Mafraq school children were never in danger, Shdeifat says

AMMAN — Director of the Mafraq Education Directorate Osama Shdeifat said that the directorate did not receive any complaints about students from Al-Shaymaa Mixed Elementary school in Mafraq being recently transferred to a classroom that looked like a kitchen.اضافة اعلان

“The transfer was only for one day and students are now back in their original classroom,” Shdeifat told Jordan News, adding that the previous building the school rented had cracks that could pose a risk to the students’ lives, thus they had to be moved to another rented building “for the safety of students and staff”.

“The necessary maintenance works were done and students are back in their classroom,” Shdeifat reiterated.

He added that “the water heater that appeared in the picture” that went viral on social media was not connected to electricity and “the directorate tackled the problem immediately”.

Managing Director of the Buildings and International Projects Department Ibraheem Al-Samam’ah briefed Jordan News about his visit to the school building Sunday, and said that the school is overcrowded and needs plastering.

Samam’ah said that he issued recommendations for the necessary and urgent maintenance works to be carried out in the school, adding that the department is working on renting a different building as quickly as possible, and planning to buy a 4-dunum land to build a school that meets the requirements of the learning process.

“As I said many times, rented schools are not suitable for the learning process since the size of a classroom is very small,” Samam’ah said, adding that “once we have a suitable plot of land to build the new school, close to the current one, the construction process will only take around nine months or one year”.

He added that the Ministry of Education will buy the plot of land from its budget once it has the necessary funding.

“The students are fine, and following the two-shift system until the problem is completely solved,” Samam’ah added.

He also said that the instructions regarding school building, which stipulate abiding by the minimum requirements for school construction as of March 1, will be followed.


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