#Schools

Children in a village classroom near Coimbatore. From this week, every pupil in Classes 1 to 8 at a government or aided school is entitled to breakfast.

A hundred years of feeding children at school

The extension of the breakfast scheme to Class 8 is the newest link in a chain that began in Madras in 1922. Its strength is that no government has broken it. The next step is to measure what children actually eat and learn.

30 September 2026 · 2 min read

Schoolchildren in Tamil Nadu. About 34.64 lakh pupils in Classes 1 to 8 will now receive a free breakfast on school days.

Education

Breakfast now reaches Class 8: 34.64 lakh Tamil Nadu children to be fed before lessons begin

Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay extended the renamed Perunthalaivar Kamarajar Breakfast Scheme to Classes 6 to 8, adding about 15.30 lakh pupils in 7,537 more schools. The idea of feeding children at school in Madras goes back to a Justice Party leader in 1922.

29 September 2026 · 3 min read