The National Anti-Corruption Commission division in Nakhon Ratchasima has found that at least four schools in the province supplied students with substandard lunch meals.
“We found students had to eat low-quality meals because only half of the allotted budget was spent on food. Those executives responsible for these schools could not tell us where the money has gone,” Mongkhon Salisut, acting director of NACC’s office in Nakhon Ratchasima, told the media on Saturday.
“Some said they did not cheat but spent money from the school lunch programme on other student activities such as sport. That amounts to cheating because the budget is for students’ lunches, not for other purposes,” he said.
Mr Mongkhon refused to name the schools but said the NACC will form a committee to investigate, with the probe likely to take six months to complete.
“I admit the NACC is slow at its work, but that’s because we have only a small number of officials,” Mr Mongkhon said. However, he insisted any wrongdoers will be brought to justice.
The NACC has inspected state schools in 32 districts and found irregularities in these aforementioned four schools.
The findings are another blow to the credibility of the nationwide staterun school lunch programme. From 1999 when it started, the Ministry of Education has provided 20 baht per pupil per day for students from preschool to elementary school level.
Yet there have been reports of fraud at some schools which have accused of not allocating the full amount to meals while misusing or siphoning the rest.
The latest scandal involves a school in Nakhon Si Thammarat province, in the southern region, after a video clip went viral this month showing a student with only rice, soup with vegetable scraps and watermelon for lunch.
The school, which is now under investigation, is reported to receive 35,197 baht per day to cook lunch for 1,706 students.