FAS Coupons

MOE Financial Assistance Recess Coupon

Usage of FAS coupons
FAS coupons was given to my children since last year. Ever since the recess coupons were being issued to the children, I had saved lots of money. The children could use the coupons to buy any food and drinks from the school. My children ate fried rice, noodles and porridge. Sometimes they bought snacks like buns, bread and cereals.

Having the coupons does not mean that the children do not need to fork out any extra cash. My son brought along some coins everyday. Sometimes he needs to pay extra 10 cents to thirty cents for his meals, depending on the total costs of the meals that he had bought.

This year, the children were told that the coupons can only be used to buy milk or Milo. But now, the usage of coupons are only restricted to Stall No. 3 of their school canteen. As of last month onwards, my children cannot buy any more food or drinks from the other stalls using the coupons.

School letter to parents: In line with the MOE’s provision of providing pupils who are on the FAS with a healthy breakfast, our school has set up Stall No 3 to provide a Breakfast Set Meal. The meal will consist of a packet of cereal, drink and some snacks. There will be a variety of cereals, drinks and snacks. Your child will only be able to use the coupons in Stall No. 3…..

Free or Not Free
I had seen what my children got for their healthy breakfast/Breakfast Set Meal. Since the new implementation of this healthy breakfast or Breakfast Set Meal, my children had not been ‘patronizing’ Stall No. 3, even though they are being issued free to FAS students.

An example of a healthy breakfast or Breakfast Set Meal issued by Stall No. 3 – Marigold Orange drink, Jelly and Honey Ring cereals.

Healthy Breakfast Meal
Everyday, the breakfast set meal consists of cereals of different kinds — all packet food. There are no cooked food at all. Is this called healthy breakfast for the students? These food are not at all appropriate for breakfast. If they want to provide a healthy breakfast, I would rather they provide cooked porridge, noodle or rice rather than everyday giving out nothing but just cereals. There is even no need to give out jelly if the budget is tight.

Disparity
Lower primary students, Primary one and two would still continue to use their coupons to buy food from the food stalls. I wonder why higher primary like my children are not allowed. Higher primary children even need to stay back after schools for remedial and supplementary. Some of them are even at their puberty stage where they need more nutritious food. Having set ‘healthy breakfast’ is not at all healthy and it does not help our family at all.

Standard
During one of the meet parents session organized by the school, I walked passed the canteen and saw their award — something like ‘healthy food’ (or something like that) for the school canteen. As my memory is no good, I cannot remember the full exact name of the award, but it is something to do with ‘good canteen’ award. I wonder what is the STANDARD of a healthy meal, the standard of a healthy breakfast also in this case here. I had seen the food sold in the canteen and I had seen food bought back by my children and also food eaten by students in the canteen. I would not consider the food provided by the canteen to be of 100% healthy. Just a word healthy alone is quite misleading and means a lot of things. Just take a bowl of noodles for an example, there are no vegetables at all nor bean sprout given to the child.

Helping Families, Helping Children
During this tough time, every day the children need to take cash from me for recess time and also after school. They are not going to have food at Stall No. 3. Sometimes they even have empty stomach for the whole day (just like two days ago, my son did not eat anything at all until he came home at about 4pm — and I had to cook for him).

Ministry of EDUCATION
This year, under the FAS scheme, the children got to have free uniforms and shoes. My children were so happy to receive new uniforms. My son was especially excited and happy to receive his new pair of white shoes. My daughter is waiting for hers to come soon. However, little did I know that having new uniforms and shoes but now their stomach, the food they eat (which is important for their health and growth) is being compromised. I would rather my children not have gotten new uniforms or shoes, but have continual existence usage of their recess coupons like before so that they can enjoy better food for growth.

• There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.