KHON KAEN: Parents in this northeastern province have joined the growing chorus of complaints about the poor quality of school lunches and possible corruption in school budgets.
Danupol Chumchonsamphan, the father of a Prathom 1 pupil, and other parents of students at the school in Muang district have asked the government's Damrongtham Complaint Centre to look into food budget management at the school, which serves 3,700 students.
The complaint filed on Friday had its origins in a Line chat group used by the parents, who shared pictures of lunch plates containing nothing but a scoop of rice and a few small pieces of chicken or pork.
"What I saw with my own eyes today was rice with small pieces of crispy chicken and almost rotten bananas," Mr Danupol said.
The parents urged authorities to look into the complaint in order to ensure the children were receiving the proper nutrition.
Anuban Khon Kaen School has not yet commented on the complaints. Operating under the Education Ministry, it provides schooling from kindergarten to Prathom 6.
The complaint in Khon Kaen comes less than two weeks after the issue first came to the public's attention in Surat Thani. The director of Ban Tha Mai School in Tha Chana district in the southern province is facing disciplinary action after an investigation found mismanagement of the budget for school lunches, which sometimes consisted of nothing more than noodles and with fish sauce.
A school director in Phichit has also been transferred to the provincial education office following complaints about irregularities in the school lunch programme there.
As complaints mount across the country, the ministry is taking a closer look at all school lunch budgets and how they are spent.