Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. K. Stalin launched the expansion of the breakfast scheme for primary school children to include state-aided private schools on Monday, PTI reported. At the inauguration held at St. Anne’s School in Tiruvallur district, Stalin sat with the children, serving and eating breakfast alongside them. The scheme is aimed at eradicating nutrition deficiency among students.
Under the scheme, students in Classes 1 to 5 receive breakfast on all working days. The initiative aims to improve nutrition, boost enrollment and attendance, and enhance learning abilities among students.
The expansion to include government-aided schools was announced in the state budget for the current year.
This expansion coincides with the birth anniversary of the late Chief Minister K. Kamaraj, celebrated as ‘Kalvi Valarchi Naal’ (Education Development Day) by the state government. The initiative is set to benefit 223,536 children in 3,995 government-aided primary schools across Tamil Nadu.
Initially launched on September 15, 2022, the breakfast scheme covered 114,000 students in Classes 1 to 5 at 1,545 government primary schools. The state expanded the scheme on August 25, 2023, to include approximately 1.85 million students in all 30,992 state-run primary schools. With the inclusion of aided schools, the scheme now benefits a total of about 2.19 million students, operational in both government and state-aided primary schools.