STAFF’S REQUESTS TO MINISTER

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.

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