Govt tops up rural students’ meal subsidies

The central government has allocated new funds to cover meal subsidies to improve the nutrition of rural students and renovate school canteens in remote areas, as problems have emerged in the meal subsidy system.

Another 2.285 billion yuan ($370 million) was added recently to the meal subsidies, the Ministry of Finance said Wednesday on its official website.

The ministry also said that the central government had allocated another 9.376 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) to renovate school canteens in remote areas in the country, totaling 19.4 billion yuan since a special fund for the renovation project was established in 2011.

China launched the nutrition improvement program in 680 poor counties in 2011, and required local governments to ensure that every child gets a three yuan meal subsidy per day.

However, the project has not been implemented effectively in some places due to the lack of supervision in the implementation process.

A volunteer at a school in Fenghuang county, Hunan Province, posted on her Weibo account last week that the school only offered a small piece of bread and a carton of milk, which was far from enough for a child's lunch. The post sparked widespread criticism of the local government.

"Most local county or village level governments just cooperated with some retailers to send children cold milk and bread, and cut the three yuan budget down," said Xiao Longjun, the spokesman of Free Lunch for Children, an NGO that has provided free lunches for over 30,000 children in 199 rural schools.

Free Lunch for Children is currently working with several counties in Sichuan and Hubei provinces to help local schools build their own canteens.

Chu Zhaohui, a researcher at the China National Institute for Educational Research, believes the government should invite a third party, such as an NGO, to supervise the implementation of the policy.

The country will develop new software which will evaluate the nutrition of the food provided to students, according to a statement released on the website of the Ministry of Education Wednesday.