According to the RRI program the plan was to establish o 10 schools in the Northern Red Sea region, 13 in Anseba, 19 in Gash Barka, 18 in Debub, 4 in Southern Red Sea, and 3 in the Central regions. However, one may pose a question as to implementation of the plan and its progress to date.
The plan may seem very ambitious at the beginning, but an end term evaluation workshop on the construction of schools through community participation (CP) that was held on October 30th, 2009 at the hall of National Confederation of Eritrean Workers has concluded that it is in fact very doable.
During the occasion, representatives from the six regions presented the progress report of the construction activities of each region. Most of the schools are at the completion stage while some have been fully completed. The presentation proved that the RRI program was very successful despite all the unforeseen barriers that were encountered during the process. Had there not been any challenges then it was clear that the result would have been beyond everyone’s expectations.
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Throughout the presentation one could understand the eagerness of the communities to send their children to schools; for some schools have already started to give services even before the completion of the construction. This makes the RRI a workable and timely approach introduced to give broader access to education in the remote parts of the country and it has proven to be a milestone for the implementation of such programs in the future.
The representatives of the six regions and the participants of the workshop reached a common consensus that community-based projects have to be implemented in suitable season ( not to clash with other basic economic activities of the local people), budget has to be allocated through detailed assessment of every project, the standard design has to be modified to fit with local conditions like type of soil, availability of wind storm and termite attacks should also be considered particularly in the Gash Barka region.
According to the reports of the Ministry of Education, a total of 10.5 million of USD has been allotted for the establishment of the schools that could accommodate over 50,000 students both in the morning and afternoon shifts in all the 67 schools under construction.
Representatives from the World Bank and the European commission participated in the workshop to evaluate the work done and also commended the young engineers and the Eritrean communities for their contribution in the realization of set out goals.