The Government has just issued Decree No. 339/2025/ND-CP stipulating policies to support lunch meals for primary and secondary school students studying in land border communes.
Decree No. 339/2025/ND-CP stipulates support policies for students including:
- Food support: Each student is supported with 450,000 VND/month. The support period is calculated based on the actual number of school months, but not exceeding 9 months/school year.
- Rice support: Each student is supported with 8 kg of rice/month. The support time is calculated based on the actual number of school months, but not exceeding 9 months/school year.
The support level for transfer students is calculated based on the number of days students actually study and the amount of money, the average kilogram of rice per study day/month.
Grade 1 students who are ethnic minorities who have studied Vietnamese before entering the grade 1 program are supported with an additional month of the above-mentioned policies.
According to the Decree, educational institutions are supported to organize lunch meals as follows:
- Being supported with funds to serve lunch at school for students as follows: For every 45 students eating in groups, they are entitled to 1 quota of lunch organization support of 2,360,000 VND/month, the surplus of 20 students or more is calculated with 1 additional quota.
In case there are fewer than 45 students eating in groups, 1 quota will be calculated. The support period is no more than 9 months/school year.
The support fund for educational institutions serving centralized lunch is calculated based on the total number of students entitled to the centralized lunch policy in this Decree and Decree No. 66/2025/ND-CP. In case the educational institution has a total number of students entitled to the policy specified in this Decree and enjoying the policy as prescribed in point d, clause 2, Article 7 of Decree No. 66/2025/ND-CP below 45 students, the educational institution is entitled to 01 level of support at a high level between the regulations in this Decree and Decree No. 66/2025/ND-CP.
In case the educational institution has a total number of students receiving surplus policies of over 45 students, the total number of students calculating to receive lunch support for the educational institution shall be implemented according to the provisions of point d, clause 2, Article 7 of Decree No. 66/2025/ND-CP.
- Being invested in facilities, equipment, and supplies to serve lunch organization according to the Government's regulations on investment conditions and operations in the field of education.
- Being supported with electricity and water for organizing lunch meals at school with a norm of 7.5 kWh/month/student and 1.5 m3 of water/month/student according to local regulations and enjoying no more than 09 months/school year. Where there are no conditions to provide electricity and water services or there is power outages, the school is allowed to use funds to buy and rent generators and clean water to serve lunch meals for students.
The Decree clearly states that, depending on the conditions in the locality, educational institutions with school sites are entitled to support funds to serve the organization of lunches for school sites according to the above regulations.
The above regulations take effect from December 25, 2025.
