Research Paper on School Meals in Early Childhood: Planting the Seeds of Sustainability

This paper focuses on the ways in which the education sector has enhanced sustainability through provision of school meals for the early childhood students. The provision of basic nutrition, shelter, and health care for children is enshrined in the US constitution. Notwithstanding the efforts by the government to improve the livelihoods of its citizens, under-nutrition remains prevalent among children under the age of 5 years, which has made the children prone to early childhood diseases that impede academic achievement and sometimes lead to death. As the pivots around which all school activities revolve, school heads are responsible for the management of school nutrition and meals programme of children at school.

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Introduction

The most critical period of human development is the first eight years of life. The brain undergoes rapid growth and development. It's the time when children acquire the ability to think, reason, speak, and learn; therefore, they need to be provided with adequate nutrition. Franca et al. (2018) asserts that, early malnutrition affects the mental, physical, and social well-being of the child's health, which further leads to stunted growth and underweight. Nutrition has both Direct and indirect impacts on a child's growth and development. The behavior of a child is influenced indirectly by nutrition, children who are provided with adequate nutrition are usually active, ready to explore their environment freely while the malnourished children are usually irritable and frequently become sick.

School meals in the USA were started off by the government and the World Food programme in 1980, since then the programme has contributed to improving the education sector in the country. Later on, the government initiated a nationally owned and sustainable programme known as Home-Grown School meals programme, which depends mostly on food being supplied to schools from the local. According to the school nutrition and meal strategy for (2016), the programme was placed under the schools' meals and the Health Unit of the Ministry of Education, and the headteachers are the ones to manage the programme. Davis (2019) management of school nutrition is done by the headteachers who, in turn, appoint the co-ordinators to assist them in managing. Their roles in managing the programme include budgeting, controlling the allocated funds, sourcing out, buying, transporting, and storing of food. Franca et al. (2018) noted that for efficient and effective delivery of school feeding programmes in school, teachers were supposed to be involved. He revealed that teachers, as administrators and managers of the school system, were not involved in the school meals actively hence making the children not to get the best from the school meals programme. He further stated that teachers should be in charge of the programme which will culminate to trust from opinion leaders and the students.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the study was to establish the competencies of public primary school headteachers in the management of school nutrition and meals programme at the ECDE centers. Respondents included one headteacher and one ECDE teacher from a sample size of 73 schools selected randomly. Key informants were selected purposively. Structured questionnaires and interview schedules were used to collect data. Results indicated that 32.9% of the ECDE teachers claimed that headteachers supervised the school nutrition and meals programme at the ECDE centers, while 67.1% claimed that head-teachers rarely supervised (Franca et al., 2018). 9.6% of the headteachers agreed that they had the basic knowledge of the existing government policies on school nutrition and meals programme, while 90.4% of them did not have basic knowledge on the same.

The study also revealed that absolute awareness on the importance of the programme by headteachers coupled with insufficient funds was the primary challenge. The study recommends adequate support from the government in the provision of funds to support the school nutrition and meals programme. The government should also organize training to acquaint the headteachers with the existing policy documents that will enable them to manage the health and nutrition in schools effectively.

In the United States of America, a number of policy documents have been put in place to help headteachers understand the importance of school meals. Some of the policy documents relevant to school nutrition and meals programme include Food and Nutrition Action plan which points out on improving nutrition and feeding schools, National Food Security policy 2011 highlights the components touching on school meals, health, and nutrition education in schools and National School Health policy (2009, under revision) that advocates for balanced school meals in the USA (Butikofer et al., 2018).

School nutrition and meals programme plays a vital role not only in the US but in the whole world. Report from the World Food Programme on the state of school feeding programmes worldwide 2013 stipulates that around 368 million school-going children in pre-primary and secondary are given food while at school (Kang et al., 2017). Alfaro et al. (2020) indicates that, schools in the USA serve their children more than 12 million breakfast, 32 lunches every day in addition to snacks and supper meals in some cases. Report from World Food Programme 2018 states that WFP, together with the federal and national governments, provide meals to 1.5 million children every school day with more than 1million children benefiting from the programme. Normally school meals usually comprise of pulses, cereals, Iodized salt, and vegetable oils. Recently WFP has tried to diversify the diet by including vegetables and fruits. Davis (2019) asserted that school meals usually entail carbohydrates, which is served during mid-morning and mid-day food, which entails rice, beans, maize, and vegetables. World Food programme provides fortified food to school-going children, which is rich in minerals and vitamins necessary for the growth and development of children. A study carried out by Oostindjer et al. (2017) on Impact of School Feeding programme in an early childhood development facility revealed that children were fed on porridge made out of maize flour, starchy roots and tubers since they were cheaper compared to other foods.

Meek & Tarlau (2016) opines that, school meals are important to school going children because it increases school enrolment, improves cognitive skills, and alleviate short term hunger. It also reduces school dropout rates, absenteeism, and increase academic performance. School meals protect the children who come from disadvantaged backgrounds since it reduces the burden from parents and guardians. School feeding creates job opportunities in the community and boosts the local economy since the programme allows small scale farmers to supply their farm produce to schools. School meals also help in achieving zero hunger challenge; it involves the provision of variety and nutritious meals to school-going children. School meals in the US have contributed to investing in the development of human capital. A study from the WFP-Master card shows that in every dollar that is invested in the national school meals programme it returns US$9 (WFP, 2018). Every child that benefits from the school meals has better health, good nutrition, and a better foundation in education during the early years of life and later becomes a reproductive adult living for long, enjoying a healthier life.

For a school nutrition and meals programme to be successful, it needs stable and sufficient funds, a management structure that is effective, government involvement at different levels, procures, small scale farmers as well as the entire community. Funds for Home-grown school meals programme are usually transferred directly to the school accounts to enable them to purchase food directly from the local farmers and suppliers. School Nutrition and meals strategy 2016 indicates that the US government has been gradually increasing the budget for school meals because of its importance in providing access to basic education, especially in arid and semi-arid regions (Caro, 2020). A report from the World Food Programme 2018 outlines that the government has set aside USD24 million to support the programme. This a clear indication that the government is trying to support the meal programmes in schools.

Despite the effort put by the government to implement the school meals and nutrition in schools, the programme is still facing a myriad of challenges. Padulosi et al. (2016) in their study outlined some of the challenges encountered in managing the school feeding programmes in developing countries as the fluctuation of food prices in the market, drastic changes in the environment, and inability to sustain the programme. Williams & Brown (2013) found out in their study on challenges of the nutrition programme in developing countries that there was adequate knowledge and proficient training hampering proper implementation of the program. They further stated that there was widespread involvement of the society in the implementation of feeding programmes in schools. Kemmis and Mutton, (2012), on the challenges of nutrition programme India, asserted that the nutritional stakeholders portrayed adequate knowledge and skills. Padulosi et al. (2016) outlined some of the challenges which were initially unattended to by the opinion leaders, high morale for staff, proficient in-service training, and human resource.

Methodology

A descriptive survey design was used in the study. The method involves a collection of data through administering questionnaires and interviews to individuals that are sampled. The method was appropriate since it ensured a total description of situations without manipulation of any variable. A sample size of 73 schools was selected randomly.One Headteacher and one ECDE tutor were selected from each school, forming 146 respondents. The main tools for data collection were interview schedules and structured questionnaires. Frequency tables, percentages, and descriptive statistics were used to present, analyze, and interpret data.

Findings and Discussion

Table 1: Supervision of school nutrition and meals programme at the ECDE centers

The results indicated that out of 73 ECDE teachers who participate in study 24 of them (32.9%) revealed that their headteachers supervised the school nutrition and meals programme at the ECDE centers while 49(67.1%) indicated that their headteachers rarely supervised the school meals programme. This was a clear indication that nutrition and meals programmes were rarely supervised by head teachers. When some of the head teachers were asked to give reasons for not supervising the programme, they claimed that they were busy with administrative work and management of the upper primary hence had inadequate time to supervise the programme. A group of headteachers was of the view that since the ECD was devolved to the county government, it was never their mandate to oversee the nutrition and meals programme instead, the educational officers from the county governments were the ones to be responsible.

Source of Funding for the School Nutrition and Meals Programme at the ECDE Centers:

Respondents were asked to state the sources for funding the school nutrition and meals programme. The table below highlights the sources of funding.

Table 2: Source of funds for the nutrition and meals programme...