Affluent parents to pay more for hostel food

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KUALA LUMPUR: Parents earning more than RM5,000 a month will have to pay more for school hostel food this year due to budget constraints faced by the Education Ministry.They will have to pay RM3 a day, up from RM1 a day, for 200 days for each child staying at school hostel, said Education Ministry secretary-general Tan Sri Dr Zulkurnain Awang.

He said, however, the school hostel food aid charge remain unchanged for parents earning less than RM5,000 a month.

The increase is unavoidable as the subsidy for school hostel food has increased from RM14 to RM16 a day for each student this year, he said in a statement yesterday.

He said the government would have to spend between RM1.2 billion and RM1.4 billion for school hostel food aid this year if the subsidy remain unchanged.

He said schools would have to be more efficient in preparing food for students and avoid wastage by determining the number of students staying back and going home on weekends.

He said schools would be given an allocation for 200 days with the maximum number of students and an additional allocation would be provided if the fund was inadequate.

“Schools are not allowed to force students to go back to their family homes on weekends or public holidays, or impose an charge extra for those who stay back,” he said, adding that schools could bring forward previous years’ balances.

Zulkurnain said the austerity drive would not affect academic, co-curriculum and student character building programmes. — Bernama