. . . Running the lunches from Wellington is inefficient. The savings from centralisation are illusory. The incentives are all wrong. The demand for a free service is infinite. Schools having no responsibility have unrealistic expectations. The teachers will ensure the programme fails.
Far too many of them are motivated by politics rather than what is best for their pupils.
Pay the $3 a lunch to schools. Let schools and parents decide if their pupils go to school to eat lunch or to get an education. Locals will find better solutions. As it is their money, schools will only provide the number of meals that will be eaten.
Many school boards will support pupils experiencing hardship and spend the remaining funds on education.
The Government should pay the $3 a day only for pupils who are at school. As regular attendance is about 50%, the savings will be significant.
The incentives will ensure the policy is a success. Schools can choose to provide free lunches. Whatever choice, it will be cost-effective. Paying for only pupils who are at school will help tackle absenteeism.
We will have regular attendance only when the Minister of Education is courageous enough to pay schools based on the number of students they teach, not the number they enrol.
The Prime Minister has told the nation school lunches are Seymour’s responsibility. Seymour should take the PM at his word and announce this new school lunch policy, starting next term.
Hungry children won’t be in a good state for learning, but nor will they be fussy.
One of the faults of the school lunch programme is that it either goes to all pupils in a school or none.
Children in low decile schools whose families could and would give them lunch are provided with a meal and children in high decile schools whose parents can’t, or won’t, provide a lunch go without.
Giving schools the money won’t stop complaints, a lot of which are politically motivated, but it could stop the waste of both food and money through local control of what is served and who gets it.
Ele Ludemann is a North Otago farmer and journalist, who blogs HERE - where this article was sourced.
4 comments:
From observation of low decile school near me, a BMI test would be appropriate. It seems absuurd that at a school where many only walk with difficulty and wear tailored clothes , that lunch should be provided.
The simplest and most cost effective solution is to have it cease to exist.
I agree with Anna . This is a health community problem not a schooling one.
School lunches and meals should only be provided by boarding schools and then only to those who are actually boarding.
It's not the taxpayer's responsibility to feed other people's kids especially those who are irresponsible.
Many schools once had small shops privately run on the premises where students could purchase lunch.
What happened to those?
Has free enterprise been completely stifled now in NZ?
No wonder we are stuffed and not by our school lunches.
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