EDUCATION Minister Dr Rupert Roopnaraine has reported that the administration is looking to implement a hot meal programme in some areas on the coastland.Speaking with the Guyana Chronicle, Dr Roopnaraine said the programme has been a resounding success in the hinterland regions, and based on the success there, he has not ruled out introducing it on the coastland. If this programme comes on stream, most likely it will be implemented in poor communities.

The government had announced that the some of $2 billion allocated to $10,000 per child education cash grant will be redirected to the school feeding programme.
The juice and biscuit programme on the coastland may also be upgraded.
“The school feeding programme has been a great success in the hinterland where we have rolled out the hot mean programme. On the coast, we have in some areas a juice and biscuit programme. I think that we may be looking for a change in the juice and biscuit programme to a fortified milk and biscuit programme,” Dr Roopnaraine told this publication.
The school feeding programme has been very expensive to up keep, and as such, the Education Ministry intends to adopt a methodical approach in expanding it on the coastland.
Dr Roopnaraine said the administration is trying to do the best it can to help children in need. “I want to see the school feeding programme be such that we can ensure that children are not hungry in the classrooms. Because you and I know, hungry children will not learn. We have a great interest in ensuring children when they come to school if they don’t receive an efficient meal at home we can provide a healthy breakfast and hopefully we can provide a hot meal wherever we can,” he said.
The hot meal programme would be of great benefit to children of poor parents, many of whom are forced to be absent from school because their parents cannot provide adequately for them.
But an expansion of the programme would require the building of facilities and the upgrading of kitchens.
The Education Minister said “all of this is before us,” as he pointed out that where the hot meal programme has been implemented, students’ attendance was high and their performance improved.
He said the Ministry is continuously looking at ways to improve students’ attendance and performance and the school feeding programme has been of useful help in this regard. The School Feeding Programme targets students in Grades One to Three, and thousands have benefited since its implementation.
The Administration has promised to invest in young people, and an expansion of the school feeding programme is in keeping with that mandate, Dr Roopnaraine said. Minister within the Ministry of Public Health Dr Karen Cummings had earlier said adolescents in need of help are expected to receive much-needed support as her Ministry moves to establish a special fund to assist them.
She had explained that the fund will be used to sponsor community and private gardens, where vegetables and other staples of good nutritional value will be cultivated for consumption.
“The Ministry of Public Health will sit with our international partners to iron out the details of this idea of Gardening for Healthy Lifestyles to see how this practical pilot project could help achieve the shift from nutrition awareness to nutrition access in healthy foods,” she said.
The CARING Packing Programme, she said will target adolescents in the different regions.
“The agenda is not only to translate the science of nutrition into healthy lifestyle practices and holistic values, but my government will introduce a monthly cooking/feeding programme for adolescents most in need of access to basic foods items. The shift from awareness to action will function as a bridge over troubled waters,” Dr Cummins contended.