Segregation was suspected in Russian school canteens: sausages are underserved

The case in the Ulyanovsk region caused a public outcry

In the Ulyanovsk region, a scandal erupted – parents are outraged by the different approaches to the nutrition of those children whose parents pay for food, and beneficiaries. Beneficiaries should be understood as children from large and low-income families, orphans. At once in several schools they began to be fed worse than other children, often at a separate table. The parents are so outraged by segregation that they filed a complaint with the governor of the region and wrote a letter to the president.

Ulyanovsk social networks are filled with indignation. “All the children were given sausage, pancakes with condensed milk, and our children were given porridge on the water,” says the mother of the student. Several other parents wrote that the children’s meals were also divided. Everyone has a salad, soup, a second course and compote – the beneficiaries have only a second course and “some unknown water”. “In general, I have a feeling that ours are given leftovers, unclaimed portions are divided and given to them,” the father of a high school student is indignant. “They will get to the point that they will start feeding them yesterday’s food, rotten meat!” From another school they report that stale food is already being given to children: today the “freebies” on the menu had fish meatballs and stale apples that smelled “incomprehensibly what”. “Fed sandwiches!” shout the other parents. The fact is that according to the law, food must be hot, and hot sandwiches are allowed. “Bread, three sausage mugs are poured over with terrible cheese,” city residents comment on the proposed photo of the indigestible “breakfast”.

Even those who pay for school meals themselves call such an initiative social segregation. And the parents of beneficiaries are ready to fork out, just so that the child eats normally and does not feel like second-class next to classmates. “The deputies themselves should be fed with this food,” Ulyanovsk residents suggest.

The mayor of the city, Dmitry Vavilin, said that one of the local school catering operators has already divided the food within the framework of the approved program. Paid categories of students receive breakfast for 80 rubles, free – for 68 rubles. Although everyone in the administration of the city and the region, in principle, agrees that it is impossible to separate children, everyone should eat the same.

In the wake of the scandal, school catering departments were visited by various checks, including deputy ones. An underestimation of the weight of portions, an imbalance in the menu towards the predominance of carbohydrates, and other violations were found. The mayor is working on “the creation of a municipal structure that can take over the organization of high-quality nutrition for children.”

At the same time, this is not the first time that beneficiaries are underfed in Russian school canteens. In the Samara region, the prosecutor’s office received a case about 120 children from 26 schools in Syzran, who were simply not fed or were divided into the rest of the paid portions. It turned out that no funds were allocated from the district budgets for free meals in schools. The issue price for the region is 600 thousand rubles.

Children were divided into beneficiaries and payers for nutrition and were fed differently in other regions of the Russian Federation. Similar situations were observed in schools in the Chelyabinsk region, Tatarstan, Tyva, Karelia, and others. They did not hear about such a division, except perhaps in the capitals and largest cities.

“By the letter of the law (FZ 273 “On Education”), all elementary school students (grades 1-4) should be provided with free meals,” says lawyer Stanislav Popov. – It’s a federal regulation. Only in a few regions of the Russian Federation do local laws operate, and only beneficiaries of younger schoolchildren eat free of charge. Among them, apparently, the Ulyanovsk region. As for lunches, there are various federal, regional and municipal programs. Priority recipients of benefits for two free hot meals a day are orphans and children with OFZ. Also, the free food benefit applies to children from large families and the poor with a proven need criterion.