Enhancing Support for Underfed Children’s School Meals with Reliable Information on “Good Restaurants”

- Recommending local governments with “Measures to Facilitate Social Contribution Projects for Underfed Children”

(July 25 2023, ACRC)

Local governments will further promote discovery and publicity of restaurants that provide support to underfed children. They will also provide key information, such as the current status of such restaurants, to the children in a more accurate and direct manner.

The Anti-Corruption and Civil Rights Commission (ACRC, Chairperson Kim Hong-Il) has established “Measures to Facilitate Social Contribution Projects for Underfed Children,” comprising of the aforementioned information, and recommended institutional improvements to local governments across the country.

In September 2021, ACRC established the “Improvement Measures for School Meals System for Children” aimed at benefiting 280,000 underfed children (as of 2022) and recommended it to local governments throughout the country.

Consequently, the unit cost of school meals for children of each local government, which was previously between 5,000 and 9,000 won^*, has increased to a range of 8,000 to 9,000 won^**.

* As of January 2023, 216 out of 226 basic local governments

** As of January 2023, 10 out of 226 basic local governments: Seoul (Seocho-gu and

Jongno-gu), Busan (Jung-gu, Busanjin-gu, Haeundae-gu, Geumjeong-gu, Suyoung-gu, and Gijang-gun), Chungbuk (Okcheon-gun), and Gyeongnam (Goseong-gun)

Furthermore, the design of the Child Meal Card has been modified to match the design of other cards, with the aim to address the issues of the children feeling labeled due to their use of the Child Meal Card. In addition, the number of restaurants that accept the Meal Card was limited at the time of recommendation, which now has been expanding to encompass all restaurants.

According to the fact-finding research conducted by ACRC, however, there were a number of cases reporting inconveniences in using the restaurants as information about the Meal Card-available restaurants provided by the local governments sometimes included unavailable ones or omitted contact numbers.

In this regard, ACRC ensured that local governments across the country establish measures to prevent information errors and omissions, with the aim of deterring the recurrence of such inconveniences. The Commission recommended that local governments not only release information about the Meal Card-available restaurants on their website but also individually nform children through text messages.

Furthermore, there have been some cases where children could not use the Card as local governments did not provide information on such restaurants, even though there are restaurants providing support to underfed children as part of their voluntary social contribution activities within local communities.

It has been confirmed that with the exception of a few local governments, such as Seocho-gu, Seoul (Good Restaurant in Our Neighborhood) and Sejong-si (Good Restaurant), most local governments have neglected their roles to some extent in discovering and promoting restaurants that offer support to underfed children.

In this regard, ACRC has taken measures to ensure that each local government provides information on restaurants supporting underfed children, taking into account the current status of restaurants.

Additionally, the Commission recommended local governments to identify and promote restaurants supporting underfed children based on the characteristics of each local government by introducing a model for social contribution projects that builds upon the “Good Restaurant Project” carried out by Seocho-gu.

ACRC Vice Chairperson Kim Tae-Gyu said, “We anticipate that these institutional improvements could spread good influence throughout society by sharing, and we hope that children can enjoy their meals in a more comfortable environment.”