Starting 01 September 2018, budget food allocations for children, pupils to increase in Moldova

Chisinau, 16 July /MOLDPRES/ – There were addressed issues related to improving nutrition of children and pupils in kindergartens and schools today in a meeting at the Government, chaired by Prime Minister Pavel Filip, the government’s communication and protocol department has reported.

Among the main system shortcomings, there were enumerated: inadequate quality of food, lack of an efficient purchasing mechanism, failure to comply with food preparation rules and low financial rules for child nutrition in educational institutions.

In order to improve the situation, it is planned to increase by MDL 02,00 per child a day financial norms allocated for feeding of children and pupils in educational institutions starting with 01 September 2018. In the state budget for this year, there are included MDL 51 million for it.

Also, in order to overcome deficiencies existing within system, it was developed a new instruction on organisation of food for children and pupils in general education institutions. The document is also a methodological guide for efficient organisation of nutrition for children and pupils in terms of decentralisation of administrative processes in education and a large fluctuation of occupied staff in food organisation.

The new rules implementation will help to better organise nutrition of children, ensure fairness and transparency in purchasing, delivering and processing products, complying with hygiene standards and preventing food poisoning. The Instruction is to be finalised and approved by Government.

Every day, over 305 thousand children and pupils are fed in educational institutions in Moldova. In budget 2018, it is scheduled an amount of about MDL 01 billion for it.