FPE UNPAID: PUPILS BRACE FOR LESSONS ON EMPTY STOMACHS

MBABANE – It is not a secret that thinking on an empty stomach is very difficult, now imagine trying to solve math problems while hungry.

As school head teachers gear themselves up for reopening of schools on January 17, 2023, many of the schools do not have food to support the feeding schemes. The schools’ feeding schemes also known as Zondle, provide meals to pupils, but for many children in rural communities, this also becomes their main meal for the day. Head teachers, particularly in primary schools, stated that they had not yet received the free primary education (FPE) grants. They said this meant that they would not be able to supplement school meals through the Zondle programme.

Delivered

The head teachers also revealed that food normally used for the feeding schemes had not yet been delivered to the schools. This publication spoke to some school head teachers as well as parents who expressed concern that it would be difficult for their children to focus on their schoolwork if there was no food. Some of the head teachers who were interviewed declined to speak on the record, stating that they did not want to be victimised for revealing the lack of food in schools.

“There is no food as it finished long before the official closing of schools,” said a head teacher. Some of the head teachers said they had only been left with rice, but that this was already rotten by now. “By the time we open, the rice will not be fit for consumption,” said *Jomo who is a teacher in one of the schools in the Lubombo Region.

Orphaned

Jomo, who heads a primary school revealed that at his school, more than half of his 600 pupils were classified as Orphaned and Vulnerable Children (OVCs). He said because of this they depended on meals at school. “If we do not have a meal, there is no way they could learn,” said Jomo.
He said it was not uncommon for pupils to collapse at his school due to hunger. He said this usually happened during assembly. Further, he revealed that after noticing that a majority of the pupils were from poor backgrounds, the school also started to provide breakfast in form of soft porridge but this was difficult to continue. He said the school did this as a pilot project.

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