More than 22,500 students across the province will benefit from shopping vouchers in the first 15 days of lockdown. The initiative is aimed at disadvantaged families who currently receive full ‘beca’ grant – 100 percent reimbursement – for school meals, known as comedor. Under the new proviso each student will receive the equivalent of 60e to spend on food in Consum supermarkets.
While the temporary suspension of face-to-face school lessons are in place to contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus, the Department of Education has confirmed that this replacement voucher scheme will be offered to relevant families and essentially offers free food to those who need it most.
Minister for Education Vicent Marzà explains: “We have recently contacted several supermarket companies and in all cases there has been great co-operation to try to implement this measure. We have started this initiative with Consum because it already has a purchase voucher system which can quickly be adapted to the voucher for the acquisition of food for the most vulnerable students.”
In the province there are 83 establishments of this type and the voucher is “non-transferable, addressed to the father, mother or tutor of the beneficiary student and official ID must be presented to make it effective.”
The investment needed by the Education Department to carry out the transfer of these vouchers is 3.5 million euros.