According to Article 2 Bidding Law (Effective from January 1, 2024) stipulates as follows:

Applicable subjects

This law applies to agencies, organizations and individuals participating in or related to bidding activities including:

1. Contractor selection activities use state budget capital according to the provisions of the State Budget Law, capital from legal revenue sources according to the provisions of law of state agencies and public service units. set up to:

a) Implement investment projects, procurement estimates of state agencies, political organizations, socio-political organizations, socio-political-professional organizations, socio-professional organizations, social organizations, units of the people's armed forces, public service units and other organizations and individuals;

b) Providing public products and services; purchasing drugs, chemicals, testing supplies, and medical equipment; purchasing national reserve goods, hiring to preserve national reserve goods, except for widespread direct purchasing activities of all subjects according to the provisions of law on national reserves;

c) Perform other tasks that require bidding according to relevant laws;

2. Contractor selection activities to perform:

a) Bidding packages belonging to investment projects of state-owned enterprises according to the provisions of the Enterprise Law and enterprises with 100% charter capital held by state-owned enterprises;

b) Bidding package for equipping physical and technical facilities, machinery and equipment to support science and technology development from the science and technology development fund of state-owned enterprises;

3. Activities of selecting investors to implement business investment projects include:

a) Investment projects that use land are required to organize bidding according to the provisions of land law;

b) Investment projects in cases where bidding to select investors must be organized according to the provisions of law on industry and field management;

4. Organizations and individuals whose bidding activities do not fall into the cases specified in Clauses 1, 2 and 3 of this Article may decide to apply all or specific articles, clauses and points of this Law.

Accordingly, the selection of a boarding meal provider is not part of the mandatory contractor selection activities. Therefore, public elementary schools when choosing a unit to provide boarding meals are not required to bid.