Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia – The free lunch program promoted by presidential candidate and vice presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto-Gibran Rakabuming Raka has been discussed by President Joko Widodo's government and his cabinet ministers so that it is included in the 2025 budgeting process.
The budget is designed at IDR 15,000 per child throughout Indonesia, with meal menus handed over to each region.
However, the total budget has not been determined in the discussion of the macroeconomic framework and main points of fiscal policy (KEM-PPKF) 2025 during the cabinet meeting, because it is still waiting for the KPU to determine the results of the 2024 presidential election.
“After that, it can be implemented next year, according to the stages,” said Coordinating Minister for the Economy Airlangga Hartarto, quoted on Wednesday (28/2/2024).
Even though in Indonesia the program will only be implemented next year, this does not mean that Indonesia is the only country that will have a free lunch program for its children. There are a number of countries that have implemented it first, including India to Brazil.
In India, the free lunch program provided by the government has been around since 1995. The program is part of the National Program of Nutritional Support to Primary Education (NP-NSPE) known as the Mid-Day Meal Scheme ( MDMS).
P-NSPE is a program that aims to address “hunger in the lower classes” and encourage poor children, who belong to underprivileged groups, to attend school regularly and help them concentrate on class activities.
This program is basically an effort to overcome the problems of food security, malnutrition and access to education on a national scale.
For the record, this MDMS is the largest school feeding program in the world reaching around 12 crore children in over 12.65 lakh schools/EGS centers across the country or over 125 million children aged 6-14 years.
Over time, MDMS changed its name to PM-POSHAN (POshan SHAkti Nirman).
During the initial stages, one of the biggest problems experienced by India was implementing the program on a large scale considering the large number of recipients of the free meal program.
Based on existing guidelines, the government can mobilize community support and encourage public-private partnerships to implement these initiatives.
The Indian government has begun partnering with non-profit organizations, such as Akshaya Patra, to implement this program and provide midday meals to children in schools.
The Karnataka government is the first state government to involve Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in providing mid-day meals to school children in India.
The involvement of NGOs in multilateral/bilateral programs increases the level of cooperation. More than just implementation, NGOs also play a role in designing and managing programs together with governments at all levels.
Evidently, the decision to involve NGOs in the implementation of the school feeding program helped the Government of Karnataka improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the effort.
The success of public-private partnerships in feeding children in government and government-aided schools sets a precedent that opens up opportunities for the Government of India to successfully leverage the skills and resources of the private sector.
The financing mechanism for the free meal program in India is to divide central government and state government funds in a 60:40 ratio for cooking costs and honorariums.
The Government of India bears the entire cost for other recurring components. For states from the North East (NER) and Himalayan states, the split ratio is 90:10. While Union Territories (UT) without a legislature are fully funded by the Government of India.
For the 2021-2022 period, the Government of India is spending IDR 11,500 crore or around IDR 23.7 trillion for MDMS. When compared with the budget for the ministry of education, the MDMS portion is only around 12.5%. Then for the 2023/2024 financial year, India allocated a budget of INR 11,600 crore or around US$1.4 billion (Rp. 21.45 trillion) for MDMS.
India's first attempt to implement a free lunch program or Mid-Day Meal or MDM was carried out around 1925, when it was introduced for children with poor socio-economic status in the Madras Corporation area in the state of Tamil Nadu.
As time went by, this MDM program did not run smoothly. These programs are rife with corruption and inappropriate implementation, often endangering and disappointing the vulnerable groups they are intended to serve.
There was a food poisoning incident at a school in Bihar which killed 23 children. The Times of India also reported that 50 state elementary school students had to be hospitalized in Bihar after eating food contaminated with lizard carcasses.
Apart from India, the free lunch program has also existed in Brazil for its 40 million school children since the 1940s, in England recently or to be precise in 2023, Estonia since 2002, Finland since 1943, the United States starting during the Covid-19 pandemic, and Sweden since the 1970s.
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