Support for construction and restoration of school facilities and afterwards

While I was writing this support news, public schools in Jordan held biannual nationally standardized university entrance exam called Tawjihi. We are unable to construct or restore schools during Tawjihi, which last for about two weeks. Taking this opportunity, I am reviewing the comments we received from schools that we recently supported.

In order to listen to local opinions, after completion of project, a team different from JEN’s engineer team visits the school to listen to opinions, and provide the school principal with questionnaires to fill in. In this way, we are able to obtain information such as communication among school, JEN engineer and contractor in charge of the construction, whether or not accidents occurred at the site, the quality of work, and concern about project in general.

【JEN engineer team: from left, Laith, Mohammad, Osama, Mai】

This questionnaire contains concerns and claims from school that engineers did not recognize, and sometimes even disagree with the facts. Firstly, we look through all comments and analyze the content. If necessary, we visit the school again later and confirm at site. If we find our fault or misunderstanding, we take measures to prevent it from happening again.

Although JEN engineer in charge explains the details of works to school before the construction or restoration starts, we recognize the necessity of further consideration from the opinion of school.

In case a technical problem occur, we repair within warranty period established by JEN, which is 6 months after the construction work. In reality, mostly other types of problems occur, which are very hard to solve.

It is especially important for Jordanian public schools to maintain the completed facility by themselves, and prevent intentional destructive action. In Jordan, it is prominent for students to destroy facilities in school. Most of support related parties share concern about this problem.

In order to solve this problem, we prepare training program of maintenance to motivate teachers, and prepare cleaning manual for cleaners. Children in Jordan use bathrooms at home cleanly, however the way some students use public facilities is very different from home. We are almost reaching the limit of solving this problem by ourselves.

When children destroy part of school facilities, schools tend to request regular maintenance to support organization instead of taking care of the problem by themselves, claiming, “Children destroy the facilities”.

Even right after the completion of work, it is difficult to prevent intentional destructive action by students. Even with cleaners, many school facilities became out of order since they were not properly maintained and monitored.

Since school facilities in Jordan are in shortage due to refugee crisis in Syria, JEN and other support organization are focusing on additional or new construction of school facilities as our support activity. On the other hand, the deterioration of existing facilities newly or additionally constructed is accelerating, since schools do not properly manage by themselves.

JEN and other support organizations need to jointly request cooperation from the Ministry of Education, and consider measures to make schools maintain and monitor facilities by themselves, and implement such measures as soon as possible, in order to improve effectiveness and later sustainability of support.

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JEN will be there for the most vulnerable households to keep providing the support they need.

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