every two schools is damaged and needs rehabilitation”.
In the country of 40 million people, “there are close to 3.2 million school-aged Iraqi children out of school”, it said.
The World Bank warned in October that already low levels of education levels were further threatened by the coronavirus pandemic, and called for international investment in the sector.
Despite being rich in oil, Iraq has suffered for decades from crumbling infrastructure because of successive wars and endemic corruption.
