Lovin Malta spoke to Josanne Ghirxi, director of the National School Support Services, and social worker Marija Zahra, to discuss how the scheme works.

First up, vulnerable children need to be actually identified and verified.

At the start of the scheme, schools used to identify vulnerable children themselves and pass on their details to the people at Skema 9. However, this wasn’t a totally effective method as children wouldn’t always be open about their economic difficulties. 

The Department of Social Security was therefore roped in to identify vulnerable children within their database, and in fact, the number of beneficiaries tripled – from 900 during the 2016/17 scholastic year to 2,723 now. It has also been extended to include children who attend church schools.

Once the children are identified, their parents receive a letter at home with a website link and phone number through which they can apply and choose the benefit. 

Different children from the same households can apply for different benefits, and the benefit can be changed every year.

Ghirxi and Zahra said that while many may assume school lunches are the most popular benefit, considering they’re handed out every single day throughout the scholastic year, demand for them is actually dwarfed by both uniforms and stationery.

They said this is because some parents tend to feel uncomfortable trusting strangers with their children’s school lunches seeing as they wouldn’t know what food they like to eat.

As it stands, around 230 children are receiving free lunches, based on a two-week rotating menu, with the chefs making sure to keep them as healthy and varied as possible. They also come with fruit and a bottle of water and are packaged in environmentally-friendly packaging. 

When schools had to go online earlier this year due to the quasi-lockdown, these children kept on receiving these meals at home.

Working with Skema 9, Ghirxi and Zahra encounter some serious social problems – such as two children who live with their grandmother because of their mother’s drug issues, meaning all three must get by on a single pension.

Others include children from large households or who live with single parents and children whose parents had to stop working because of mental health problems.

While social and economic issues are not always immediately visible, the fact that around 3,000 schoolchildren are receiving state aid for basic school necessities shows it remains a significant problem on the island.

One would hope that schemes like Skema 9 are bolstered, which would include more funding to allow them to give disadvantaged schoolchildren more than one benefit.

Cover photo: Left: A chef preparing school meals for children under the Skema 9 scheme, Right: Josanne Ghirxi (Photos: COVID-19 Malta)

Do you think this scheme should be extended?