The National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) has rung
alarm bells in relation to the number of school children that have missed meals
due to the current operation of the school calendar.
Findings of a study conducted by the National Income
Dynamics Study – Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey (NIDS-CRAM) have painted a
gloomy picture of the changes in education during the COVID-19 pandemic, which
also focused on school attendance and school feeding.
The study that was conducted based on the responses of 5,629
people from surveys between February 2 and March 10 this year found that less
than half (43%) of school-going children who are beneficiaries of the school
feeding scheme have received a meal, leaving a great majority without a
meal.
The study further found that 72% of adults living with
children reported their households to have run out of money to buy food prior
to being interviewed, with a further 32% indicating a child going hungry at
least once a week within the same period.
This has given credence to a ruling of North Gauteng High
Court that ruled that the Department of Basic Education must roll out the
National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) to all nine million qualifying
learners, whether or not they were attending school.
Following this ruling, a joint statement was issued by Equal
Education (EE), Equal Education Law Centre and SECTION27 stating that some
provincial education departments had repeatedly failed to report on whether
they are effectively rolling out NSNP, despite the court order.
They said they had received the last round of monitoring
reports from the education department — and from the Education MECs of
KwaZulu-Natal, North West, Northern Cape and Mpumalanga — after the court
deadline of 19 March 2021. The reports from the Eastern Cape, Free State,
Gauteng and Limpopo were not submitted at all.
“This is an unbelievable and terrible neglect of
responsibility that allows children to go hungry. This is an ongoing violation
of children’s rights, and barriers to learners’ getting the school meals they
are entitled to must be fixed urgently,” the statement read.
According to the Department of Basic Education spokesperson,
Nompumelelo Mohohlwane, the loss of school meals has been a result of a no
schooling which is quantified to be a reduction from 198 to 155 days between
March 2020 and March 2021 as compared to the same period in the year
prior.
“The issues at stake are critical. While international
evidence initially recommended school closure and responses by the government
used the best evidence available, there is now a strong case for going back to
full-scale school attendance,” Mohohlwane said.
