State takeover of school lunches raises sustainability concerns

In October 2018, the Kenyan government formally took over from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) the responsibility for providing lunches to 1.6 million schoolchildren in arid and semi-arid areas in the country.

The venue for the handing over was Eriemet Primary School in Burat location of Isiolo North sub-County, the model of a school in a harsh arid and semi-arid region.

The senior teacher at the school, Mr Kimathi Kiugu said that for many decades, the school has been a beneficiary of the feeding programme, in which the World Food Programme (WFP) provides hot lunch to pupils.

The food includes cereals such as maize, beans, peas, rice, bulgur and cooking oil. “The lunch has for many years sustained the nomadic child in school,” said Mr Kimathi who has taught at the school for the last 17 years.

Eriemet Primary School lies in Burat location of Isiolo North sub-County, and the climate here is very harsh for farming to take place.

“I can confidently say that children come to this school because of the free lunch provided by the World Food Programme. Whenever it is not available, they do not come. It is this food that keeps children in school,” said Mr Samuel Okoro, chairman to the school.

“Whenever there are food delivery delays, the enrolment drops by over 50 per cent,” said Mr Kimathi. The lack of food also negatively impacts on students’ attention in class, he added. This makes learning very difficult.

At the event, both teachers and local leaders expressed concerns over the handing over of the school feeding programme from the World Food Programme (WFP) to the national government.

“This handing over may not be good for the programme. The World Food Programme remit food or funds meant for the programme directly to the school account. If the programme is fully handed over to the government, it might be shaky into the future,” said Mr Okoro. He added: “this is something that the World Food Programme should consider as it requires a lot of monitoring to ensure that the children do not suffer and that learning continues as usual.”

CONCERNS

Isiolo County Governor Mohamed Kuti asked the government to ensure continuity of the school feeding programme and to give it priority.

"The school feeding programme should be budgeted for in the next financial year. The ministry of education should allocate resources for it," said governor Kuti.

He added that the county government was not sure whether the national government would sustain the programme. "There are concerns over the future of this programme," he said.

The governor explained that the distribution for relief food programme to Isiolo residents had been irregular since the programme was handed over to the national government. "The distribution was done monthly when it was under WFP, but since the handing over, there have been delays," he noted.

Similar sentiments were expressed by Isiolo Senator Fatuma Adan Dhullo. "Most of the residents in Isiolo are nomadic pastoralists. Persistent drought and cattle rustling has kept poverty levels very high. To keep children in school, the government must prioritise this school feeding programme that it is inheriting today," said Senator Dhullo.

She asked Principal Secretary of Education, Dr Richard Bellio Kipsang to act on the sustainability of the programme, as education performance in the county has been very low.

Isiolo County is also faced with a shortage of teachers, she added. Most of the primary schools and secondary schools are understaffed. "We are short of 96 teachers in primary schools and 101 teachers in secondary schools," Ms Dhullo told the PS.

Further, Ms Dhullo asked the education ministry to provide sanitary towels for girls in Isiolo, alongside the feeding programme.

However, Dr. Kipsang assured the leaders that the national government will ensure that the school feeding programme in Isiolo County and the entire country continues uninterrupted.

"We are aware of the importance of this programme. Our children will be in school and the free school lunch will continue to keep them there," he assured.

Dr. Kipsang further explained that the ministry was conscious of the fact that school meals need sufficient and stable funding. “There is also a need for an effective governance and management structure, and adequate capacity development support for food procurers and smallholder farmers to provide suitable and diverse produce,” he added.

The PS could not have found a better venue to make the promise of hot lunch for school going children other than Eriemet Primary School, a school where pupils are faced with warped challenges.

The school lies in Ngaremara Ward, Isiolo North sub-County which is closer to the border of Samburu County and Isiolo County, where the access to reliable security, food, water, and healthcare is, but a distant dream.

Mr Kimathi explained that pastoralism is the major economic activity in Burat and most of the families are poor. “The adults keep on walking with their animals for long distances in search of water and pasture,” he said.

The security of the area has been hampered by cattle rustling. “A General Service Unit (GSU) camp had to be established next to the school,” Mr Kimathi said.

The presence of the officers has helped to quell the polarisation between the Samburu and the Turkana communities. “Our school is at the border of Samburu County and Isiolo County where security is a challenge, mainly because of cattle rustling. This has affected learning. The pupils run away from school for even a month, as they join their families in hiding,” explained Mr Okoro.

“When this happens, the local communities escape to safer places, deep into the wilderness and the area remains vacated. We always take a small break from school to allow the conflict to settle,” he explained.

The teachers keep monitoring the situation. “Once calmness and security returns, we resume school and go back to class. This year, second term was interrupted a lot between May and July,” Mr Kimathi shared.

IMPROVED PERFORMANCE

In July this year, Eriemet primary school was among nine schools within Ngaremara Ward in Isiolo County in which learning was paralysed following tension over a police operation to recover stolen livestock. Photographs of pupils from Chumvi Yere Primary School taking cover under their desks in a classroom surfaced online shared by local residents.

In late May, two police officers were killed. One was killed by armed bandits while loading livestock onto a lorry in Nachuroi while the second was shot dead by angry residents who stormed the Ngaremara Administration Police post.

Still in May, three police officers were shot dead and six others injured in two separate operations to recover stolen livestock in Loruko and Burat.

Besides these challenges, the school managed to post a mean score of 257 marks in 2017 Kenya Certificate of Primary Education (KCPE). “We have been improving in the last three years,” Mr Kimathi said. At the zone level, the school was the second-best performing, and was ranked position eight in Isiolo County.

The Isiolo River bridge collapsed in 1998, and has become a ‘political promise’, every general election year. Two decades later, none of those promises have been fulfilled.

Learning at Eriemet Primary School comes to a halt whenever it rains. “We have to wait for the water levels in Isiolo River to subside to make it easy to cross on foot. In the evening we are keen to release the pupils to go home on time during the rainy season. There is need for a bridge,” Mr Kimathi said.

The school has got a student population of 658 pupils, all of who use only eight classrooms,” Mr Okoro added.

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WFP praises Kenya’s feeding programme

Evidence from evaluations done in sub-Sahara Africa have demonstrated that school meals are one of the most important and dependable safety nets for children and their families.

Kenya is the first country in Africa to take over the school feeding programme from United Nations World Food programme (WFP).

Since the 1980s, school meals for children in schools in arid and semi-arid areas in Kenya have been the joint responsibility of WFP and the Ministry of Education.

"The World Food Programme is extremely grateful to the government of Kenya for taking up this noble responsibility. We know that school meals are one of the most important and dependable safety nets for children and their families in Kenya,” said World Food Programme country director and representative Annalisa Conte.

A daily hot lunch means more children attend school, stay the whole day and get an education that helps them become more productive in future, said Ms Conte.

Over the years, the government has gradually taken over the responsibility of providing meals to schools.

In 2009, Kenya launched a Home-Grown School Meals Programme (HGSMP) as a nationally-owned and government-led programme and started giving hot meals to over 500,000 children.

Kenya’s HGSMP is now viewed as a model for sustainable school feeding in Africa, with the shift from a donor-finance programme to a nationally-led programme.

“The government is putting the future of the country first. I came from a poor family. The school meal gave me the motivation to attend school, complete school and work hard. I later discovered my running talent, exploited it to the top level,” said Paul Tergat, a WFP Goodwill Ambassador Against Hunger and former marathoner.

Due to the success of the programme, Kenya has hosted study missions from Gambia, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia for cross-learning and knowledge exchange on implementation of sustainable and cost-efficient HGSM programmes in Africa.