Social Equality as Groundwork for Sustainable Schooling: The Free Lunch Issue

The purpose of the present study was to discuss the way of organizing free lunch at public schools as an important precondition for social equality and sustainability in school, by revealing acute forms of social disjunction in Lithuanian schools as a major incongruity with Children Rights, and an obstacle to the achievement of general education goals. The objective of the study: to study the experience of pupils subject to free lunch in public schools, as well as the experience and viewpoints of pedagogues involved in the organization of free lunch in relation to social equality and sustainable schooling. A qualitative research was conducted in several Lithuanian schools focusing on the experience of the pupils, who had the privilege of having cost-free lunch at schools, as well as the pedagogues involved in organizing free lunch. The research data indicated the violation of children’s rights to healthy nutrition, as the respondents complained about the quality and the way of implementation of free lunch in schools. The research data revealed some discriminatory practices of separate queues to provide dishes to pupils from needy families, and limited or lacking opportunities for them to choose dishes. The analysis of the research data led to the recommendation to professionally assess the correspondence of the organization of free meals in the aspects of effectiveness, legal regulation and ethics with children’s needs.