Following Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an’s (蔣萬安) Jan. 6 announcement that the city would provide free school lunches to elementary and junior-high schools from the next academic year, nine administrative regions in the past week launched their own programs, adding to the nine that already provide free lunches, while one last year announced it would start offering the meals from the spring semester. That leaves two of the nation’s 22 administrative regions not providing free lunches.
The Taipei City Government estimated the policy would save parents about NT$10,000 (US$316.74) per year. Initial concerns that school lunch programs would divert resources from other education and welfare initiatives were short-lived, as local governments quickly shifted their support toward the initiative.
Tainan Mayor Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲) said that fully funding school lunches was not ideal, but a necessary response to “an opened Pandora’s box.” He called it regrettable that the policy has become politicized, with local governments compelled to join a spending race, instead of rationally discussing where funding should go. Huang also asked if Chiang announced the policy, which was not in the city’s annual budget for this year, for political reasons, as it would go into effect from September, shortly before the local elections.
The National Federation of Teachers’ Unions also voiced concern that a “welfare arms race” would crowd out education funding and sacrifice education quality. Some parents’ groups have said the program could affect school lunch quality or deepen disparity among regions. They suggested that students should meet an income eligibility requirement to qualify for free lunches, to ensure the money goes to students who are most in need. Some have also expressed concern that with governments fully covering the lunches at fixed prices, parents would have less input into what is on the menu.
Their concerns are not unfounded, as local governments have different financial capacities and conditions, and the average cost of school lunches varies between regions. For example, in the same semester last year, the average cost of each lunch per student in Taipei was NT$76 to NT$86, compared with NT$53 to NT55 in Tainan.
Moreover, the amended Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法), passed by opposition lawmakers in late 2024, shifted a greater share of national revenue — more than NT$370 billion — to local governments, but led to further urban-rural inequality. The central government last year announced that due to less funding as a result of the amendment, it would be unable to subsidize the “three labels and one QR code” (3L1Q) reward program for school lunches, which means more uncertainties for free school lunch policies.
The government in 2017 began promoting the 3L1Q system, subsidizing school lunches that use local ingredients with Good Agricultural Practices, Certified Agricultural Standards and Traceable Agricultural Product labels, and a Taiwan Agricultural Products Production Traceability QR Code, to encourage food safety and local sourcing. The coverage of the subsidy increased from 11 percent in 2017 to nearly 99 percent in 2024, while the number of farms meeting the standards significantly increased over the eight years. Now that local governments are fully funding school lunch programs, it is uncertain whether they would require catering companies to continue meeting the 3L1Q standard when sourcing ingredients.
Some specialists have said that, unlike Japan and South Korea, Taiwan does not have a dedicated law regulating school lunch standards, such as on nutrition, the proportion of locally sourced ingredients and a dietitian-to-student ratio. With no more 3L1Q subsidies and limited and fixed local government funding, companies might start using cheaper ingredients of poorer quality with less supervision, sacrificing student health and the livelihoods of local farmers who provide quality ingredients.
Opposition lawmakers were quick to arbitrarily shift tax revenue allocations from central to local governments, and their local government heads are eagerly engaging in a populist spending race — possibly as part of an electoral strategy. They must also consider the greater effects of their policies and bear the responsibility of providing stable funding to ensure that students receive quality school lunches, while not cutting out funds for other important academic programs.
