These days we have heard the news of the "tuppers" or lunch boxes that allow food to be taken to school, a trend that has increased in recent times. And the reason is none other than different communities in Spain will charge for the lunch boxes that children bring to the school canteen.
In Catalonia from next year, students who carry a lunch box must pay almost half the price of the dining room service, which has a cap of 6.20 euros for food. It is argued that these families must cover the use of specific refrigerators, microwaves and cleaning services and monitors.
This is a saving measure according to the Family and Educational Community Service of the Department of Education of the Generalitat, a saving that will depend on the number of lunchbox users in each school, although it will be around 50%.
The Department of Education of the Generalitat has authorized that from next year schools and institutes, especially high school, can implement "lunch box services" as an alternative to the conventional school canteen, in response to a request from several associations of mothers and fathers of students, to deal with the economic crisis.
But that lunch service will have a price that will end up determining each center, depending on the number of schoolchildren who sign up for the initiative.
Also in the Valencian Community
As the Communities are so needy (and not precisely because of the students or their parents), any measure that saves, at whatever cost, soon gets imitators.
The Minister of Education, Training and Employment of the Valencian Community has admitted that her department "is studying" the possibility of charge a "symbolic" amount to those students who take their own lunch box to eat at school, also with the objective of paying the monitors that monitor the children during the meal.
Although the Consell also studies this possibility, the amount will be "very small" and would not reach those three euros that will be charged at most in Catalonia. Of course, in the case of the Valencian Community dining scholarships are one of many that have been reduced or eliminated by the crisis.
In Madrid, more tuppers and fewer scholarships
Madrid families that the next course choose to bring food from home to school can save an average of 90 euros per month, the cost currently has the school menu in Madrid public centers, as reported by the Ministry of Education and Job.
This follows from the draft of the Order of the Ministry of Education that regulates the school canteens and will be approved in the coming weeks.
But, according to the Federation of Associations of Parents of Students of the Community of Madrid (FAPA) the possibility that students can take lunchbox to school "hides the elimination of dining scholarships"Its president talks about the lack of alternatives and safety in food preservation and processing, which will lead children to eat snacks.
Is home or school food healthier?
In this maelstrom of news about lunch boxes in schools, alarm voices have been raised because they consider that, in a context in which school menus are improving their quality, there are children whose only healthy meal a day is that of the dining room (by far that some may not offer the ideal menu), and if scholarships are eliminated, they are deprived of that possibility.
The food they would take in their lunch boxes, either due to lack of resources or due to ignorance, may be unhealthy for children. The solution in these cases would be the training of families in nutrition, so that they can prepare healthy menus at home, and the granting of scholarships for families without resources. And both measures are complicated in this economic context.
In conclusion, the opportunity to bring lunchboxes to school seems great, but not suitable for all cases, because dining room scholarships should not be eliminated as an excuse for the possibility of bringing food from home.
And as for the collection of "tupper service" To children who take it to the school canteen, it seems a collection measure that I do not consider adequate in the case of families with few resources that no longer have access to scholarships. Anyway, we will see how this whole question ends, it is difficult to find a positive side to any measure, you look at it from the point of view, but we are tired of many "copays" and cuts ...
