Jinju-si Significantly Expands Free School Meal Support... 40% Meal Cost Shared by Low-Income Families

Free Meals for 40,494 Students at 90 Elementary, Middle, High, and Special Schools in the District

A meeting of the Jinju City School Meal Support Deliberation Committee is being held.

[Asia Economy Yeongnam Reporting Headquarters Reporter Choi Soon-kyung] Jinju City, Gyeongnam Province, announced on the 1st that it held a School Meal Support Deliberation Committee meeting at the city hall situation room on the 26th of last month and presented appointment letters to the committee members.

Jinju City has secured a project budget of 21 billion KRW this year to provide free meals to 40,494 students in 90 elementary, middle, high, and special schools within the city.

Through the school meal support project, priority is given to using local agricultural products, achieving the dual effect of promoting healthy physical and mental development of growing students and boosting consumption of local agricultural products.

Jinju City has steadily increased the school meal budget from 7.9 billion KRW in 2017 to 11 billion KRW in 2018, 18.9 billion KRW in 2020, and 21 billion KRW in 2021 during the 7th elected administration.

Free meal expenses for low-income students were previously fully covered by the education office, but starting this year, the costs are shared with 30% from the provincial government, 40% from the city, and 30% from the education office.

Accordingly, Jinju City has allocated a budget of 420 million KRW to actively promote this win-win policy that contributes to students' health improvement and stabilizes farmers' income by securing sales channels for eco-friendly farmers.

Mayor Cho Gyu-il said at the appointment ceremony, "Citizens' interest in students' health improvement and safe food continues to rise," and urged, "Please lead the School Meal Support Deliberation Committee well to increase citizens' happiness index."

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