Guest Post: The Link Between Food and Education

Food and education are two of the fundamental rights of every child in developing countries like Bangladesh. Food has direct relation on education as poor nutrition and health due to lack of food among school children contributes to the inefficiency of the educational system. Education consists of qualitative learning that enables to face competitiveness as well as behavioural change. Since primary education makes foundation of lifelong learning journey therefore learning of primary school children is a challengeable issue that depends on some touchy matters like regular attendance, attentive participation in the classroom activities, development of intelligences etc. with other elements. And nourishment in the process of children’s’ learning mostly depend on hunger free existence in the classroom. Food has significant positive impact on learning as it ensure of gaining required energy for attentive participation in the classroom activities during long contact hour at as well as encourage children to attend regularly at school. Children, who suffer from protein-energy malnutrition and hunger, do not have the same potential for learning as healthy children. Hunger and poor nutrition diminish children’s cognitive development by reducing their ability to participate actively in the teaching-learning activity that is the vital issue to be addressed for ensuring their qualitative learning.  

Everyday more than 66 million children go to school hungry in developing countries like Bangladesh. Research shows that providing mid-day meals, mid-morning snacks or school feeding programme can increase children’s attention as well as abilities to concentrate classroom activities and perform specific tasks by alleviating short-term hunger. Realizing the effectiveness in learning by removing short-term hunger, the government with the support of international donors and some NGOs introduced humble initiative of School Feeding Program (SFP) in selected primary schools all over the country. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) conducted a comprehensive evaluation of the impact of the SFP in Bangladesh and evaluation findings indicate that SFP has raised school enrollment by 14.2 percent, reduced the probability of dropping out of school by 7.5 percent and increased school attendance by about 1.3 days a month.

In the era of commercialization of education, it is realistically true that most of the students of mainstreaming primary education in Bangladesh are either from lower middle class sections of the community or poverty stricken families. Definitely they are the victims of malnutrition and curse of hunger. As a result, drop out and attendance rate are really alarming as well as children’s achieved learning is not satisfactory to face modern days competitiveness although the country has achieved the pragmatic success in bringing almost all of the school aged children into primary schools. The premier reason behind said issues is that a significant part of primary school children are coming at schools with empty stomach. Confessing the hard reality of facing the issues that prevail in the mainstreaming primary education system, the government badly needs to remove the curse of hunger and malnutrition regarding to ensure children’s regular and attentive participation in the classroom activities. Otherwise, hunger and malnutrition will hinder severely children to strengthen their foundation in lifelong learning journey that compel them to survive in the competitive world.  Regarding this, the government may start School Feeding Programme (SFP) in all government run primary schools all over the country as SFP contributes to the education and well-being of children. A hungry child does not grow, cannot learn as well and faces many health risks in the future. A daily school meal provides a strong incentive to the families for sending off springs to school and keeping them there. It allows children to focus on their studies rather than their stomachs. SFP helps to improve performances on school exams and promote normal progression from grade to grade in completing primary education graduation. It also reduces maternal and infant mortality in the future as it helps younger girl children to make healthier women. Moreover, SFP will enable to make healthy Bangladesh by removing deficiencies of critical nutrients such as iodine, vitamin A and iron among the future generation of the country. SFP supports development of children for becoming healthy and productive adults by removing hunger and micro-nutrient deficiencies that can cause irreversible damage to their growing bodies.

It might be the toughest challenge for the government to take the humble initiative of introducing SFP in all primary schools with own resources. So, the government may start the programme on a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) or with the support of domestic and international NGOs or philanthropic donors. The government can ask technical and operational assistance to start the gigantic initiative from an international organization, The Akshaya Patra of India which has vast experiences of serving mid-day meals to more than 1.4 million children maintaining strong qualitative and hygienic standards.  The government should be required sufficient funds, technological innovations, delivery vehicles facilities, quality maintain technologies, volunteers, efficient management team, and support from stakeholders to manage such kind of massive operation. The government might be given the responsibility of starting SFP or mid day meal programme to different local and international NGOs like Educate the World [UK] for different districts to manage such operations on PPP.

  

Our children are the future of our country and it is the high time for developing them to survive in the competitive world by strengthening their learning in basic education dispeling their sufferings from hunger and malnutrition. Therefore, humble beginning of School Feeding Programme or Mid Day Meal Programme into primary schools could be the best way of developing future generation of the country as valuable human resources for the betterment of the country. 

MD BAYAZID KHAN

auparbayazidkhan@gmail.com

The writer is working for primary education in Bangladesh.