Hanoi to continue school milk programme in new academic year

Hanoi (VNA) – Hanoi will continue to implement the school milk programme at its pre-school and primary schools in the 2019-2020 academic year which will start in early September.

At a conference on August 6 on the school milk programme, Deputy Director of the municipal Department of Education and Training Pham Xuan Tien said milk will continue to be supplied to local school children as from September 6. The programme will end on May 29, 2020, the last day of the school year.

The deputy director required district and communal departments of education and training to conduct inspections of milk supply at schools to ensure food safety, and support local authorities to encourage parents to register their children for the programme, under which families only have to pay 47 percent of the milk price. Poor, near-poor, ethnic minority students and social policy beneficiaries will receive free milk under the programme.

Schools are requested to ensure that children drink milk right in school, not giving milk to children to bring home.

The school milk programme was started at schools in Hanoi on January 2, 2019, and just on the first day, 64 percent of children at local preschool and primary schools joined the programme. After one week, 100 percent of public preschool and primary schools and 61.8 percent of private schools participated in the programme, and the rate of participating students reached 73 percent.

By the end of the 2018-2019 school year, 1,039,458 out of 1,185,179 preschool and primary students in the city participated in the programme.

The school milk programme was launched nationwide on September 28, 2016. It targets providing all pre-school children and elementary pupils in poor districts with milk by 2020.

To implement the programme, the Government has called on organisations, enterprises and individuals to participate, especially in poor areas.

However, only 13 cities and provinces have implemented the programme.-VNA