The announcement follows a year long pilot scheme which ran in Glasgow, West Dunbartonshire, East Ayrshire, Fife and the Borders. The scheme involved 35,000 pupils and cost £5m, however, it saw an increase in pupils taking school dinners from 53% to 75%.

If this kind of increase can be replicated across Scotland, there is no doubt that there will be an improvement in the health of primary school pupils across the country. However, the Scottish Government is not funding the county-wide scheme, local councils are expected to find the money to roll out the initiative from within the funding settlement already agreed.

With council charges already under heated debate, any increases, even to support this great scheme, could prove it’s very undoing. Councils will have to find the funding somewhere without making the whole thing an unpopular, costly exercise.

The Scottish Government has made a further promise, to offer free meals to all primary and secondary school pupils with parents or carers in the lowest income brackets.

We are becoming all the more aware of how important healthy food and good nutrition, are to the development of children, so a scheme like this can only do good as far as education is concerned. I just hope that the funding is found to do a really good job of it, but not at the expense of other worth-while causes.

Source: BBC News

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