Inova BH elected public-private partnership of the year

We work in partnership with the Municipal Government of Belo Horizonte to manage non-academic activities in 51 schools, which were also built by the company

A public-private partnership (PPP) in education, the first in Latin America. Through this partnership, Inova BH, the concessionaire led by Odebrecht Engineering & Construction, is responsible for building, maintaining and managing non-academic services at 51 schools in Belo Horizonte – 46 elementary schools and five primary and secondary education schools.

The agreement was signed in 2012. The units were delivered in 2016 and since 2015 Odebrecht has been working in partnership with the Municipal Government of Belo Horizonte to manage non-academic activities at the units, which have a combined capacity to serve 25,000 students. On November 21, the project won the PPP Awards & Conference Brazil 2017, an event in which public-private partnerships in Brazil were honored. At the awards ceremony held in São Paulo, the asset won two categories: Municipal Project of the Year and Project of the Year – the latter the most important category at the awards.

According to Clebio Batista, president of Inova BH, one of the highlights of the PPP is the participation of a company specializing in non-academic services. “School managements can dedicate themselves to matters solely related to the learning process of students,” he explained. “In other schools, managements end up paying more attention than they should to peripheral matters, such as contracting of cleaning, landscaping and maintenance workers. Once they are free of these activities, they can dedicate themselves to what really matters.”

Santa Rosa School, in Belo Horizonte

Light Steel Frame

But it was not the only contributing factor to the success of the project, which, since its conception, has been driven by innovation. The units were constructed in different regions of Belo Horizonte, mainly in socially vulnerable areas, where the city historically had a deficit of schools. And all the schools were concluded two months ahead of schedule. This was possible due to the centralization of several schools in a single agreement and the choice of the Light Steel Frame construction method by the concessionaire.

The technique is widely used in countries such as Japan, Chile, Canada and the United States, but was little known in Brazil until recently. The method standardizes the construction process and is easy and quick to assemble, which enabled Inova BH to maintain several construction sites simultaneously.

Click here to read more about the concessionaire.