The Education Minister has failed to provide a definitive completion date for the nationwide school air-conditioning project, which the government previously pledged to finish before the start of the current academic year.
Responding to an inquiry at the People’s Majlis today, Education Minister Dr. Ismail Shafeeu reported that air conditioning has been installed in 61 percent of the 217 schools across the Maldives to date.
"We want to complete this very quickly, but there are challenges. Despite these hurdles, God willing, our target is to finish the work in most schools by the start of the second term," Shafeeu said.
He further clarified that air-conditioning units have already been dispatched to the remaining schools, and work is currently focused on upgrading their electrical grids. He noted that some of these institutions are over 45 years old, making it impossible to install the units without first modernizing the ageing infrastructure.
The government officially launched the project to air-condition all schools on June 2, 2024. The project was initially awarded to Fenaka Corporation on June 12, 2025, for MVR 55 million.
However, on November 6, the project was among 206 contracts redistributed by the government without a bidding process and awarded to Asters. The contract was handed over to Asters for MVR 58.4 million, an increase of MVR 3.4 million over the price agreed with Fenaka.
The government had previously assured that the air-conditioning project would be completed before the start of this academic year. On January 22, 2025, President Mohamed Muizzu said that all schools in the Maldives would be air-conditioned using renewable energy by September of that year.
