THE Ministry of Education is putting together a proposal for a breakfast programme to benefit the island’s needy children, many of whom attend school without the benefit of that essential first meal of the day.

Acting permanent secretary in the Ministry of Education Grace McLean made the revelation to Career & Education on Wednesday, noting that they were proceeding on the basis of instructions from the new minister Ronald Thwaites.

“He [Thwaites] has been exploring this whole breakfast programme because what we have been finding out is that a lot of our children are just not ready for learning because they start the day with a deficit — they are hungry,” she said.

As such, McLean said the ministry was putting together the proposal — which should be ready by about mid-March — on how to better utilise funds so as to accommodate such a programme.

“We are also doing an audit to find out how many schools across the country have a breakfast programme [as well as] how they are funded, how they are supported,” she noted.

Once the proposal is written — complete with details on existing breakfast programmes in schools and the statistics on those that do not have one in place — they will move to the next stage.

“We would have to have discussions internally with the ministry and then go there [to Cabinet for approval, having looked] at [the] internal resources,” McLean said.

The ministry currently spends hundreds of millions on its school-feeding programme which benefits some 136,000 students in primary and all-age schools islandwide.

The programme has two elements, one of which sees students provided with snack items, including bun/bulla or rock cake and milk, through Nutrition Products Limited (NPL), which is currently being divested to realise cost-effectiveness. It currently costs the government $721 million on the recurrent side and $4.7 million on the capital side to run the NPL.

The other component of the school-feeding programme sees students provided with hot meals prepared by their schools. The ministry funds the provision of these meals to the tune of $264.679 million this financial year. The schools also receive a grant — which amounts to some $78.75 million this financial year — to purchase produce.

Meanwhile, McLean said she anticipates support from stakeholder groups as they move to help more children through the addition of a school breakfast programme.

“Education has a lot of goodwill in this country and the private sector and other stakeholders are really willing to support the children in any way they can,” she said.