PUPILS TO ENJOY EXTRA MEAL

MBABANE – Pupils will now enjoy an extra meal at school from the School Feeding Programme

This is according to the Budget Speech 2019 which was presented by the Minister of Finance, Neal Rijkenberg yesterday.

The minister said this would be done as means to improve learners’ concentration and participation, as well as to boost their nutritional status. He said the School Feeding Programme would also assist in increasing enrolment, reducing absenteeism and enhancing children’s nutritional status.

Feeding

Currently, the school feeding programme provides one meal for the pupils.
Swaziland Principals Association (SWAPA) President Welcome Mhlanga, said government once provided two meals with the support of a partner.
Rijkenberg said the programme currently covered every public secondary school and 99 per cent of public primary schools.

“During 2018, the School Feeding Programme benefitted 241 745 primary school learners and 119 740 secondary school learners,” he said.
It is worth noting that in previous years, the School Feeding Programme has been marred with controversy as the food has reportedly run out. In some schools, head teachers had to make improvisations to ensure the pupils have food.

Mhlanga said if government would have the money to provide an additional meal, they would be happy as head teachers. He said the meals pupils ate at school contributed to performance and learner retainment.

“Some pupils will come to the school because they will get a meal. This is especially true for those from disadvantaged backgrounds,” he said.
Mhlanga said provision of breakfast to pupils would also assist in dealing with the issue of latecoming among pupils. He said they would come on time to enjoy their breakfast before going to class. He said they hoped government would be able to supply the food on time.
“This will also lessen the burden on schools which are using their budget to provide pupils with two meals per day,” he said.

Meanwhile, the minister said government had set aside an allocation of E3.5 billion to the Education and Training sector to implement priority programmes. This is a 7.5 per cent increase from the 2018/19 allocation. The amount is equal to the 2017/2018 allocation.

This means that the education budget is at 16 per cent of the total budget.
During the last financial year, the budget stood at E3.3 billion, which shows an increase of E0.2 billion.

We have managed to reprioritise expenditure in order to channel additional resources into the five ministries key to economic and social development, that is Education, Health, Agriculture, ICT and The Deputy Prime Minister’s Office,” the Finance minister said.

Rijkenberg said over the next year, government would focus on expanding access to vocational training to out-of- school youth and adults, through the Rural Education Centres and the Sebenta programme.

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