175 million euro European funds for tablets, protection equipment, sanitary containers for schools

Teaching staff in the pre-university units will receive 500,000 school tablets and IT equipment worth 100 million euro, necessary for the good conduct of classes, following the situation generated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the European Funds Minister (MFE) announced Thursday.

Furthermore, schools will be fitted with medical protection equipment and disinfectants, worth 50 million euro, as well as mobile healthcare containers, where another 25 million euro will be invested.

"Financing, from non-refundable European funds, were provided for in the Emergency Ordinance regarding measures to allot foreign non-refundable funds necessary to conduct in prevention conditions the education activities pertaining to school year 2020-2021 in the context of infection risk for SARS-CoV-2, adopted yesterday in the government session. Of the 100 million euro destined to IT equipment, 87.5 million euro are from non-refundable European funds and 12.5 million is the contribution of the Romanian state. The other types of protection equipment and the health containers will be acquired through the Operational Program Large Infrastructure," the release mentions.

According to the quoted source, the acquisition of mobile healthcare containers for school units that cannot ensure access to water and sewerage networks, with the condition of contracting in the conditions of the law the discharge services for the entire duration of use of the containers, is eligible in the limit of 5,000 euro.

At the same time, settling up expenses for mobile healthcare containers follows the simplified cost regime, with the obligation of the beneficiary of the financing to submit justification documents regarding their acquisition cost.

The beneficiaries of the financing measures will be the state pre-university education units, the local public authorities for state pre-university units, but also the partnerships between the two.