Importance Of School Feeding

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Importance and Relevance of School Children Feeding on Education
This session evaluates the importance and relevance of school children feeding program on education with the lens of who is in the best position to implement such policy. As a method to support underprivileged children gets enough food to eat while motivating them to be in school, school children feeding program have been embraced by Policymakers and development organizations over the decades. It is worthy to note that the programs are not peculiar to developing countries. Developed countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom began implementing school feeding programs in the 19th century and still use them today for poor children (World Bank 2012) . The acceptance of these programs in many countries has led to a series of debates and questions about the effectiveness of these programs. Many have raised fundamental questions if the school children programs really increase enrolment and if so, what are the quality and the nutritional value of the food that the programs offer. Without a doubt, a suitable lunch can ward off starvation, but is it sufficient to cover for several years of nutritional deficiency? Children who aren’t hungry can focus better in school—does this mean they will do better in their classes?
But before we evaluate the importance of the program, it is imperative to first understand what School feeding is. Quite a number of scholars have defined the term “school feeding”, but for the purpose of this essay, I will define school feeding in line with the World Food Program report of 2004 which state that, “school feeding is a tool which today effectively enables hundreds of millions of poor children worldwide to attend school—in develop...

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...ding in urban settings often take a packed lunch according to what is available in their homes. On the contrary, in the rural areas schools provide all meals at school in which the parents pay fees for every term. (GCNF, 2006: 3-5). In a similar argument, Acham and colleagues maintained that school feeding program apparently have an impact on the increase in school participation rather than regular attendance in Uganda. Even though there are more than 8 million children attending primary school, many parents, in particular, the rural areas cannot afford to pay even the minimal cost of a daily meal of maize porridge “Several factors including food insecurity, poverty, distance between home and school and lack of commitment make the parents involved unable to provide meals for their children, which is the cause of irregular school attendance” (Acham et al., 2012:2).

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