IMPROVING NUTRITIONAL STATUS OF LEARNERS

MIA P. VALENZUELA

A whole-of-government approach is required for the Department of Education's (DepEd) schoolbased feeding program to be an effective intervention to address the undernutrition problem of school children. To improve the nutritional status and performance of learners, officials said local governments should be tapped to implement the feeding program considering that there are about 28 million students enrolled in 47,000 DepEd schools. Officials said the DepEd needs the assistance of the local government because of the number of students. The national and local governments should work together to help the children, they added. The feeding program is projected to provide nutritionally balanced meals or food products for the entire academic year or 220 days, plus milk for 55 days, to “severely wasted and wasted” children from Kinder to Grade 6. “Wasted” children are those who are underweight for their age. The budget allocation for the school-based feeding program has been increased to account for the expansion from 120 days to 220 days. From PHP3.3 billion in 2022, the budget for DepEd's feeding program increased to PHP11.7 billion for School Year 2024-2025, which translates to PHP25 per meal and the program's expansion to a total of 220 feeding days. Aside from the school-based feeding program, the DepEd also launched its mental health program, which has a budgetary allocation of PHP210 million this year to hire more mental health personnel in schools; download program support funds to field offices; and salary grade increase for registered psychologists. The House has already passed on final reading a measure that would promote the mental health and well-being of learners. The bill seeks to strengthen the promotion and delivery of mental health services in basic education through the hiring and deployment of mental health professionals. To lure more mental health professionals into the basic education system, HB 6574 also provides for the hiring of a sufficient number of mental health professionals with salary grades not lower than Salary Grade 16, including guidance associates and psychometricians at the entry level of Salary Grade 11. The measure, likewise, allows public schools to hire graduates with relevant background in psychology or similar fields, who may not yet qualify as mental health professionals, to provide school-based mental health services, provided that they undergo training on capacity building as determined by the DepEd.

-oOoThe author is a Teacher III at Sto.Rosario Elementary School