School Feeding Programme has helped improve attendance – Baksh

TIMES INT'L

Education Minister Shaik Baksh has said that the $ 1.2 billion School Feeding Programme to alleviate hunger in poor school children in the hinterland and on the coastland has been having a positive impact on students’ attendance and performance in schools.

Speaking  at a Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) prize-giving ceremony for a competition on the signing of a petition to end hunger, held at the National Centre for Educational Resource Development (NCERD), Baksh disclosed that the results were unveiled in a recent study conducted by the World Bank.

He stressed that the government is aware of the difficulties of undernourished children being able to learn academically, and he underscored initiatives such as the School Feeding Programme, the US$6M IFAD-funded Rural Enterprise and Development Project (READ), the US$21.9M IDB Agricultural Export Diversification Programme, the US$20 million Agriculture Support Services Project (ASSP) and the ‘Grow More’ campaign as representing the political will to address the problems of hunger and food security in Guyana. 

The READ project aims to strengthen intermediary service providers, institutions whose services add value to production and marketing systems and improve rural welfare; while the ASSP targets drainage and irrigation, farmer education, delegation of authority to water users’ associations, and construction of rice seed facilities.  

He pointed out that the ministry has supported the petition, as it is of the view that the importance of agriculture and its role in addressing food security have to be instilled in students at all levels in the school system. 

This, he said, has to be done through several means, including the revival of gardens at all schools.   And on that score, Baksh said that progress is being made in this regard. He noted that, for the first time, four agriculture specialists have been attached full time to the Ministry of Education, three of whom have been provided by the Agriculture Ministry.

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