The two numbers are not large, but they are both “big” when compared: one is that after the start of school in the fall of 2021, the Chinese government’s “Rural Compulsory Education Student Nutrition Improvement Program” will set the standard of meal subsidy to 4 yuan per student per day. Increased to 5 yuan, 1 yuan more.
This figure was approved by the State Council.
Another figure is written in the evaluation report for the 10th anniversary of the implementation of this plan-the height monitoring data of 2.27 million students in 71 poverty alleviated counties show that the height of 15-year-old boys in rural areas in underdeveloped areas was 155.8 cm in 2012 and 155.8 cm in 2020. It is 166.1 centimeters, which is 10.3 centimeters taller. At the same time, the 15-year-old girl has also increased by about 8 centimeters.
"The change in height is particularly encouraging." On December 18, Lu Mai, the leader of the assessment team and the former vice chairman of the China Development Research Foundation, said at the 10th Anniversary Symposium of the Nutrition Improvement Program, rural children and urban There is still a gap in the height of children, but they are achieving "catch-up growth".
15 years ago, Lu Mai led a team from the China Development Research Foundation to conduct a survey on the nutritional status of rural students.
He can vividly remember scenes such as Guangxi children eating rice with soybeans and Ningxia children eating moldy buns.
The foundation initiated a pilot project to improve children's nutrition and promoted the introduction of national policies.
In November 2011, the State Council launched a nutrition improvement plan for rural compulsory education students.
The beneficiaries of this program are distributed on campuses in 28 provinces. This school year is close to 38 million, accounting for about a quarter of the total number of students in compulsory education in the country.
This is the world’s third-largest school meal plan and the second-largest financial investment.
Children "give some sunshine to shine"
Ten years later, many figures show the effectiveness of the plan. For example, the fitness rate of the beneficiary students increased from 70.3% in 2012 to 86.7% in 2021, and the anemia rate dropped from 19.2% to 9.6%.
The malnutrition rate, weight loss rate, short stature rate and even the detection rate of parasites have all decreased significantly.
Lu Mai said that this shows that once the intervention is carried out, the effect is very obvious, and the children "give some sunshine to be bright."
He also introduced that according to the research conducted by Shanghai University of Finance and Economics professor Fan Ziying and others, the nutritional improvement program has a significant impact on students' performance: their math scores have improved by about 14 points, and their English scores have improved by about 12.5 points.
At the beginning of the implementation of this plan, the meal subsidy standard was set at 3 yuan per person per day.
Three years later, 3 yuan became 4 yuan, and now it has become 5 yuan again.
Han Fengqin, director of the Research Center for Education, Science and Culture of the Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences, said that every 1 yuan increase in the standard means that the central government will increase spending by about 3 billion yuan a year.
In 2021, the central government allocated 26.034 billion yuan in subsidies for nutrition and meals for students, an increase of 12.9% over the previous year.
Since 2011, the central government has allocated a total of 196.734 billion yuan in subsidies for nutrition and meals for students.
Liu Jing, deputy director of the Finance Department of the Ministry of Education, believes that raising the subsidy standard by 1 yuan is "a milestone."
She said that under the influence of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the financial revenue and expenditure pressure is huge. This one yuan is hard-won, and it reflects the great concern of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on the nutrition and health of students.
She believes that from the perspective of the amount of funds, this is a "small plan" in comparison with the country's various major projects.
From the effect point of view, this is "the small plan benefits the people's livelihood."
From a national perspective, what is the concept of investing more than 20 billion yuan a year?
Researcher Han Fengqin said that people often lack understanding of numbers.
When assessing the nutrition improvement plan, she went to rural areas to investigate as a guiding expert and was exposed to many "evaluation indicators with temperature" besides the numbers.
For example, some middle school teachers expressed feeling to the evaluation team that they were “born ten years earlier”—when they were students, they had to carry dry food on their backs, and even cook on the street.
"With meat and vegetables, it can really be eaten in the stomach-the overflow of happiness is also a very good angle for us to evaluate fiscal policy." Han Fengqin said.
Five to six times the return on investment
Hou Yaming, director of the Student Nutrition Center of the Education Bureau of Ledu District, Haidong City, Qinghai Province, thinks of the additional 1 yuan: "The dishes that students eat in their mouths are more abundant and (more) nutritious."
According to him, the average height of students in Ledu District during the compulsory education stage increased by 4.6 cm in 2019 compared with 2012, and the anemia rate dropped by 4.26%.
Since the implementation of the nutrition improvement plan, the disease prevention and control centers at all levels have continued to carry out monitoring.
According to Zhang Qian, deputy director of the Student Nutrition Office of the Institute of Nutrition and Health of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, monitoring in 2012 found that the anemia rate of beneficiary students was around 16%, and by 2016 it had dropped to around 6%.
A drop of 10 percentage points in 4 years, "decreased very rapidly in the international arena."
Monitoring also found that the height and weight of students of all ages are rising.
In 2017, compared with children of other age groups, 13-year-old boys and 12-year-old girls had the largest increase. One of the reasons is that these children are the group that has benefited from the nutrition improvement program since the first grade.
With the improvement of living standards, the height and weight of Chinese teenagers are rising.
However, the nutrition improvement plan still shows its unique effect: according to monitoring, the average height and weight growth rate of students in the areas where the nutrition improvement plan is implemented is higher than the average growth rate of rural students across the country.
The evaluation team selected more than 120,000 students in compulsory education from 11 central and western provinces to analyze their physical fitness monitoring data and found that the average height of the students benefiting from the Nutrition Improvement Program was 1.32 cm higher than those who did not enjoy them.
From another perspective, Zhang Qian explained the necessity of raising the national subsidy standard: the anemia rate monitored in 2019 has increased due to various reasons, especially the impact of African swine fever in the country, the increase in meat prices, and the meat of students. The product intake was significantly reduced.
In addition, with the rise in prices, the food materials that can be purchased with the 4 yuan dietary subsidy have also shrunk.
"The national subsidy standard from 4 yuan to 5 yuan can greatly alleviate these problems." said Fang Jin, vice chairman and secretary-general of the China Development Research Foundation.
The foundation's evaluation of the nutrition improvement plan was to collect information from 832 poverty alleviated counties across the country, and 91 counties were selected to collect student performance, physical fitness and other information.
The evaluation team used the World Health Organization and the United Nations World Food Program's relevant investment return rate measurement methods to "conservatively estimate" the cost and return. It believed that the return on investment of the nutrition improvement plan was between 5.24-5.96, and each investment was 1 yuan. , The return is 5 to 6 yuan.
"It should be said that it is a very cost-effective investment." Lu Mai said, "Investing in people is the most effective investment."
Currently, more than 160 countries and regions around the world have launched child nutrition supplement programs.
Valerie Guagneri, Assistant Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Program, said that China’s plan is of reference to other countries in terms of scale and quality.
"China's nutrition improvement plan is a good example. It proves that through national actions and investment, major changes can be promoted."
Signs that must be stopped
"Hundreds of thousands of schools have meals every day, and tens of millions of students eat at the same time, so can the safety of funds and food be guaranteed? Is every penny eaten in the child's mouth? Is the child full and well eaten? Is it?" Fang Jin said, this is a matter of great concern from policy makers to parents.
According to statistics, between 2013 and 2019, the number of rural compulsory education schools decreased by 55,000, and the number of students at school decreased by 8.236 million. During the "13th Five-Year Plan" period alone, the number of people relocating for poverty alleviation exceeded 10 million.
Some students who were able to enjoy the nutrition improvement program in the past can no longer enjoy this policy due to migration.
The evaluation team suggested that with changes in objective conditions such as the increase in the urbanization rate, it is necessary to re-determine the scope of the beneficiaries of the nutrition improvement plan, as far as possible to achieve full coverage of rural household registration students in the county and full coverage of rural areas in the central and western regions. Preschool education should also be considered. extend.
According to He Xiuqian, deputy department-level supervisor of the Guizhou Provincial Department of Education, since 2016, Guizhou has extended the nutrition improvement plan to rural preschool education, providing these children with a daily meal allowance of 3 yuan per person, benefiting more than 800,000 preschool children.
In 2018, Chen Zhigang, Qiushi Chair Professor of Zhejiang University participated in a pilot project to improve the nutrition of preschool children in Xiangxi, Hunan.
In the following three years, they followed 1,300 children and found that the anemia rate dropped from 33% to about 7%.
Chen Zhigang pointed out that my country does not yet have a nationwide nutrition intervention for preschool children.
The international consensus is that the earlier the intervention, the better the effect.
One of the recommendations of the evaluation team is to strengthen the lunch mode of school cafeterias and reduce market-oriented operations.
In November this year, a nutritious lunch food hygiene incident occurred in a middle school in Fengqiu County, Henan Province. The lunch was provided by an outsourcing company. The principal cried out that “the meal delivery company cannot be replaced”, which aroused the attention of the outside world.
In this regard, Liu Jing, deputy director of the Finance Department of the Ministry of Education, said that the Henan incident was caused by non-school canteens, too many links, and difficulty in ensuring the temperature of the meals.
"Next, we still have to vigorously promote school cafeteria meals."
As early as 2012, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Finance emphasized in a notice on the construction of school canteens under the nutrition improvement plan that compared with other meal feeding modes, school canteens are easier to manage, and food safety is relatively controllable, which is more effective. Serving mode.
According to Liu Jing, the central government has arranged a special fund of 30 billion yuan to support the construction of canteens in pilot areas.
In areas where the nutrition improvement plan is implemented, 76% of the school canteens provide meals.
Lu Mai believes that there is currently a "market-oriented superstition", "There is a force actively promoting the establishment of centralized catering. We have found in our survey that (in some places) after being outsourced to the company, the salary of the canteen staff will be increased by 1,500. (Yuan) is reduced to 1200 (Yuan), and the nutritious meal has changed from three dishes and one soup to two dishes and one soup. He will never do anything to lose money. Moreover, food safety issues arise. Parents still provide such nutritious meals. Unsatisfactory."
"This sign must be stopped." He said.
Ten years after the implementation of the Nutrition Improvement Program, many participants noticed a new problem: obesity.
Zhang Qian, a representative of the China Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, pointed out that in the process of nutritional improvement, the obesity problem of beneficiary students has also surfaced.
According to monitoring, the obesity rate was 2.7% in 2012 and increased to about 4% in 2017.
Although this is still lower than the national average level of rural children, in Fang Jin's view, this is a "growth trouble" that needs to be solved with new methods.
"China needs to start a two-line battle in the field of nutrition and health, that is, to start paying attention to obesity and overweight." Cai Jianhua, senior consultant of the Child Development Center of China Development Research Foundation, pointed out, "We must now pay special attention to the effects of good-tasting junk food on children. Impact".
He believes that what needs to be done is to quickly control the amount of salt used in school meals.
Excessive salt intake is also one of the issues clearly written in the report by the assessment team.
Looking back over the past 10 years, Lu Mai calculated: The 30 million children who initially benefited have already stepped out of the compulsory education stage, and a total of 70 million children have benefited or are benefiting.
He sighed, "Ten years of trees, 100 years of trees", 10 years is enough for the growth of a tree, but it is just the beginning for the change of the physique of generations of children and the process of a century of trees. Everyone keeps working hard and can't slack off.
China Youth Daily and China Youth Daily reporter Zhang Guo Source: China Youth Daily