NN39, October 2007
Best Practice in Education and Training: Hype or Hope?
School Feeding Adds Value To Leaner-Friendly School Packages
By Robinah Kyeyune, School of Education, Makerere University
Visitor: I want to know what portion of the government funds the school spends on feeding the students.Headmaster: None. There is no provision for meals.
Visitor: When you say none, do you mean that there is no arrangement for school feeding?
Headmaster: No, there is none. But we have appealed to the parents to pay 5,000 shillings a term for porridge. The young children get their porridge at break time; then the others get some at lunch time.
Visitor: Do all the parents pay?
Headmaster: No. Some say it?s too much.
Visitor: So, what do the children eat if their parents don?t pay?
Headmaster: Some bring money, maybe 100 shillings.
Visitor: And if they don?t bring any?
Headmaster: Then they have nothing to eat.
Visitor: And they look at the other children eating?
Headmaster: (amidst murmurs and soft laughter among other visitors) Yes, they do.
Visitor: That must be very difficult!
It is difficult indeed for children to cope with learning demands on empty stomachs, especially in those home contexts where a family supper and a breakfast before school are, in reality, luxuries that families cannot afford. They can be very unhappy and, worse than this, are liable to hate schooling. Such considerations are invaluable in the face of any celebration of the gains of universal primary education (UPE) as is apparent in the constant reference to the rise in enrolment from 3,068,625 in 1996 to 7,354,749 in 2004 (Annual School Census, 2004). They are useful for reflection on how whole education systems and individual schools can both widen the range and maximise the benefits of good practice in the quest for improved quality in learning.
The above interview was part of a meeting in the staffroom of a primary school that is one of the 24 beneficiaries of a project entitled Increasing Retention through Improved Literacy and Learner-Friendly Primary Schools. The school, located in a peri-urban setting, has been cited several times to different publics as an example of successful implementation. Both pupils and staff have, through the project activities, been equipped with the knowledge and skills deemed necessary for supporting appropriate management of sexual maturation processes. School staff, pupils, parents and school management and PTA committees have been trained on what teachers and pupils need to know about body changes in girls and boys, their needs with regard to sexuality and maturation, guidance and counselling, and the making of sanitary towels. The school is also endowed with material provisions to match the management requirements in respect of menstruation - incinerators, water tanks, solar water heaters, and resource rooms furnished with pain killers, wash basins, spare uniforms, mattresses, resource books on maturation processes and needs and suggestion boxes. To support literacy improvement at both lower and upper primary levels, teachers and primary teachers college (PTC) tutors have been trained in English literacy development skills, and readers and other library and classroom teaching resources have been provided. Periodic assessment is conducted to measure the learners? progress on competences in specified literacy skills.
School enrolment figures are reported by the administration to have risen drastically at the project school, much to the disappointment of neighbouring schools, some of whose pupils are being lost to this particular school, attracted by the provisions there. Children observably enjoy the readers, and teachers report greater confidence in their teaching methods. Besides, the hot water hand-washing facilities, incinerators, sanitary towels and items in the resource room are reported to have supported a rise in levels of awareness on hygiene in addition to instilling confidence especially in girls. Yet, while the higher enrolment figures are desirable as an indicator of (i) the learner-friendly character of the school and (ii) the success of the project, the school administration itself is overwhelmed by the development since it translates into demands for more space, more facilities and greater efforts by the teachers and administration.
These outcomes of good literacy development and learner-friendly school practices wear another face too. Break and lunch times are characterised by small faces with the distant, wistful look of hungry children wandering slowly but not quite aimlessly back and forth on the school compound, avoiding yet keeping in clearly view their more fortunate school mates who enjoy a cold packed snack or a half mug of hot porridge served at the make-shift school kitchen. Much as the provision of meals was not included among the target features of learner-friendly school environments that would support pupil retention, the break and lunch time picture described above has not escaped project team members? comment on every monitoring visit. Various sentiments such as the following are shared over these observations.
Unless parents realise that their children cannot learn on an empty stomach, I am sure we are fighting a losing battle.
Parents need to be sensitised that UPE does not mean that their children don?t need nourishment.
I wonder if they don?t feed their children when they stay at home.
It may be impossible to convince parents, but at least Government should provide a very modest lunch.
Such concerns expressed over lack of lunch are essentially concerns about the feared effects of hunger on school attendance as well as on the quality of learning besides enrolment figures. Hungry children will hardly concentrate in class, are bound to participate little during learning activities and will dislike school or at least be anxious to leave and find something to eat if they can. A majority of the more than 110 million school-aged children around the world who are suffering from hunger are reported not to attend school (Friends of the World Food Programme, 2007). The report asserts that food provision at school serves the dual benefit of fighting hunger among poor children and drawing them to school, thereby granting them an education. Since education is a basic human right, it is a duty for those of us engaged in education and in raising children to think how we may make it available through attractions like food. After all, food provision is also reported to lead to increased enrolment and attendance rates and to enhance academic performance through improving concentration and hastened comprehension of learning content.
Promises for certain gains are discernible in the story of the eight year old Senegalese girl Fatouma who, coming from a poor background, has had her confidence boosted and her interest in school maintained by the prospect of eating a meal at school made a reality by ?a mere $34? per year. Fatouma?s narrative offers evidence of the joy and hope that can be given to poor children through the provision of this basic human right,
?. I get ready to go to school very quickly because I know that good food is waiting for me. I am happy that I can spend the whole day at school learning and I don?t have to walk the long way home hungry. ?
But perhaps Fatouma would have had no access to school and certainly none to food if parents had not responded to WFP?s initiative for provision of food by contributing US$0.60 per month or, if they cannot afford this, providing firewood for cooking or helping to prepare the meals. 15 year old Loaugulya in Tanzania also lost so much from trying to get to school before breakfast and to leave school and get home for lunch. But after meals were introduced at school he comes to school on time and stays throughout the school day, and he testifies to having ?become a top student? (World Food Programme, 2006).
To ensure that the benefits of efforts for retention such as those in the Ugandan project are not lost, stakeholders should take a leaf from the literature of successes in enrolment and retention, reflecting especially on the sources of these successes. For a start for Uganda, there are some useful indications that the significance of feeding is recognised by the beneficiaries in the project for increasing retention in primary schools that is cited here. For instance, in the first project monitoring and evaluation term the student teachers at the participating PTCs reported that they liked best the meals provided at their colleges (68%) after which came all the other provisions: tutors? clear explanation and rich content (49%), more attractive and friendly classroom environment (34%), sports and football (24%) and tutors? greater care for students (22%) (Kasente 2007). The communities too demonstrated the value they place on the significance of feeding as is evident in the record of the support they provided to children in the same period. Community support was registered in various areas including provision of scholastic materials, renovation of classroom infrastructure, meetings to plan what the communities can do for the schools, provision of food, and enrolment of children previously out of school. While the scores relating to provision of food were not the highest, with the scores on all the items ranging between 26% and 49%, three aspects were reported in which communities contributed to feeding: providing children with porridge/food at school (31%), packing food for children (29%) and financial contributions for food/utensils for feeding pupils at school (26%) (Kasente 2007).
Similar but certainly more support for children?s feeding is observable in schools in Kyenjojo District of Uganda where Fort Portal Diocese Education Secretariat, using funds provided under UPHOLD?s projects with education civil society organisations (CSOs), supports programmes for strengthening school-community relations with the overall aim of improving learning in school. As one outcome of discussions held at school-community meetings, parents are obliged to provide lunch. Some children bring either a packed lunch from home or, where the family income is still very low and hardly supports even the family meals, 100 Uganda shillings are enough for the children to buy sugar cane at school. Consequently, almost every child has something to eat at break or lunch time. The project schools endeavour to provide clean drinking water for the pupils.
In the face of the literature on school feeding, the plight of hungry children has implications for good practices that can enhance quality in UPE. This is especially with regard to the willingness of communities to take responsibility for food provision after sensitisation about children?s needs at school. In Uganda, it is clearly stipulated in the UPE guidelines that feeding is the responsibility of parents. Listing the areas in which parents? contribution is crucial, the guidelines cite, among others, what are referred to as ?basic child survival requirements? including feeding, hygiene and medical care, shelter and clothing (The Republic of Uganda, Ministry of Education and Sports, 1998). Yet many parents do not play their role, in spite of schools having been well guided to leave it to them. Since some project work demonstrates that, effectively sensitised, parents can accept their responsibility and operationalise it, there is need for focused efforts to mobilise parents and community leaders to work with school administrations to ensure provision of a school lunch for pupils. But the school administrators themselves need a lot of support especially to ensure that they are not misunderstood by the parents and any political leaders to be introducing extra charges to the parents. It is therefore necessary that in playing their supervisory, monitoring and evaluation role, the Ministry of Education and Sports, resident district commissioners, local government and founding bodies interpret the UPE guidelines for each other and for the community to appreciate, and mobilise the stakeholders to make their contribution in form of food, a centre for its collection or storage or preparation and the resources for supervising meal times. By this means school management committees should be empowered to play their own role of mobilising resources for maximising the benefit of pupils? learning.
References
Friends of the World Food Programme (2007)
http://www.friendsofwfp.org/site.apps/lk
Kasente, D. (2007) Institutionalising Mastery of Literacy in Uganda Primary Schools, Makerere University, Makerere Institute of Social Research.
Madamombe, I. (2007) Food keeps African children in school, in Africa Renewal, Vol. 20 #4.
The Republic of Uganda, Ministry of Education and Sports (1998) Guidelines on Policy, Roles and Responsibilities of Stakeholders in the Implementation of Universal Primary Education (UPE).
The Republic of Uganda, Ministry of Education and Sports (2004) Annual School Census.
Global School Feeding Report 2006, World Food Programme.
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