Society

Well-fed students get teeth into books

By Gao Qihui (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-02-08 08:18

JIANGLE, Fujian - The success of an ambitious project to literally offer food for thought to thousands of students in Jiangle county in East China's Fujian province has proven that great rewards can come from a modest investment.

Lin Wanli, a 13-year-old boarder at a county school, said the local government's school meals project means he no longer returns home hungry to his mother at the end of the school week.

Lin is among more than 3,000 boarders from rural areas of Jiangle county who live at school all week and who are now benefiting from the "Nutritious Meal Project" that has been developing since 2007.

The project, the first of its kind in the province, initially set out with a modest goal - to make sure each student living in a local school started the day with an egg and a cup of soybean milk, said Huang Jianping, Party chief of Jiangle county and the man who oversaw the start of the project as the county's mayor.

Huang said educators realized there was a need for nutritional meals following the centralization of elementary and middle schools in the countryside, which led to a large number of very young rural students boarding at school.

Lin Xianyong, the father of Lin Wanli, said families sent their children to school each week with provisions, but they were always worried about whether their children were getting enough to eat.

"Before 2007, my son used to take some mustard and salted fish from home to school because they are not easily spoiled," he said. He also gave his son about 16 yuan ($2.4) a week to spend in the school canteen.

As a coalminer in a rural area of Gaotang township in Jiangle county, Lin earns about 1,200 yuan a month. The father of two said his son rarely got to enjoy nutritious meals and such things as meat at the school.

Back in 2007, when the nutritious school meals project began, the local government invested more than 2 million yuan on food subsidies and on canteen workers.

To ensure the safety of food, the local government also took back the responsibility of running school canteens from outside contractors and publicized the safe procurement process for food.

The idea of offering a subsidy to boarders for food was immediately picked up by the provincial government and introduced at all rural elementary and middle schools across Fujian province, costing about 230 million yuan and covering 710,000 boarders.

Since initiating the idea of food subsidies, Jiangle county has developed additional policies to ensure boarders get three square meals a day.

"Other than uncooked rice, boarders from rural areas do not need to bring any food from home and only need to pay 10 yuan a week for everything," said Fang Yujun, the deputy director of the local education bureau.

He said the local government chips in an additional 20 yuan per student per week to ensure the quality of the menu.

Because the schools now directly run the canteens, they are free from overheads and need not turn a profit, so the 30 yuan per student per week provided is more than enough for the canteens to ensure quality meals, said Huang Jianping.

In addition to the free nutritious breakfast, the schools guarantee a meat dish and a vegetable dish each day for lunch and supper.

Parents such as Lin Xianyong said they can see the project is working.

"I am very satisfied with the project and my son's face looks more round and bright," he said.

The local government meanwhile is cooking up more improvements.

"We are planning to add one yuan per day to each boarder student's subsidy to make meals better and more nutritious in the next step," said Huang.