The Community of Madrid will allocate 68 million euros for dining scholarships for the 2024/2025 academic year. It is expected that some 137,000 students will be able to benefit from this aid. Applications can be submitted to official records or to public and charter schools in the region until June 17.
The dining scholarships are intended for Early Childhood, Primary, and Compulsory Secondary Education students enrolled in centers supported by public funds in the region.
Those families that have a per capita income that does not exceed 8,400 euros per year. This amount, according to the Ministry of Education, doubles the amount of the previous call, which had been set at 4,260 euros.
In addition to meeting these financial requirements, beneficiaries of the minimum insertion income (RMI) or Minimum Vital Income (IMV) who come from RMI can apply, who for the first time will receive the full scholarship and will no longer have to pay one euro. daily for this service in public educational centers.
In addition, children whose parents are members of the State Security Corps and Forces, read police, and work in the region can benefit; as well as students in family or residential care, beneficiaries of international protection, affected by the war in Ukraine or officially enrolled in centers supported by public funds that use the school transportation service.
In the granting of scholarships for the course that is about to end, a great controversy arose because single-parent families were required to send a certificate of widowhood or marital separation, when none exists. They even requested a document justifying that assisted reproduction treatment had been performed in some specific cases.
The problem is that this family model is not recognized by the Community of Madrid (there is no single parent card, as in many Autonomous Communities) and on up to three occasions they were asked to justify the existence of a second parent, when none exists.
After several weeks of controversy, the Ayuso Government chose to grant the scholarship to all families that had requested it, regardless of their financial income. Of course, as long as they had previously responded to the claims of the regional Administration.
To do this, Madrid had to increase the initial allocation for the dining room scholarships due to the computer failure that delayed their granting to families a month after the start of classes, to finally grant the aid to all applicants who did so on time, which There were more than 107,000.
Applications can be submitted starting next Tuesday, when the budget item is approved and its publication appears in the Official Gazette (BOCM) with the order of credits available for granting. Families will be able to present the documentation through the institutional portal www.comunidad.madrid, in the official registries or in public and charter schools in the region until June 17.