“It is planned to build 25 schools and construct additional 342 class-rooms in 37 schools in 2005 under the state program on Construction of new and reconstruction of existing secondary schools in the country,” Misir Mardanov, the Azerbaijani Education Minister, told Trend on Friday.
Mardanov said that the five-year program envisages the construction of 149 new schools and 1328 class-rooms in 175 schools of the country. Besides, till the beginning of the new school year the Heydar Aliyev Fund will construct 132 new schools in the regions of Azerbaijan. Over the past 3 years 151 schools have been built in Azerbaijan at the expense of international organizations and private people.
According to Mardanov, this year the Ministry will publish 117 types of textbooks with the total issue of 7,906,000 books. The schoolchildren will receive books free of charge, the minister stressed. Besides, over 50 % of text-books have been sent to schools. An encyclopedic dictionary was published at the expense of the World Bank credit.