Government has no money, urges parents to feed their children at school

The education ministry has not yet finalised the penalties parents risk facing if they don’t feed their children.
FILE PHOTO

What you need to know:

Options. Cabinet was provided with memo, but two options were picked; Parents can contribute money towards school feeding and those in rural areas can contribute food in kind, writes Patience Ahimbisibwe .

Government has directed parents to ensure they feed their children while at school as the former doesn’t have money.
The directive is contained in a policy guideline on School Feeding and Nutrition Intervention Programme for use in Universal Primary Education and Universal Post Primary Education and training school systems which Cabinet recently approved.
According to Ms Santa Ojok, the Ministry of Education focal person for school feeding, Cabinet approved two of their proposals which will see children in urban schools under universal education contribute a fee towards their feeding while at school as agreed by the institution’s management committee and the board of governors. The rural learners will take food such as maize and beans to their respective schools.

“Government doesn’t have money to feed your children. The parents are going to feed their children in school. We provided a Cabinet memo with a number of options and they decided to take two. Parents can contribute money towards school feeding and those in rural areas can contribute in kind. But parents can meet and decide which option to implement,” Ms Ojok said in an interview.
In addition, communities have been tasked to ‘handle’ parents who will not abide. However, the ministry has not yet finalised the penalties parents risk facing if they don’t feed their children.

“UPE is not free. It is a contract between government and parents. Both have a role they play but because parents were told they don’t pay fees, they thought everything was free. Now they do not feel the pain eve when the child spend a month not attending school. Some parents have threatened their children that if they don’t dig first before going to school, they will not eat when they return from school,” Ms Ojok told Daily Monitor.
She added: “If a parent has refused to provide food, it is the community to discipline them. Children should not suffer or be sent away from school.”
But retired Kampala Diocese Bishop Zac Niringiye thinks otherwise. In an earlier interview, he said that there is need for government to make it mandatory for parents to pay by fixing a fee if the directive is to be implemented.

“Parents must know that these are their children not for government. Government can only ensure the children are fed. They should change the law so that parents pay a mandatory fee to feed children at school. The government can also regulate the amounts to be charged. There are children who don’t have parents and guardians. It is the responsibility of government to ensure these eat,” Bishop Niringiye said.
According to Ojok, the ministry had planned to provide funding to assist in preparing food, like buying utensils like saucepans and firewood but this seems not to yield fruits as money has not been included in the budget.

“Districts are free to go and implement the guidelines. Unfortunately, there is one thing the ministry was supposed to have done but hasn’t. We are supposed to provide some funding towards preparation of food like buying saucepans for schools. The ministry came up with a budget. We submitted to Cabinet but up to now government has not yet come back to us to tell us whether they approved the budget or not,” Ojok said.
“There is no money from the ministry and yet we know very well why we should feed children. When they are hungry, they can’t concentrate in class and it will have negative effects on their growth but feeding also improves school attendance.”
She noted that vulnerable children from Karamoja have been supported by World Food Programme which has now stopped saying they don’t have funding.

On donor dependence
But World Vision education specialist John Tereraho asked for how long will the public depend on donors to do basic things like feeding their children.
“We are a fertile country. Unless there is a disaster, we should utilise what God has given us. Let us stop the begging syndrome. How is it that we can’t feed our own children? Government should ensure everyone is productive and allow systems work. Parents must do their work. They can’t sit back and wait for government or donors to feed them,” Mr Tereraho said.

Former Education Minister Jessica Alupo said said some of the challenges being faced under UPE programme are because initially, government had intended to support only four children in every family but which was later changed to all, something that later strained the already planned budget.
Alupo added: “We said UPE should start with every family with four children. But my mother had nine children. So how could you say only four? But government had to find a way of accommodating all the children. This is a challenge we are having as we handle universal education.”
As the guidelines are right now, the government has exempted itself by giving the responsibility to set the feeding charges to school committees and penalties for defaulting parents will be administered by communities.