The state university is serving free breakfast and free lunch to students and teachers at the main campus of the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo (UASD), the state university. Previously, students had to pay RD$5 for a meal.
Taxpayers will be picking up the cost for the inter-institutional agreement the Comedores Económicos del Estado Dominicano (CEED) signed with the UASD. As reported, this could mean around RD$12 million per day.
Edgar Feliz Mendez, head of the CEED, said that in addition to the main UASD campus in Santo Domingo, the meals will soon also be served for free at the campuses in Barahona and San Juan de la Maguana.
The first students to receive free food were those in Puerto Plata, by order of President Luis Abinader in August 2020.
The agreement establishes the CEED will deliver the raw ingredients for cooking at the UASD facilities.
“The public alliance with the Comedores Económicos del Estado will allow us to provide nutritional quality food to thousands of students of our alma mater in the future,” said the rector of the UASD, Editrudis Beltrán.
The UASD is the center of higher education with the largest student population, with an enrollment of more than 200,000 students.
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El Caribe
31 August 2022