By Alusine Fullah

The Government of Sierra Leone aims to achieve its Free Quality Education through an improved nationwide school feeding programme for government and government-assisted primary schools. The objective of the programme is to ensure that every child registered in pre-school, primary and junior secondary schools has access to nutritious lunch. In order to achieve the above-mentioned, the Government relaunched the School Feeding Programme in 2018 and encouraged the enrolment and completion of school, while improving the nutritional and health status of the pupils.

As a flagship programme that has the interest of both donors and citizens, the Government of Sierra Leone (GoSL) in its educational plan has stated that it has spent huge sums of money and is also committed to spend more resources and ensure that the objective of this intervention is achieved. It is against this background that I have decided to blow my conch on the management of School Feeding Project. So relax and draw your seat belt tight as I conch out the defects of the School Feeding Program.

It is evident that in certain schools, garri was supplied to the pupils even though it was not desired by them, and the school authorities were neither informed nor was any assessment done to gauge the pupils’ receptiveness to garri.  Joint Aide Management (JAM) supplied expired mana packs to schools in Tonkolili. Food items were supplied six months after the reopening of schools (March 2020) instead of a month before the re-opening of school.

The Audit Report vividly puts it:  “Of a total of 22 schools visited that benefited from the SFP, only eight had storage facilities with three in good condition.  We observed delay in the preparation and sharing of food by an average time of 45 minutes.

Based on my conched observation, I have come to realize that food is not prepared and shared in a hygienic manner. In several schools that I visited, food was placed on the floor during preparation and sharing.  The School Feeding Secretariat did not have a system in place for the monitoring and evaluation of the SFP.

As I conch it right from the headline that the School Feeding Program has failed. My observation has revealed that there has been poor monitoring from the School Feeding Secretariat. I am quite sure that this project would have been successful, if the Ministry of Basic and Senior Secondary School had implemented thorough monitoring strategies.

In line with the above, the National School Feeding Policy 2021 puts emphases on the monitoring of this project. It states: “The School Feeding Secretariat will develop an annual operational plan (AOP) which will be the basis for monitoring the SFP. Programme managers will collaborate with Regional Coordinators to track progress on sub-national activities and results collated into half-yearly (bi-annual) reports. Each district will organize a bi-annual review meeting on the achievement of key policy areas that fall within the scope of local authorities.”

However, the monitory policies were actually stated in theories, but they have not been implemented practically. In line with that, the Audit Report exposes that: “We noted that the School Feeding Secretariat did not have a system in place to monitor and evaluate the School Feeding Program (SFP). Requests were made for school feeding documents for the period under review, but no evaluation plans or reports were submitted. The secretariat had no mechanism in place to collect and analyse data. There was no adequate staffing, no budgetary allocation and no required equipment to carry out the SFP. We observed gaps in the information that needed to be collected and analysed.”

To conch it more, improving the school feeding program is imperative for human development and economic growth. It is an integral part of Sierra Leone’s priorities to achieving the vision for long-term development. This is so because of the returns derived from good nutrition for schoolchildren both in their immediate and longer-term competencies. Besides, relieving short-term hunger and contributing to improved health of learners and their access to education is very august in the drive of the Free Quality Education.