Ivana Dobrotić, Associate Professor of Comparative Social Policy at the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Law, Department of Social Work, Social Policy Chair and Associate Member in the Department of Social Policy and Intervention together with her colleagues Associate Professor Olja Družić Ljubotina, Associate Professor Marijana Kletečki Radović and Associate Professor Antonija Petričušić at the University of Zagreb succeeded to get the Croatian government to introduce one free school meal per day for every child of primary school age.
They have been campaigning and advocating for this policy change since June 2020, when they teamed up after seeing media reports about primary-age children being left without school meals. The latter was a result of both the pandemic and the fact that the money from the EU Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD) was reduced, and schools had to approach the problem differently. For example, some closed the free school meal scheme to new pupils, and others limited it to one child per family even when all children in the family were in need. Many families were put in a difficult position, especially those that had to pay the school meals from social assistance, which is very low and inadequate. Moreover, with the pandemic, the parent’s ability to pay for school meals has significantly decreased, and school principals have increasingly faced the need to initiate enforcement proceedings.
Through their advocacy, leveraging on their research and expertise, they began to warn that every fifth child in Croatia is at risk of poverty and social exclusion and that funds coming via the FEAD are insufficient to cover all the needs. In addition, they were warning that due to administration barriers and lack of funds, many children in need could not enter the free school meals program, and there was always a risk of stigmatising children in the program. Namely, there were no transparent, uniform and coordinated system of financing school meals in Croatia, and there were significant regional differences in availability. Only 20% of children were fully, and 13% of children partially subsided, while parents were covering the full costs of school meals for 33% of children. As high as 37% of primary-school children were not included for various reasons, that is, they are not eating during the school day.
Faced with these facts, Ivana, Olja, Marijana and Antonija started the initiative “The right of every child to a school meal” and argued for a universal system where all children would have equal rights. Their advocacy, which started with an open letter, has led to numerous meetings with senior politicians – including the Prime minister and President of Croatia – and more than hundred media appearances. At their meeting with the prime minister and the minister of education on October 13th 2022, the government finally committed to introduce one free school meal for every child of primary school age since January 2023. Starting in January 2023, the government provides schools with HRK550 million from the central budget. This is an important improvement as, for example, only around HRK27 million was allocated to schools through FEAD fund in a previous year, and funding was project-based and insecure. Therefore, this change brings both a significant increase in funding and a much more secure funding base.