Local school children continue to go hungry, despite a promise made three weeks ago by Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga that the Eastern Cape School Nutrition Programme would be “immediately reinstated”.
Local school children continue to go hungry, despite a promise made three weeks ago by Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga that the Eastern Cape School Nutrition Programme would be “immediately reinstated”.
“I have problems concentrating at school because I am hungry,” said Pamela Dyalom, a Grade 7 pupil at Makana Primary School, this week. “My grandfather sometimes gives me lunch, but not all the time. It is difficult for us.”
Last year the School Nutrition Programme provided 1.6 million Eastern Cape pupils with one substantial meal a day: samp and beans, soya mince soup, or rice with vegetables and pap. Without this daily meal, many of the children find it hard to focus in class.
“We are struggling,” said Mthetheleli Kulati, principal of Makana Primary School. The school does not charge its students any fees and is therefore entirely dependent on the Department of Education. The lack of food, coupled with other hindrances such as a shortage of stationery, means the school year is not off to a very good start. “There is no stability at all,” Kulati said.
After her emergency visit to the Eastern Cape late last month, Minister of Basic Education, Angie Motshekga, announced at a press conference on 27 January that the school feeding programme would be reinstated with immediate effect. Three weeks have gone by since that promise was made.
Thozama Gora, co-ordinator of the nutrition programme at Makana Primary School, said the department had instructed schools to look for food service providers and send in quotations. After this, money would be put into the school’s account and it would be up to the school to buy food from the service provider.
Kulati pointed out, however, that there were still no funds. Pellem Mxolisi, a parent with three children attending Makana Primary School, said, “Most parents who have kids in Makana rely on social grants. It is sometimes a struggle for families to put food on the table.”
The fact that their children are no longer getting meals at school has put a lot of extra pressure on the families. “I sometimes come to school with an empty stomach,” said Yvonne Qhomfo, a Grade 2 learner.
Yolisa Kepe, the nutrition co-ordinator at Samuel Ntlebi Primary School, said they had started to use school funds in order to feed the children. “We are still waiting for the money and are therefore using other means to get food,” she said.
The Eastern Cape Education Department has come under fire following revelations that it will overspend more than R1.9 billion on its salary bill by the close of the financial year at the end of March. In a bid to cover up the over-expenditure, the department terminated essential services, such as the nutrition programme, school transport, and the employment contracts of 4 000 temporary teachers, despite a need for their services at critically understaffed schools.
Each of the 1.6 million school meals costs around R1.60 a day, or more than R2m in total, adding up to around half a billion rands each school year. The school nutrition programme in the province also has a chequered history.
In 2006, a forensic audit found that the programme had been defrauded of more than R100m. A report on the programme issued by Rhodes University-based Public Services Accountability Monitor, released at the end of last year, also found that deliveries were irregular, very little record-keeping was being done and “leakages” of funds were occurring.
