Wikus Swanepoel, principal of Maidstone Intermediate has said that Maidstone Intermediate did not qualify for the School Lunch Collective, but 80-90 students out of it’s 530 students don’t get enough nutritious food at home and would benefit from it. He says that if schools on the scheme are getting lunches and rejecting them, then why can’t those same lunches be provided to schools that genuinely need them? He says that the Education Ministry should talk to schools about who needs the free lunches.

Swanepoel said that about 30 of the students previously attended a primary school which was covered by the lunch scheme, and for six years they’d received a warm lunch every day. Now three months down the track, a new system has decided they don’t need those lunches anymore. Nothing has changed in the students situations, and now suddenly they have no lunches being provided for them.

Source: Radio New Zealand

07/03/25