Cape Town - The Western Cape school nutrition programme is not reaching many of the learners it’s meant to benefit.
This was the sentiment expressed by the Western Cape Education Department (WCED) during a briefing to the Standing Committee on Education, on Tuesday.
National school nutrition programme director Lindelwa Sopotela said the allocated budget for the programme in the province was R451 289 000 for the 2022-2023 financial year, with 1024 schools and 507 332 learners benefiting from the programme.
The school feeding programme provides meals to all learners in quintiles 1-3 primary and secondary schools, as well as identified special schools for all school days.
The programme also provides meals to selected quintile 4-5 schools for 190 days, Sopotela said.
South African schools are ranked into one of five quintiles, with quintile 1 representing the poorest schools and quintile 5 the wealthiest schools.
Part of the national norms and standards, the quintile system was introduced in 1998 to bring about equity in education in the post-apartheid era.
The department has 571 food gardens at schools with 146 gardeners.
Challenges pertaining to the programme include expanding it to include quintile 4 and 5 schools.
WCED Institution Development and Co-ordination deputy director-general, Archie Lewis, said: “We think we are doing fairly well except for the fact that the majority of your quintile 4 schools, almost all of them, are still schools that are located in relatively poor locations and the current economic situation is further complicating the situation.
“So many poor children, whom we would regard as needing to benefit from the feeding scheme, are excluded and that is something we are trying to work on as a department.”