Truancy warning if free lunches cut back

A school leader says he is worried truancy will increase if school meals are limited to certain students next year.

Associate Education Minister David Seymour has confirmed the governmentfunded lunch programme, Ka Ora, Ka Ako, is under review ahead of the Budget.

Porirua College deputy principal John Topp said the school feeds more than 1000 students a day in the area through the free school lunch programme.

The contract runs out at the end of the year and he was worried it would not be renewed for all students.

‘‘Sometimes it's the only food they'll have in that day – and [they ask] can we have more? So we've got to keep doing that.”

Since 2019, the programme had been offered to students at schools with the highest levels of disadvantage.

Leaders at the school said truancy was an ongoing challenge due to poverty and the cost-of-living crisis hitting families hard.

The school has about 70% of students attending at any given day, Topp said.

Attendance officer Mose Skipworth agreed the lunches helped to keep kids in school. "A lot of people are just seeing students not showing up to school, not sitting in the seats – but I think what they are not seeing is that they didn't have dinner, or they haven’t had lunch, or they haven't had breakfast.’’

Ministry of Education statistics show in term three of last year, only 46% of students across the country attended school more than 90% of the time.

Seymour said there was no hard evidence in New Zealand that the school lunch programme had improved achievement and attendance.

‘‘When you've got a programme that is close to $350 million every year, you’ve got a duty to ask yourself is this programme delivering value for the people who need it most, not creating any waste, and having an effect on the government’s overall objectives?"

Seymour cited a Treasury report from 2023 which said about 12% of lunches, or about 10,000 a day, were left over.

The report stated the lunches generally made students happier and healthier but did not find an impact on attendance.