Education Ministry to upgrade public schools amid rising number of students

AMMAN — The Ministry of Education has an explicit strategy centred on strengthening the capacity of Jordan’s public schools, a ministry representative said on Tuesday.

Speaking with The Jordan Times on Tuesday, Education Ministry Spokesperson Ahmad Masaafa said that 25,000 students transferred from public to private schools this year.

“Currently 18.8 per cent of the total number of school facilities is rented, a number that has decreased lately,” he said.

“There are around 4,060 public schools across Jordan,” Project Management Director at the ministry, Ibrahim Samamah, told The Jordan Times on Tuesday. In previous years, the ministry’s annual plan involved the construction of 60 schools, in order to accommodate 25,000 new students each year, he added.

In order to provide access to education for all refugee children and to keep up with the increasing number of students who switched from private to public schools, the ministry’s strategies include plans to build between 120 and 130 new school facilities per year, he said.

“The number of students who have enrolled in public schools during the past two years has reached 230,000,” he noted, adding that “the ministry is also focused on increasing class sizes, with the objective of boosting student learning and achievement”. 

School facilities are regularly maintained and refurbished, according to Samamah, who said that until now the ministry carried out comprehensive maintenance for 600 schools across the Kingdom.

There are ongoing projects for around 60 schools which contain 1,020 classrooms, he highlighted, pointing out the overall achievement rate standing between 10 to 50 per cent.

Throughout the current year, the ministry has received 20 new school facilities that have 350 classrooms, he said.