Good news for families with primary and secondary school-going children on the Ministry of Education’s (MOE) Financial Assistance Scheme: they will receive school meal subsidies during the full Home-Based Learning (HBL) period.
School Meal Subsidies Extended to Cover Full HBL Period
The School Meals Programme was originally established in 2006 to provide subsidies for meals purchased at the school canteen and consumed in school. However, with the current circuit breaker period, students under MOE’s Financial Assistance Scheme who are staying at home are unable to benefit from the in-school School Meals Programme .
Today, MOE announced that it will be extending its meal subsidies for primary and secondary students under its Financial Assistance Scheme (FAS), even though they are not in school. The enhanced scheme will apply for four weeks to cover the full HBL period. This extended programme will also be supported by the Sayang Sayang Fund which was launched by the Community Foundation of Singapore.
Disbursements of School Meal Subsidies
The disbursements of the school meal subsidies will be done via two top-ups to eligible students’ school smartcard.
Eligible primary school students will receive a total of $80 each, with $60 coming from MOE and $20 from the Sayang Sayang Fund. Eligible secondary school students will receive a total of $120 each.
Students can redeem the extended meal subsidies at any TransitLink Add Value Machine once every two weeks, starting from 14 April 2020. The locations TransitLink Add Value Machines can be found here.
The school smartcards can then be used to purchase food and essential groceries at certain hawker centres, food courts, minimarts, convenience stores and supermarkets.
The extension of the meal subsidies will benefit around 45,000 students. Subsidies will amount to about $4.5 million, with about $500,000 provided by the Sayang Sayang Fund.
READ: Volunteers Start Initiative to Match Students In Need Of Extra Academic Assistance With Tutors During Full HBL Period
