Prior to the launch of School Feeding Program (SFP), numerous parents and teachers were heard of complaining that students here and there all of a sudden fell down during flag ceremony or on the way to school and/or home. The underperformance of children in schools is undoubtedly attributable to, not limited to of course, undernourishment, temporary hunger, and poor health condition as well as low level of socioeconomic status of parents.
Those sounds have quitted after the commencement of SFPs. Unequivocally, School Feeding Program (SFP) has been implemented in many countries of the globe so as to help students concentrate more on their academic workout than thinking of where they can secure food. The government of Ethiopia in collaboration with development partners is steering SFP in public primary schools.
Following the country’s efforts to achieve universal access to basic education, many more children have now had the opportunity to go to school.
Besides, a lot of children are reached by the school system than ever before. Undeniably, a wide range of nutrition related problems have been constraining and affecting school aged children’s ability to flourish and benefit from education. Thanks to the combined effort of the government and development partners, some of the common problems related to food consumption and associated levels of malnutrition are being addressed in Ethiopia these days.
“Many children come to school famished. I think the scheme is a great complement to schooling because it boosts the students’ spirits, courage and aptitude to learn. The meals provide the students with the nutrition and energy they need to remain active in class,” said Kelemua Yalew, whose child attends school feeding in Atse-Kaleb Primary School.
True, school feeding programs are intended to alleviate short-term hunger, improve nutrition and cognition of children, and transfer income to families. Their impact on nutritional, health, and educational outcomes of school-aged children in developing countries like Ethiopia is very invaluable.
According to Kelemua, SFP is one of the components of schemes to help students properly attend schooling in government funded public primary schools. Hence, it is provided at breakfast and lunch in schools to meet students’ nutritional needs and encourage school attendance as education will be their ladder out of poverty.
She said, “As I observed, the school meals offer a selection of freshly cooked plant-based meals which meet the nutritional standards. The daily list of options is rotated on a weekly basis and revised annually based on students’ feedback. It is well witnessed that relatively balanced and fresh meals benefit schools and teachers from a happy and productive school environment with better behavior and higher educational performance.”
Low awareness level on the effect of poor health and nutrition on children’s ability to learn is witnessed, indeed. Besides, lack of ownership and coordination as well as ineffective utilization of resources on the delivery of comprehensive school health and nutrition interventions has to be well eyed on, and some appalling moves have to be well done away with in a bid to come up with meaningful deed along this line.
The Ministry of Education and states’ education bureaus including that of Addis Ababa City Administration recognize the impact that poor health and nutrition can have on children’s ability to learn, on their school attendance and concentration. These bodies have also distinguished that malnutrition is the major impediment for effective learning, for children’s full productive potential and for the national development and poverty reduction efforts. Yes, the greater the number of children attending schools the wider the chance the country does have to be taken over with its future. Hence, school health and nutrition status of students needs to receive due attention.
It is well recognized that schools are ideal settings to implement health and nutrition programs because they offer substantial opportunities to promote health and nutrition. The program thus enables students to benefit out of day to day lessons outcomes since they are capable of recording the greatest improvement in their academic performance via taking foodstuff channeled through SFP.
The program is of paramount importance in promoting joint planning, designing and implementation of sustainable and quality health and nutrition interventions across the education sector. It is also helpful in improving the quality of education by ensuring the development of child-friendly school environments and complementing policies and strategies which define how health and nutrition is to be addressed in schools.
As to Addis Ababa Education Bureau, prioritizing school feeding program would help students keep in school and cut dropouts. It is also well remembered that Addis Ababa City Administration has launched a school feeding program that benefits about three hundred thousand students aiming at boosting enrollment and reducing absenteeism among school children. However, currently, the number of students benefiting from the program has reached over six hundred thousand.
As learnt from many parents of beneficiary students, the school feeding program is helping to keep children in school and trim down school dropout.
Emebet Tekola, who is a housemaid in Addis Ababa, has two school aged children and could hardly provide them enough food and afford school fee earlier. She was about to drop her children out of school due to malnutrition. However, now she happily sends her children to school following the launch of School Feeding Program in the capital; which helped her children to get supplementary food in the school.
“The program can contribute to the learning through avoiding hunger and enhancing cognitive ability of the children. Many students including mine all the time fell during flag ceremony as they did not take anything while going out for schooling,” she said.
“I am very happy with the program and my children get meal in the school free of charge. Even the government sponsored them to get school uniform and learning materials,” she said.
According to Emebet, the program helps her children be alert to receive education and improve their academic performance as they have got enough food.
She said, “My children get up in the morning, wash their hands and face, go to school quickly, the food they are given is healthy and they are very happy with it. It helps me save time and ease burdens apart from assisting my children learn well.”
Since the students do not think of getting food, the school meal helps them attend class with fresh and comfy body and mind, she added.
As to her, the program would enable the health and nutrition status to be improved for a significant proportion of students via promoting healthy attitudes, knowledge and behaviors.
“Good health and nutrition are essential for learning and cognitive ability. Ensuring good health and nutrition provision when children are of school-age can boost attendance and educational achievement.”
As learnt from Addis Ababa Education Bureau, the school feeding program is prioritized within the Zero Hunger strategy to address hunger and ensure human right to adequate food for all.
School meals can play an integral role in improving children’s diets and addressing health disparities. Initiatives and policies to increase consumption have the potential to ensure students benefit from the healthy school foods available, the Bureau indicated.
In a nut shell, the government is working to increase school meal consumption targeting at, among others, providing students with more menu choices, cutting dropout rates, adapting recipes to improve the palatability and cultural appropriateness of foods and enabling students to pursue education.
Here, school nutrition and health programs have to be run in a well-organized and streamlined fashion as fragmented and uncoordinated activities lead nowhere. For example, as learnt from coordinators, most of the efforts were piecemealed and not planned on a sustainable basis earlier. However, these days the program is being performed taking students’ needs and ambitions of concerned body into account.
BY MENGESHA AMARE
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD THURSDAY 14 APRIL 2022
