(AGENPARL) - Roma, 20 Dicembre 2024 - (AGENPARL) – ven 20 dicembre 2024 PRESS RELEASE
2024-522-EN
20 décembre 2024
France: EIB and Rhône department sign first finance contract for lower secondary school construction and refurbishment
The EIB will provide a 25-year loan of €45 million for seven collèges (lower secondary schools) in the department.
The collèges will be highly energy efficient following the work, reducing their carbon footprint and making operating cost savings.
This is the first time the EIB has lent funds to the Rhône department in France.
The European Investment Bank (EIB) and the Rhône department have signed a 25-year, €45 million finance contract to help modernise educational facilities and adapt them to local demand, with a view to improving the quality of secondary-level education in the area.
With this funding, the department will be able to improve the quality of the infrastructure of seven new or refurbished collèges. The project also includes investments in digital equipment and the refurbishment of schoolyards.
The collèges will be highly energy efficient following the work, enabling energy use reduction goals to be achieved and making operating cost savings. Climate change adaptation measures will also be included.
This project is fully in line not only with the department’s education efforts (2025 New Collèges Plan), but also with the green transition set out in its low-carbon strategy.
The project focuses on the construction, reconstruction or refurbishment of collèges. It will enable the department to support the adaptation of its network of educational facilities to local demand. This investment will make school infrastructure more resilient to climate risk and school buildings more energy efficient. The work carried out will include a wide range of solutions to adapt to global warming, such as sunshades, rainwater retention systems to supply water for toilet facilities in particular, and permeable soil solutions.
The project will benefit around 4 020 students enrolled in the department’s lower secondary schools (20% of all students in the department’s collèges). Around 30 000 m2 of educational facilities will be built, expanded or refurbished as part of this project.
EIB Vice-President Ambroise Fayolle said: “Investing in education is a priority for the EIB, the EU bank. We are very pleased with the trust placed in us by the Rhône department, which we are supporting for the first time in the financing of its public infrastructure. This project will also contribute to the low-carbon transition of collèges through improved energy efficiency and reduced operating costs.”
Christophe Guilloteau, president of the Rhône department, said: “We are delighted to sign this maiden financing contract with the EIB, which will enable us to carry out the ambitious educational infrastructure projects of our Rhône Bâtisseur programme, such as the 2025 New Collèges Plan.”
Background information
About the European Investment Bank (EIB)
The European Investment Bank (ElB) is the long-term lending institution of the European Union, owned by its Member States. It finances investments that contribute to EU policy objectives. In the education sector, which is one of its priorities, the EIB financed investment projects in France in 2023 to the tune of more than €900 million, a figure that has risen sharply. The EIB finances education infrastructure from nursery schools to higher education in both the public and private sectors. In secondary education, it recently financed school construction and refurbishment projects for lower secondary schools in six departments and for upper secondary schools in the Brittany and Île-de-France regions. In higher education, it financed refurbishment projects on the campuses of CentraleSupélec in Saclay, École Polytechnique in Palaiseau and INSEAD in Fontainebleau.
About the Rhône department
The department’s policy regarding collèges relates both to education itself and to work in schools. The educational aspect concerns pupils in the 33 public collèges and the 19 private collèges under contract in the Rhône department (upkeep, catering and maintenance), adaptation to changes in numbers (location and size of collèges, prospective students, allocation of schools by catchment area, transitional measures), development of cross-cutting and multidisciplinary educational actions in the collèges, and also covers the 12 training centres for young people in the Rhône department (environment, sustainable development, food, health, law, ensuring memory of past events, sport, culture). In this context, the department is carrying out major refurbishment work and constructing public collèges to provide the best learning conditions for young people and the best working conditions for all staff and the educational community in the Rhône department.
Press contacts
Rhône department:
Philippe Hugot and Margot Dupart