Greens vow to restore original school lunch programme, include more schools
The New Zealand Green Party has pledged to restore and expand the national school lunch programme if elected to government. They aim to increase funding per meal to $6.50 and extend coverage to approximately 400 additional schools.
Why it matters
The policy highlights a significant political debate over public spending, child nutrition, and the efficacy of government-contracted social services.
The Green Party wants to bring back the school lunch programme to what it was, and then expand it to more schools.
The party says if it is part of the next government, it will also permanently fund the Ka Ora, Ka Ako programme (which was renamed Healthy School Lunches in October).
The current government made changes to the model, in order to cut down on costs.
The programme had some early teething issues, including poor meal quality and a provider going into liquidation .
But Associate Education Minister David Seymour said in May that on-time delivery has been at almost 100 percent every day, and complaints had fallen by more than 92 percent.
The average cost per meal has now dropped to $3.58 across all suppliers, but the Greens want to restore the funding to $6.50 per lunch.
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