The pandemic has brought with it a decrease in the number of children in school canteens and a break in the plan to install kitchens ‘in situ’ that the Aragonese Government launched in the 2018-2019 academic year and in which many families trusted to banish the cold line catering. At the moment there are 28,357 students from public centers who eat at their schoolscompared to the 31,971 who did so in the 2019-2020 academic year in which the coronavirus made its appearance and the 21,811 in the past, according to data provided by Education.
The fear of contagion is behind the drop of a third of users last year, but although the use of this service has recovered, it is still 11% lower. From the Federation of Associations of Parents of Public Schools, its manager Nieves Burón points out that there are other factors that cause this decline. As a “precaution” some parents still prefer to take their children home for lunch. For Burón, the decrease in the school population may also have had an influence. It remains to be seen whether or not next September will return to the pre-pandemic figures. The influx to this service could also be affected by the increasing weight of the continuous day, which means centralizing classes in the morning. However, between the 2015-2016 and 2017-2018 academic years, the cafeterias gained 922 users, going from 30,089 to 31,011, which represented an increase of 3%.
Dining scholarships have also fallen. A total of 10,130 schoolchildren from centers supported by public funds currently have this help from the DGA of 860 euros per beneficiary and full year. This is 729 less than in the past, when they were 10,859. This decline coincides with the fall also in applications in recent years. In the 2019-2020 academic year there were 11,452 beneficiaries and in 2018-2019 the figure rose to 11,811. For the manager of Fapar, it may be a positive effect of the improvement in the economy, at least until before the health crisis.
“There are at least 35 schools on the waiting list for Education to assess the adequacy of their own kitchen,” estimates Pablo Alconchel, spokesman for the Platform for Quality Public Kitchens. This group has been immersed in a crusade for some time to get a good diet for schoolchildren. Alconchel criticizes that of the first kitchens “committed” by the DGA, those of the Parque Goya and Valdespartera 1 schools in Zaragoza have yet to be undertaken. “We understand that there have been other priorities, but the specific item has disappeared from the budgets and we do not trust that this type of action will be undertaken with European funds,” he says.
The Valdespartera ampa began in 2017 to make a move to transform its kitchen and they are still waiting. Representatives of the families have met with the provincial director of Education and the conclusion is that “everything continues to be paralyzed”, they point out from the association. The dining room is used by 445 students permanently in two shifts and they also demand its expansion.
Alconchel recalls that they are waiting for the tender for the Zaragoza school canteen service and to find out if Education has included “some improvements” in the specifications, such as the inclusion of kitchen staff ratios “which do not exist now ” and more “quality and organic” products on the menus. From the Platform for Quality Public Canteens, a campaign has been launched to claim that parents can clearly and precisely know all the information about the products that are served to their children and have access to the corresponding labeling with all the food information.