Unlike it might seem, school-feeding program is a very fundamental and crucial issue that has the capacity to play an indispensable role in the whole future of a nation. Therefore, it deserves a very high attention by government, non-governmental institutions and the entire society.
Indeed if education is mandatory for the transformation of the human society, it is in turn unimaginable without food. The indispensable role of food becomes burning when it comes to a matter of learning or even thinking properly. Hence, as it is often claimed, an empty stomach impairs cognitive development. Therefore, when planning about the future, it is mandatory to plan issues of food and education as inseparable agenda.
In the long history of traditional education in the country, education and feeding used to go side by side. For instance, according to the tradition of education in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, students locally called Yekolo Temari (a student who subsists on roasted grain called qollo) are offered free scholarship by the church while the local people sponsor their daily subsistence. The people donate food exchange for the students’ blessings and in the end of their service in the church. The students pursued their church education effectively without worrying about what to eat or dress.
As modern education was introduced in the country, food and education got divorce. At the early days, the government provided the education free while students relied on food from their family. As time went-by, it became a norm for schools to focus only on providing education rather than food which is vital requisite for an optimum outcome of the schools activity. While children from a better off household were able to pursue their education, this trend left quite a large number of children of a poor family out of school.
Indeed for the poor and developing countries, let alone providing food in schools, even opening and properly running the schools was a very challenging task. Therefore, in many places providing both education and food were unthinkable.
Therefore, running even the modest level of school feeding appears as a highly respectable topic. Those children who remained out of school due to lack of food can return to their schools while those who attended their education with difficulty due to shortage of meals per day can now be better off.
In addition, school feeding can do a lot more benefits to the country by closing the socio-economic gap between people, as well as paving the way for the government and concerned organizations to nurture the young generation with the health nutrition or balanced diet there by developing a healthy and capable society in the long run.
While the achievements in school feeding so far are somehow promising, it is important to build more on the ongoing efforts. There is a need to access more destitute children in all corners of the nation who remained out of school due to food and related challenges. Furthermore, it is important to work more on improving the amount and quality of the food provided in a bid to ensure a better future.
Thus, stakeholders should comprehend that investing in the future of the people and the nation is the most reliable and profitable field that can pay back with many folds of returns. Financial, technical and human resource should all be maneuvered towards the success of school feeding.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 13 MARCH 2025
