Lebanese Public Schools Regrouping Project

Location: Lebanon Client: Ministry of Education, Council for Development & Reconstruction (CDR) Consultants: Associated Consulting Engineers (ACE) Project Description In a major effort at upgrading the public schooling sector, the Lebanese Government commissioned in October 1993 through the Ministry of Education and CDR a Master Planning study aiming at a major restructuring of the Public Education System. Basically, the study aimed at achieving two main objectives: • To upgrade the current public education sector. This is to be achieved in two ways: - Improve the quality of facilities in terms of school buildings and their fittings. - Increase the level of provision in terms of total number of seats available in the public sector for a greater portion of the population. • To achieve an equitable distribution of schooling facilities amongst Caza and their sub-areas irrespective of private sector provision. Accordingly, and taking into consideration all constraints and opportunities vis-a-vis prevailing and anticipated economic and political parameters, and in close coordination with Government adopted policies and commitments namely those embodied in the "Horizon 2000" plan (an overall policy framework adopted by the current Government for national development over the coming decade), two quantitative goals were elaborated for the purpose of this study: • Achieve an overall capacity of 600,000 students in the public education sector by the year 2005 (compared with a current capacity of around 250,000 students), including: - Replacement of all existing non-state-owned schools (around 850 schools) - Upgrading of some 350 existing retained state-owned schools • In view of the prevailing and near future anticipated fiscal situation in the country, attempt to achieve future provisions with a conservative figure for the average gross area per student while still maintaining adequate standards. Consultancy Services Detailed strategic sectoral planning, including development of a comprehensive GIS incorporating the Lebanese road network & over 2,500 cities, towns and villages as well as their demographic and socio-economic statistics.