Hanoi’s administration has partnered with a local dairy giant to launch a two-year multimillion-dollar school milk program for local students.

The capital is the ninth city in Vietnam to adopt the program, which benefits children in kindergartens and elementary schools across Hanoi.

The VND3.8 trillion (US$163 million) school milk program, in partnership with Vietnam’s largest dairy maker Vinamilk, was initially proposed as a means of decreasing the capital’s nutrition deficiency rate by 0.2 percent a year while increasing the average height of children.

From the first day of 2019 until the end of 2020, kindergartens and elementary children in the capital will be offered cartons of milk each school day.

Parents who wish to participate in the program will only be charged half the cost of each 180cc milk carton while the local budget will cover 30 percent and Vinamilk will pay the remaining 20 percent.

Toddlers and children belonging to ethnic groups and low-income households will receive full financial support from the government and the dairy company in order to participate.

Vinamilk and the Hanoi education department are scheduled to hold a total of 30 training sessions to familiarize local teachers, school staff, and parents with the program.

The training will be open to nearly 10,000 teaching staff and parents from 1,850 elementary schools and is expected to raise awareness of the importance of school milk programs in Vietnam and around the world.

The latest training took place in Hoang Mai District on December 10.

The coastal city of Vung Tau in southern Vietnam has maintained its school milk program since 2006 and says it has reduced the rate of nutrition deficiency from 30 percent to less than two percent.

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