Student Demonstrators Demand Free Food
In support of government-paid meals in schools, the national student union will hold a demonstration in Tallinn’s Town Hall Square on September 12.
The student organization says the government should expand its free meals plan - currently for first to ninth grade - to include high school and trade schools students.
The school day is long and students need to eat in order to stay mentally acute, finds the student group.
One student meal costs 73 cents in euros. Feeding students from the first to ninth grade costs taxpayers about 14 million euros annually.
Buying lunch for high school students would cost an additional 4.5 million euros a year. That’s about 0.08 percent of the state budget, said the student union’s spokesperson Susanna Paeväli.
