The expansion of the Olomouc Faculty of Education will begin in April

Olomouc - The completion of the Faculty of Education of Palacký University in Olomouc will begin in early April. UP Rector Miroslav Mašláň signed a contract with the contractor, the company Zlínstav, yesterday. This company previously challenged the tender, and the Office for the Protection of Competition canceled it in February. Therefore, the university had to make the selection again. Zlínstav won with the lowest price of 129.8 million crowns, said the university spokesman Radek Palaščák to ČTK today.
      The company was newly selected by the commission at the end of February, but due to potential appeals from other participants in the proceedings, the university did not announce the winner at that time. "The deadline for appeals has already passed, and no one has done so. Therefore, we have signed a contract with the company Zlínstav, and work should begin as soon as possible. The project is indeed slightly delayed," Palaščák stated. The completion should be finished by the end of next year.
      The start of construction work at the Faculty of Education is anxiously awaited. "We need to move teaching to the new building as quickly as possible because the existing building is insufficient in capacity. We lack large lecture halls and specialized laboratories. The new building will be exclusively for teaching and research; there will be no offices there," said the faculty dean Libuše Ludíková to ČTK today.
      The Faculty of Education originally planned to start construction of a new research-educational center in the courtyard of its building last year. The faculty received a grant of 254.8 million crowns from European sources. According to Ludíková, they can now request 30 percent from the EU of the difference between the allocated grant and the price that resulted from the tender. The faculty has been planning the construction of another building for several years.
      Olomouc University announced the tender last February. It received 14 offers. It anticipated spending 237 million crowns on the completion. However, Zlínstav's offer was nearly half lower. The contracting authority found the price of 129.8 million to be exceptionally low. Zlínstav challenged this approach with the Office for the Protection of Competition, which upheld its submission. Therefore, the commission selected a contractor again, with the lowest price being the main criterion, according to the rector.