The Minister of Education talks about new measures of national interest that have been taken for students in Romanian schools, measures that are part of a very important legislative package that should be adopted by 2023, with other important goals of Romania being linked to it .
The Minister of Education talks below about what is being done to reduce school dropout by providing hot meals in as many schools as possible, this being an objective that must be met for Romania's accession to the OECD as soon as possible in the next period.
"This problem was greatly aggravated by the health crisis and by the economic crisis (n. ed. asked about the situation of children who go to school only to have something to eat), what can be done, what we are already doing, a hot meal, along with student transportation, along with scholarships, and a motivating scholarship system, are the 3 pillars through which we can reduce school dropout.
Through which we can improve access to quality education for all children. There are objectives on which Romania's accession to the OECD depends, in a different order of ideas. It was a Hot Meal program initiated in 2016 that was piloted for 6 years for 150 schools in Romania. I find it inexplicable to pilot to find out what? As a hot meal makes the difference for many families between sending their children to school or not.
This year we increased the budget for Hot Meals to 354 million LEI, doubled the number of schools, and added 50 more schools. We have 350 schools that benefit from hot meals this year. At the same time, we also increased the daily allowance for a meal from, it was 7 LEI, 10 LEI, and now it is 15 LEI, in order to have an efficient mechanism to keep up with the evolution of prices.
This year, 350 schools benefit. In Botosani last year we had 3 beneficiary schools, this year we have 7 schools. The Botosani school inspectorate gave the ministry, the nine, the 7 schools it considered the most vulnerable. The school you presented will continue to be part of this program which will be improved either by increasing the daily allowances.
By increasing the daily allowance, it will be possible to provide a hot meal, because that is really preferable. For September next year, the draft law that we launched in public debate proposes hot meals, healthy meals in schools, for at least 1 million students. This means that 1 out of 2 students will have a hot meal in schools from September 2023, if the draft law is adopted."
