KINGSTON, Jamaica — People’s National Party (PNP) Spokesman on Education, Peter Bunting, is imploring the Ministry of Education to discontinue delivering food items for nutritional support to schools in the face of extended closures. 

Bunting noted that one primary school principal expressed surprise that, with no students in attendance, the school is now receiving its first delivery of food items from the ministry since the start of the school year. 

Last Tuesday in Parliament Bunting appealed to the Prime Minister and the Minister of Education to suspend the delivery of food items to schools and instead provide a sum to their parents to cover the nutritional support already budgeted for each child for the coming six weeks. 

Bunting explained that this amount would be added to the Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH) payments already being distributed to parents in the normal course of business, and so would be a very efficient method of distribution. 

He added that this approach would remove the burden of physical distribution from principals and school administrators, while enabling parents to provide nutritious meals for their children in the safety of their homes. 

He said the prime minister, in responding to his suggestion, indicated that the ministry would embark along this sensible path, if they had not already done so. However, Bunting said up to late Friday afternoon, food items were being delivered to schools for principals to deliver to students. 

“I have been receiving complaints about food packages being dropped off at schools and left unattended as administrators are not being notified ahead of time. This whole process is also grossly inefficient, as the cost to collect or deliver the food package can exceed the value of its typical contents – a Nutri Bulla, small boxed milk, and water,” Bunting said.