NGO proposes free school meals

Ljubljana – The NGO 8 March Institute has tabled two bills to introduce free meals for all children in primary school. Free lunch should be part of a free school concept, the NGO said, hopeful that it could start collecting signatures in support of the proposal in September.

The proposal includes amendments to the primary school act and the school meals act to implement free lunch to all primary school students.

“One of the reasons for this decision is that primary education should be free of charge under the law,” said Mojca Lukan, the NGO’s member, as she pointed out that primary education nonetheless came with costs in some parts, including children’s lunches.

The organisation’s head, Nika Kovač, said the bills followed the logic found in the meal allowance legislation that implements this right to all employees regardless of their pay. Translated into the school environment, all children would be entitled to free meals regardless of their background.

Free school lunch is also a commitment made by the current coalition in their agreement, she added.

8 March Institute decided to pursue this after it carried out a survey into the impact of the cost of living crisis under which many participants reported they had been pushed further into poverty.

The NGO hopes it could start collecting signatures in support of the proposal as early as in September. For the bills to be considered in the National Assembly, at least 5,000 signatures must be obtained.

The signatures will be collected under a campaign dubbed It’s About Children that bears the same name in Slovenian as a campaign years ago that was against same-sex couples having the right to adopting children.

The latter campaign was held in the run-up to a 2015 referendum where gay marriage and same-sex adoption were rejected, and later turned into a political party. Kovač has been known as one of the prominent individuals opposing this campaign and subsequent movement.

In June this year, the deputy group of the opposition Democrats (SDS) submitted a proposal to amend the school meals act to introduce free lunches and subsidised meals for primary and secondary school students, but the parliament rejected the bill at the beginning of July.

8 March Institute found the SDS’s proposal lacking, Kovač said.

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