Times Of Swaziland: STAFF’S REQUESTS TO MINISTER

STAFF’S REQUESTS TO MINISTER
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Sithembile Hlatshwayo on 21/11/2023 13:52:00


MBABANE – Some senior employees of the Ministry of Education and Training got
a chance to make requests to the minister during the introduction.
Senior Inspector Nutrition Thobile Gamedze, highlighted to the Minister of
Education, Owen Nxumalo, that the school feeding programme would require a lot
of support from him. Gamedze said the support required was financial support.
The inspector stated that the programme would cause a lot of questions to be
directed to the minister, from the media in particular and the teachers if not
attended to. Gamedze stated that post-COVID-19, the programme had a lot of
issues, discussed at Cabinet, Parliament as well as the media. Furthermore, she
appealed to the minister not to just look at the programme in terms of funding
it, but as an investment, because it was the largest social protection mechanism
scheme the world over. She said the school feeding was a programme that was
concerned with ensuring equitable access to education. She said the programme
looked at guaranteeing that all learners, regardless of background had access to
education.
Nutritional
This, she said, was done through the provision of nutritional support to the
pupils in terms of sending food to the schools. “There are two components to
this, including buying at central level and also the schools supplementing what
is bought.” Gamedze said having seen that there was a challenge in terms of
the availability of funds, they were planning to host a school feeding indaba,
next week. She said regional meetings would be conducted and, through support
from partners, a main event would then be held. Gamedze said following the pilot
project of the home-grown schools feeding, which was evaluated, it would be
presented at the George Hotel today. Senior Chief Inspector of Schools Musa
Macwele also stated that they had transport challenges and could not reach
schools as expected but sit in offices and do nothing. Macwele said their job
was not to sit in the offices but to visit the schools to check whether quality
education was being delivered. According to Macwele, there were no vehicles to
reach the schools. He urged the minister to attend to the matter in order for
them to deliver on their mandate.