Unused School Meal Fees Due to School Opening Delay Provided as 'Vouchers' to Each Student's Family

Seoul City Delivers 'Eco-Friendly School Meal Ingredients' to 860,000 Elementary, Middle, and High School Students
Mobile Coupons Worth 100,000 KRW Usable Until End of July

[Asia Economy Reporter Jo In-kyung] Due to the postponement of school openings caused by the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19), unused school meal fees will be paid to each student's household.

On the 7th, Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon and Seoul Superintendent of Education Cho Hee-yeon held a briefing at Seoul City Hall and announced, "With the suspension of school meals due to the delay in school openings, we are launching the 'Student Food Voucher Support' project to reduce the damage suffered by eco-friendly meal ingredient producers and suppliers."

As school openings have been postponed for over two months, the unused budget for eco-friendly school meals (remaining food expenses) will be returned to students, and the project aims to help ingredient producers and suppliers who have experienced sales losses.

Accordingly, a total of 1,335 schools, including elementary, middle, high, and special schools in Seoul, and 860,000 students will receive mobile coupons in the form of vouchers. Among them, 75,000 students, including first-year high school students and some special school students who are not eligible for free meals, will also receive the same amount. To provide this, Seoul City and 25 autonomous districts have decided to prepare supplementary budgets.

The mobile coupons can be exchanged for eco-friendly rice (worth 30,000 KRW) and packages of agricultural and livestock products or agricultural and marine products (worth 30,000 KRW). The coupons will be sent to parents' smartphones. By entering an address on the coupon, rice and packages can be received in May and June. The remaining 40,000 KRW will be provided as points, which can be used to purchase desired products on the Nonghyup online shopping mall (Nonghyup Mall). The validity period for using the coupons and points is until the end of July.

Seoul City explained that the contents of the packages will be diversified, and instead of providing the same package to all households uniformly, parents will be given the option to choose, aiming to enhance consumer convenience.

Mayor Park Won-soon said, "Due to the COVID-19 situation, the supply of school meal ingredients has been suspended, and since May is the season when agricultural products are shipped in earnest, damage to eco-friendly agricultural producers is expected. We are determined to prevent the collapse of the eco-friendly agricultural product market itself. With this urgent mindset, we will share the pain of farmers and meal organizations and work together with the city, districts, and education offices to reduce the economic burden on parents and do our best to promote this project."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.