Amuru leaders fault parents on school feeding programme
What you need to know:
- In 2015, the Ministry of Education launched the guidelines for school feeding programme. The guidelines state that feeding and nutrition education programmes are necessary in schools since they promote and improve physiological growth, school enrolment, learning and cognition. Other benefits include improved community participation, classroom concentration and children’s performance in class.
Leaders in Amuru District have expressed their reluctance to implement government’s policy on compulsory school feeding due to lack of support from parents.
In 2015, government issued guidelines on the policy, which included parents providing food to schools to be prepared or pack meals for their school-going children.
Ms Joyce Lanyero, the district education officer, said parents have had a negative perception about the programme from the start.
“In our outreaches, parents tell us that they do not have enough food to be supplied to schools or be packed for school-going children,” Ms Lanyero said.
“But since the initiative is voluntary, we cannot force them or act against such non-compliant parents,” she added.
Mr Apollo Okello, the district secretary for education, said lack of lunch has forced pupils to drop out of school while others dodge afternoon classes.
Recently, the district passed a resolution to charge parents Shs50,000 for failing to provide food for their children and keeping them home during school time.
The move is aimed at mitigating high school dropout rate and poor performance.
Compliance
Leaders say out of the 51 government-owned primary schools in the district, only 11 were struggling to give pupils food.
“It is not an easy venture for us and it is not implementable even after we backed it up with other ordinances. You cannot expect a family of six children to raise food for each of them yet at home they hardly have a meal in a day, it is impossible,” Mr Michael Lakony, the district chairperson, said, adding that poverty levels in the area are alarming.
“We cannot arrest or prosecute these parents for failing to support the programme. We have submitted our reports to Ministry of Education on our challenges because poverty levels and status of my people has set us back in implementing this exercise,” he said.
When contacted, Mr Patrick Emmanuel Muinda, the Ministry of Education spokesperson, said leaders and parents misunderstood the programme due to non-cooperation.
“We wish the parents and communities in Amuru to understand and appreciate that a child on an empty stomach cannot concentrate in class and learn successfully like the rest who have eaten. This is one secret to great performance in schools. That is why we are emphasising feeding children in school as a ministry,” Mr Muinda said.
