IN A VIDEO widely reposted on the internet, some pupils can be seen pouring free milk provided by the local government into a gutter of a primary school in Longhui, a poverty-stricken county in Hunan province. The National Radio of China comments:

The school master, who has confirmed the authenticity of the video, told the media the school instructs the students to pour any leftover milk into the gutter and flatten the cartons before handing them to teachers for recycling, stressing that the students liked drinking the milk but they could not finish it.

He also said the school used to allow the students to take the milk back home, but since many of the students live with their grandparents, who sometimes forgot to remind the children to finish the milk before it turns sour, there were cases in which the children got sick after drinking milk that had gone off.

Even so, it is a pity to see the milk wasted, as the pupils apparently need it, and the free lunch provided by the government only consists of a small box of milk and some biscuits, and that's the only thing the children have between their simple breakfast in early morning and their late supper at home far from the school.

That the headmaster said the milk is of good quality because he drinks it himself cannot dispel the public's suspicion that the milk does not taste good, or is of inferior quality. Longhui county government needs to explain whether the Xiangmi Dairy Company－the sole supplier of the free milk for more than 300 schools in Longhui since its founding in 2012-is qualified to provide the schools with milk, as the enterprise is not on the list of dairy companies approved by the Dairy Association of China to provide milk to students.

Although the county government's investigation is going on, the incident should prompt the central authorities to review the practical effects of the national project in which it subsidizes each student 4 yuan ($0.58) a day, as reports show many students can only eat simple and cold lunches such as milk and biscuits as the local governments are too poor to provide them with anything else.