The Kyiv City Council has decided to finance free hot meals for primary school students in public educational institutions. Deputy Head of the Kyiv City State Administration Valentyn Mondriivskyi announced the changes to the program «Education of Kyiv. 2024-2025».

According to him, in accordance with the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine resolution No. 1145 dated October 4, 2024, the state subsidy covers no more than 70% of the catering service costs. Kyiv employs this approach for organizing meals in most general secondary education institutions, which requires additional funding from the city budget.

«This decision ensures free hot meals for over 65,000 primary school students. The city budget allocated 35.1 million UAH for this purpose. Kyiv is the first city in Ukraine to implement school meal reform, and we want to maintain a high level of service quality instead of lowering it by offering breakfast for 50 UAH. Finally, we managed to overcome bureaucratic obstacles to provide children with quality meals in accordance with the Cabinet's resolution», – noted Valentyn Mondriivskyi.

He also added that the average cost of hot meals per student in Kyiv is 74 UAH. Overall, nearly 86,000 schoolchildren will benefit from these services, including over 20,000 students from low-income categories who are already provided with free meals.