Spain has responsibilities with school canteens. Especially with the most vulnerable students. Less than half of children in poverty receive some form of state assistance to feed in their educational centers: the Autonomous Communities and the Ministry of Education (in Ceuta and Melilla) comprise 11.2% of these students, although it represents. Total 27.4%. The distance between the two numbers means that 1,085,278 children and adolescents do not receive any assistance to pay for school canteens.
This is one of the main conclusions of the report. Provide a healthy and free school canteen for all children at risk of povertyPresented by Save the Children this Tuesday. The study analyzes coverage of school canteens in Spain, a school service that combines health with education, but many communities do not consider a subjective right and do not provide assistance even if its admission requirements are met.
There is a paradox, the NGO condemns, that Spain has the problem of overweight or childhood obesity, which reaches 40% of minors, but it neglects one of the elements that will help alleviate this situation. According to the report, 6% of people under the age of 16 live in a family that cannot eat meat, chicken or fish, at least every other day.
Also, being overweight mainly affects low-income families – this is substantially proven by science – but private centers, with or without agreement, have more canteen users at all levels of education: almost the same coverage in the first cycle but 55% in the second cycle 38% Compared to 36% in primary compared to 36% and 25% compared to 3% in secondary.
“Providing healthy food in the school canteen is an effective and efficient measure that improves the nutrition and health of children and adolescents and has a positive effect on their educational success,” said Save the Children, which offers part of the recovery funds for construction. More dining and pay for this help.
The low availability of scholarships or subsidies can be explained in two ways, which reflects the report: the first barrier is that there are centers that do not directly have school canteen services (30% of infants and 90% of institutions lack it); The second is that “aid is insufficient, the level of income set for access to it is low and aid is not considered a subjective right,” explains Save the Children.
The latter means that in several regions (Castile and Leონიn, Cantabria, Aragon, Valencian Community, Murcia and the Balearic Islands) the system does not have a budget allocated to cover all applicants. This is done through a competitive tender, which means that aid is distributed from below and until the imposed budget is exhausted, which can be missed by people who are eligible for aid.
The ministry that covers the least
In all of Spain only Euskadi covers all its socially vulnerable students with the help of a dining room. However, he achieves it in a way that is not the society that invests the most in dining room scholarships, but it is the society where the fewest children live in poverty. The areas for which the Ministry of Education is responsible are among the areas with the worst coverage: Ceuta and Melilla have 35% of poor children, but only 5% have canteen assistance. Murcia, Extremadura, and Castilla y Leონსn have a similar difference between poverty and coverage, while the Canary Islands are also home to 30% of vulnerable families, but it is the most covered community, bordering on 25%.
Alvaro Ferrer, Save the Children’s educational equality specialist, explains that part of the problem with not covering the minors in need of help is setting too low a threshold for their demand, leaving many families out. An example might be the Canary Islands: According to Save the Children, to receive a scholarship you must earn 554 euros per month or less for a family of four; The amount in Murcia should not exceed 616 euros per month.
These red lines vary between communities and are below the lowest threshold set by the regulations to claim a general scholarship and, because of the expansion, as they are practically the same, below the poverty line, condemn Save The Children, which is slightly below € 20,000 a year. For a family of two parents and two children. Only Euskada, Ceuta, Melilla, Galicia and Extremadura have more than one poverty line to cover more people.
Source: El Diario
