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Prabowo to expand free lunch program to teachers
The presidential front-runner has promised to expand his free school lunch program to include teachers, as many of them were still subsisting on low wages and were thus unable to meet their adequate nutritional intake.
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Defense Minister and presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto salutes his supporters on Jan. 26, 2024 as he leaves a campaign rally in Jakarta. (Reuters/Willy Kurniawan)
Prabowo Subianto has said he plans to expand his free school lunch program to it benefits both students and teachers.
The presidential front-runner revealed the expanded program on Monday during a discussion in Jakarta, saying that because many teachers still had low wages, they were unable to maintain adequate nutritional intake.
“We have already tried a pilot project in certain provinces, implemented it, and it was successful. However, we found that in some areas that not only the children were malnourished, but teachers were also malnourished too,” said Prabowo, as quoted by Antara.
The Gerindra Party founder chairman said the free lunch and milk program would need an initial fund of around US$34 billion per year to cover 82.9 million people, particularly children and pregnant women.
“We have already calculated [the number of recipients and costs], but perhaps these calculations need to be adjusted” to expand the program to teachers, Prabowo says in a Kompas TV broadcast.
The defense minister said free lunch program was one of his campaign’s most attractive successful programs, and was rapidly gaining strong support.
On Jan. 13, the campaign team of Prabowo and his running mate Gibran Rakabuming Raka inaugurated a public kitchen dubbed “Dapur Indonesia Maju” (Onward Indonesia Kitchen) to prepare and provide free lunches for students and santri (Islamic boarding school students) in Jakarta.
