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Rwanda Government to Establish Community-driven School Feeding Program

Rwanda Government to Establish Community-driven School Feeding Program

From All Africa

The Government plans to develop a nationally owned home-grown school feeding programme with a high degree of community ownership, the Ministry of Education has announced.

The Director-General of Education Planning in the Ministry of Education, Dr. Erasme Rwanamiza, was on Monday reacting to World Food Programme (WFP) report which indicates that more than 360,000 primary school pupils from about 300 schools have benefited from WFP funded school feeding programme in the country since 2002.

The World Food Programme report, titled The State of School Feeding Worldwide, was released last week in Rome, Italy, during an annual meeting of school feeding experts and warned that ‘the coverage of school feeding programmes is lowest in countries where the need is the greatest.’

The WFP feeding programme is now in its final stage with plans to hand over the scheme to the education ministry, which will then engage parents as part of the home grown school feeding programme.

According to the ministry, the school feeding programme has been very crucial in improving education and nutrition status of school children.

Dr Rwanamiza said though there is no data to measure its impact, school feeding was critical in improving punctuality and attendance at school, the decrease of diseases related to malnutrition as well as strengthening ties and relationships between students.

Read more at allafrica.com