Resolve food crises in schools
Mmegi Editor | Friday January 13, 2017 11:21
The situation is very bad in instances where some students, who leave their homes to take board at far-flung schools, are rendered helpless and hungry. Marooned, they have nowhere else to seek food to quiet down the growls of their empty stomachs.
This is a an unsettling situation, which should never be justified. The government should by now be able to do proper estimates and prioritise feeding for those who have nowhere else to go.
In our Thursday edition, we carry a story of delays in food procurement for public schools, which opened to a dire food shortage crisis on Tuesday. The situation was particularly reported as ugly in boarding facilities.
Though a perennial problem, the situation appeared grimmer in the Kgalagadi area where multitudes of boarding students, who arrived a day earlier, crawled to bed on their rumbling empty stomachs.
The state of affairs was so dire that in Kgolagano Junior Secondary School in Middlepits, some students are reported to have fainted due to hunger. The bulk of learners are boarding students, many of whom are from Bokspits and surrounding villages.
The Ministry of Basic Eduction should understand that such incidents could lead to some students resorting to unsavoury behavior that includes stealing or others abandoning their studies to return to their homes for survival.
Students need to be on their sharpest minds when beginning school, and such incidents will not take learners far in their attempts to achieve improved results, which is a feat that continues to elude many public schools.
It was also mentioned in the same story that government does not pay the suppliers on time. Instead of blaming schools for not procuring on time, the ministry knows the school calendar well and should see to it that the problem never rears its head or is remedied before it is pain in the poor students’ stomachs. If it means heads will roll, then so be it, as they need to take their jobs seriously.
Hopefully, minister Unity Dow and her team will bring an end to this inhumane treatment of our future leaders.
You can never have an excuse for not feeding someone who cannot help himself or herself. Efficient supply of food will ensure active students who will focus on their schoolwork and attain good marks.
The ministry should at all times, when they are not ready to feed students, let them stay at home and call them to school when everything is sorted. Motswana a re, “Tsie e fofa ka moswang”. Interpreted, the Setswana saying suggests that “nothing can be achieved on an empty stomach”.
Today’s thought
“There is no finer investment for any community than putting milk into babies.”
- Sir Winston Churchill