Georgetown: Minister of Culture, Youth and Sport, Dr. Frank Anthony and acting Education Minister, on January 3 informed members of the National Assembly about the implementation of the Government’s School Feeding Programme.
This explanation came in response to questions posed by APNU member, Desmond Trotman as to whether or not the Education Minister is prepared to extend the Programme to impoverished children on the coast.
Minister Anthony explained that programme has three components: a fruit juice and fortified biscuits programme, juice, cassava and peanut butter snack programme, and a community-based hot meal programme.
“We are already addressing the coastland by providing a juice and fortified biscuits, which is a national programme,” he said.
The fruit juice and fortified biscuits programme is offered in all regions except Region Nine. The beneficiaries are all nursery and Grade 1 and 2 primary school students; a total of 45,068 students in 304 nursery and 324 primary schools benefitted from this programme.
The total amount budgeted for this programme in 2012 was $600M. The daily cost of the actual snack is about $75, and this does not include transportation costs, which can be very steep in outlying areas.
The community-based hot meal programme is done in Regions One, Seven, Eight and Nine. It was initiated under the Education for All/Fast Track Initiative (EFA/FTI), specifically to address the issue of poor attendance rates in those regions.
Approximately 16,000 students from 92 hinterland primary schools (Region One-47, Region Seven-25, Region Eight-17 and Region Nine-20) benefit from this programme on a daily basis. This cost of this programme is about $550M.
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