By Obbo Yusuf –obboyusuf43@gmail.com
TESO Region: Education stakeholders in Teso Region have accused government and politicians of failing school Learners feeding program.
“Government should clearly be open to parents about feeding their children at school, parents have clearly distanced themselves from supporting schools towards feeding their children in Teso region ,they assert that the government paid for everything ,the situation in schools is demotivating young boys and girls from attending school “said Steven Okurut, the district Education officer for Bukedea district
According to the National planning Authority report released in 2017, eight million children attend school in Uganda, however the largest proportion go hungry, with only 33% of the children receiving meals at school. This has implications on cognitive development, school performance and achievement. The Uganda Bureau of Statistics report of -2014 also indicated that 66% of learners at primary level were not feeding at school. Urban children (41%) were more likely to receive school meals than their rural counterparts (32%) and most of this feeding is provided through parental contribution.
The Government of Uganda through the Ministry of Education and Sports (MoES) recognizes that feeding is an essential component of a child friendly school as it improves physiological growth, school enrolment, learning and overall cognition.
In 2013, government designed the school feeding and nutrition guidelines to improve child health, nutrition and educational performance, however many schools are still unable to implement them as witnessed in Teso primary schools.
Steven Okurut, the district Education officer for Bukedea district expressed concerned over government failure to come out clearly and explain to parents about fulfilling their responsibility of feeding learners while at school.
“The designed policy should clearly point out what a parent Should do towards learner’s feeding at school, Teso Learners mostly primary pupils depend on Water and fruits like mangoes for breakfast and lunch if by chance the school has a borehole and fruit trees, the unlucky ones stay hungry from morning to evening on empty stomachs and government has clearly maintained the silence, and they expect good grades in PLE from hungry learner’s ” says Okurut .
Okurut added that government should make feeding at school compulsory so that parents fulfill responsibility. And it should not be by packing food, let parents contribute some small amount to the school management or by taking maize to school because if government tasks them to pack ,majority will not do it ,our people have it in mind that Education is completely free like it’s always sang by politicians yet government is not giving Schools food to feed learner’s .
Okurut further asserted that hungry children have poor concentration in class and mental disabilities, absenteeism, bad behaviors, poor health and end up dropping out of school.
According to Akoll Micheal the head teacher for Angangam primary school, Parents would be the best to lead Learners school feeding program but the policy has been interfered by political forces and churches.
Akoll said “politicians have confused the feeding program and church, they only bring policies to favor them, teachers who try to enforce school feeding program are fought seriously by politicians, our politicians here even involve in nominating and suggesting transfers of teachers, the very politicians even request for percentage share of money from PTA .”
When asked about her view on political interference to school feeding program, The District chairperson for Bukedea District Ms Akol Mary said that it’s an unpatriotic leaders that advocate for children to stay hungry at school.
“Leaders who are parents and patriotic have to emphasize parents’ contribution towards learner’s feeding and we blame central government for keeping silent on matters of feeding learners. Let it be a compulsory policy where every parent must involve themselves in the program ,other places like Karamoja are assisted by development partners to feed school going children ,here in Teso we think everything will be handled by government ,whose children are these ,by us neglecting our responsibility, we are promoting early drop outs which will badly impact our societies ” said Ms Akol.
During the regional conference in Soroti designed by Education policy review commission aimed at sharing views with education stakeholders of Teso on how best Education system should be like, teachers and Education heads in Teso emphasized the issue of learner’s feeding that government needs to address urgently to help the young boys and girls stay in school .
In his remarks, the District Education officer for Bukedea informed the commission that young boys and girls in Teso have chosen to stay home than school since there isno feeding at school which has resulted into high child related crimes, early pregnancy and child labor .
