Romanian Government to ensure hot meals or food packs for 450,000 students every school day

Romania’s Government recently approved a set of measures ensuring that almost half a million children will receive a hot meal each day that they go to school. According to prime minister Marcel Ciolacu, the national program is aimed at reducing school dropout.

"The government has approved the list of over 1,200 schools in Romania where over 450,000 children will receive a hot meal or a food package every school day. The measure helps children from hundreds of thousands of families and has the effect of reducing school dropout," Ciolacu said on February 28, cited by Digi24.

The program is funded with over RON 1 billion for the year 2024.

Last month, the reformist opposition party USR criticized the government for failing to enact the program from the start of the school year.

"The Government Decision regulating the Healthy Meal National Program had a deadline of November 1, 2023, but the Economic and Social Council only received the official document for approval today, January 10, 2024. This is not just a bureaucratic delay, but a blockage of support for children and their families, in a difficult period marked by price increases,” the party said in an official press release.

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