2023-04-26 15:50:26
Meals at two euros accessible to all in university canteens, this is what around thirty student organizations united under the aegis of the Federation of French-speaking students (FEF) demanded on Wednesday during a rally in Brussels.
About twenty students and representatives of organizations gathered in front of the government headquarters of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation to demand from the Minister of Higher Education Valérie Glatigny (MR) the release of funds in order to guarantee access to healthy and affordable meals, necessary, according to them, to establish the best possible study conditions. For the occasion, the demonstrators set up a banquet table with empty plates in front of the building, before singing songs and reading testimonies from students suffering from precariousness.
For the president of the FEF, Emila Hoxhaj, the establishment of two-euro dishes is actually a measure that is quite simple to establish, although it requires real funding. “The ULB set it up to help students at the start of the year during the energy crisis,” she recalls, “but ULB students are now threatened because there is no does not have the necessary funding”. According to Ms. Hoxhaj, it is not only a question of funds. “Investing in youth is a political choice, and we will always repeat that. We can get money where there is it”. According to her, the Minister now has the opportunity to reduce the cost of education for the most precarious, which will impact their health and success.
Not an adequate measure
Solicited by Belga, Olivier Schotte, the minister’s spokesperson, affirmed her position. “We have, since 2019, increased the amounts of scholarships – indexed to meet the increase in the cost of living, and the number of beneficiaries”, he specifies. “We have done the same for aid via social subsidies, the amounts of which are also indexed, allowing establishments to provide tailor-made support for a whole range of problems that students may encounter.”
According to him, generalizing access to meals at reduced prices is not an appropriate measure, because it would reduce the amounts available for other measures without being useful to all students. “We prefer measures targeted at the most precarious students,” he adds. He concluded by recalling that the Wallonia-Brussels Federation is not the only competent entity with regard to student support.
The Covid-19 pandemic and rising prices have severely impacted the number of students in food insecurity. According to the FEF, almost one in two students in Belgium is affected.
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