Covid fears mean pupils go hungry

Millions of youngsters unable to collect meals from schools

Millions of pupils who have not yet returned to class are going hungry because of their parents’ reluctance to send them to school to collect food.

The lack of pupil transport and no feeding taking place at some schools because of water shortages have also contributed to the small number of pupils fetching food.

Statistics from provincial education departments have painted a dismal picture of the collection of food parcels and cooked meals from educational institutions.

The figures formed part of the latest documents submitted by the basic education department to the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria to comply with a court order instructing it to submit plans outlining the full rollout of the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) during lockdown.

Last month, the court ordered the department to provide meals to all qualifying pupils, including those who are at home because their grades have not yet been phased in.

Equal Education (EE) and two schools from Limpopo took the department and provincial education departments to court to force them to provide meals to pupils after the feeding scheme was stopped on March 18, after the shutdown of schools because of lockdown.

The department has to file an implementation plan with the court and provide EE and the two schools with copies of it every 15 days.

According to statistics, pupils who received meals towards the latter part of last month and, in the case of the Northern Cape, on August 5 include:

● Gauteng: 117,849 out of 1,5million;

● North West: 63,573 out of 270,440;

● Northern Cape: 17,028 out of 267,427; and

● Free State: 22,153 out of 596,674.

Mpumalanga appears to have been the only province to have fed the majority of its pupils, after indicating that 700,586 of its 915, 533 pupils had benefited from the feeding scheme.

KwaZulu-Natal indicated that it prepared more than 2,3-million meals, while Limpopo prepared almost 1,6-million.

The Eastern Cape’s figures were not reflected in the document, but according to a presentation given to the provincial legislature last Thursday, it has seen only 51,604 or 3.25% of pupils who have not yet been phased in, receive meals.

Questions sent to the provincial department of education on why it failed to submit the number of children fed by the nutrition programme had not been answered at the time of writing on Thursday.

Saziso Mfundisi, the principal of Mvume Springs Primary School in Port St Johns, said the restrictions made it difficult to administer the programme.

“Children are staying away because of the anxiety of parents around the spread of the coronavirus,” Mfundisi said.

Speaking on the budget for the nutrition programme at Mvume Springs, Mfundisi said: “There are often delays in the bank deposits for the nutrition programme.

“I think I can speak for most principals when I say that we are often forced to reallocate school funds towards the nutrition programme. When the funds are delayed from the department, it means there will be a backlog of something else the school may have needed.

“Furthermore, as school management we’re expected to spend every dime accordingly yet the department doesn’t consider bank charges when sending the nutrition funds.

“These bank charges can go up to R3,000 for the school.”

The Western Cape did not form part of the court application by EE and the Limpopo schools.

According to the documents submitted to court, 9,6-million pupils in 21,008 schools were fed during the period April 2018 to March 2019.

A total of R24.3bn has been earmarked for the NSNP over the medium-term expenditure framework (MTEF), which started in April.

Basic education department director-general Mathanzima Mweli stated in a consolidated report on behalf of basic education minister Angie Motshekga and the eight provincial education MECs that the provinces had reported pupils who were not yet phased in “do not support the programme”.

The NSNP is ready to implement at full scale, but due to fears of Covid-19 parents do not allow learners, or learners themselves do not collect food.