The Office of the Basic Education Commission (Obec) has ordered educational service area offices nationwide to review free lunch programmes for kindergarten and primary students at schools under their responsibility after allegations of graft resurfaced.
The move comes after the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) in Nakhon Ratchasima discovered that at least four schools in the province had supplied students with substandard lunches.
According to the NACC, school bosses spent only part of their school lunch budgets and could not explain where the rest of the money had gone. Some claimed they did not embezzle it but spent the rest of the school lunch money on other student activities such as sport.
In some cases, the number of students registered for school lunch programmes were found to be higher than the number of students enrolled in a school, suggesting student numbers were concocted, so the school could get more money.
The findings are another blow to the credibility of the state-run school lunch programme. Since 1999, when it started, the Ministry of Education has provided 20 baht per pupil per day for students at pre-school to elementary school level.
Each school is empowered to hire private caterers to provide the lunches for its students.
Yet there have been reports of fraud at some schools, which have been accused of not allocating the full amount for meals and misusing or siphoning off the rest.
Last week, Obec transferred the director of Maheyong School in Nakhon Si Thammarat province to an inactive post, pending an investigation, after a video clip went viral this month showing a student with only rice, a soup containing vegetable scraps and watermelon for lunch.
Two years ago, corruption involving school lunches was also uncovered at two schools in Phrae province where cooks were hired to prepare lunch, but the actual money paid to them was lower than that recorded in the schools' financial reports.
Obec secretary-general, Suthep Chittayawong, said that stealing students' lunch money is an unacceptable act as it is not only a matter of enriching oneself by siphoning money meant for public causes.
"It's a crime that damages the lives of this nation's future generation," he said.
"A lunch budget of 20 baht per head provided to schools may not seem like much, but it is definitely more than enough to provide healthy and decent meals for students, if there is no corruption."