Monday, July 30, 2007 Oledan: Approaches By Radzini Oledan Slice of life
IN SEVERAL instances when one gets the opportunity to go to rural areas and listen to the experiences of children and their families, the matter of feeding children in school to temporarily relieve hunger and enable them to concentrate to the task at hand, almost always surface.
While school-feeding program is being shunned by international organizations as a way to improve school performance, zeroing in instead on the need for educational reforms and provision of facilities to make schools conducive for children, it is nevertheless being communicated by parents and children themselves.
While programs and approaches have to be based on the real needs of children and their families, current intervention for children in school is almost always focused on the provision of textbooks, chairs, desks and other school facilities.
But there are basic needs that have been articulated by children. The need for food.
In far-flung areas, children have to walk two to three hours a day to go to school. Without any breakfast, the child attends classes unable to concentrate on the lessons.
So many children experience hunger.
In many occasions, during focus group discussions with children and families, they have repeatedly asked that a school feeding program be put in place.
Instead, implementers have focused on anything but school feeding.
School feeding refers to meals and snacks prepared and given to children at school. The Food for Education has a broader definition and refers to any food used as a resource to improve educational outcomes.
Nutrition and health problems among school-age children, including hunger, can severely limit children's opportunity to participate in school and diminish their ability to progress and achieve once enrolled.
Providing meals and snacks in school will alleviate short-term hunger among attending children and improve children's school performance while at school.
Short-term hunger, common in children who are not fed before going to school, has an adverse effect on learning, since a hungry child has more difficulty concentrating and performing complex tasks.
In fact, studies have found that school-age children in low-income communities become increasingly stunted during their primary school years (PCD, 2000).
Between 25 percent and 35 percent of school age children are estimated infected with intestinal worms (Jamison, 2006). The most intense worm infections and related illnesses occur at school age and account for about 12 percent of the total disease burden and 20 percent of the loss of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) from communicable disease among schoolchildren (World Bank, 1993).
Schoolchildren infected with worms perform poorly in tests of cognitive function and can experience immediate educational and cognitive benefits when dewormed. Other infections like malaria are linked to increased ill-health and absenteeism.
School enrolment and attendance are affected by a number of other factors unrelated to nutrition. Most of them are economic. School fees are the most serious obstacle to educational access, and when removed have resulted in huge surges in enrolment in countries.
Other barriers include distance to school, early marriage, household chores, alternative economic commitments and parents' attitudes towards schooling (especially girls schooling).
The quality of instruction, teacher quality, and quality of learning materials also play an important role in improving children's capacity to learn.
Lack of or poor water and sanitation facilities in schools can also affect children's participation in school. Children need adequate toilet facilities, and hand-washing facilities.
But while we look into responding to these concerns on education access and quality, including providing an environment conducive to learning, it may also be important to address the hunger of children while in school.
Where school feeding is undertaken, impact will be greater if combined with interventions focused on improving the quality of education and general health status of school aged children. The success of school feeding programs on educational outcomes is dependant upon many factors, including the quality of the learning environment.
