Lilongwe District Council principal nutrition,HIV and Aids officer Edna Mwangonde has called for collaboration to scale up the school-feeding programme in the district.

She said this on Wednesday during a District Nutrition Coordinating Committee quarterly meeting conducted to update stakeholders on nutrition activities.

Mwangonde said it was sad to note that out of 490 primary schools, only 105 schools are on school-feeding programme, representing 21 percent of those benefitting from the school meals.

Learners enjoy porridge at a primary school in Lilongwe

“We are very much behind and it is a danger considering high levels of malnutrition and food insecurity among children, particularly those from poor and rural households,” she said.

Mwangonde appealed to non-governmental organisations to support the district to reach out to more learners with the programme.

Lilongwe East District school health and nutrition coordinator Joseph Kanyangala said if well implemented, the programme has the potential to reduce dropout and malnutrition rates.

“The programme is a great success because it addresses school dropout rate which was high in the past and even classroom attendance which was very low. We need to add more schools on the programme,” he said

Speaking in a separate interview, Lilongwe District Civil Society Network chairperson Gibozi Mphanzi said the figures on school-feeding programme are very worrisome.

The National School-Feeding Programme seeks to provide daily meals to primary school learners and is being implemented by the Ministry of Education in collaboration with various ministries, development partners and non-governmental organisations.

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The post Council urges scaling up of school-feeding programme appeared first on The Nation Online.