Some state schools in the UK are charging up to £1.80 for children to eat their own packed lunches.
The fees, which were reported in the Times Education Supplement, have been bought in because of tight budgets and are meant to cover cleaning and supervision costs.
A survey by teaching union NASUWT found that some parents had been charged each day for their kids to eat packed lunches, and they expect more schools to take on the practice as budgets are cut further.
Patrick Roach, the NASUWT’s deputy general secretary, said:
Now just sitting in a dining hall and unwrapping your sandwiches is considered to be an optional extra, it’s disgraceful, it’s shocking.
Parents should be appalled in just the same way that we’re appalled.
Couldn’t agree more. If anyone else has heard what it was like being poor in the 80s, they will know that Thatcher pretty much took away everything from council housing to free school milk, hence her nickname ‘Milk Snatcher’. And now it seems like we have reverted back to those times ten fold. What are they going to do next, start charging parking tickets for kids who sit on the bench for too long? Ridiculous.
Where will it end? Even David Cameron’s own mum has had enough of the Tory cuts.
