THE National School Nutrition Policy, through which the Government will guide, and in some cases mandate, school cafeterias to provide healthier meals for students, is one step closer to being rolled out.

According to Education Minister Senator Dr Dana Morris Dixon the long-awaited policy was discussed and approved by Cabinet on Monday and is to be tabled in Parliament as a white paper shortly.

“This policy has been in train for a long time and I’m so very happy…that we’re finally at this point where we can bring to Jamaica the National School Nutrition Policy which will change the way our children get their meals in schools and the entire apparatus around school nutrition,” Morris Dixon told a post-Cabinet media briefing at Jamaica House in St Andrew on Wednesday.

The move comes following numerous public consultations on the policy while it was a green/discussion paper.

Green and white papers are documents used during the policy development stage of legislation.

A green paper indicates the general intent of the Government and invites submissions from the public before the legislation is drafted.

In 2022 as the school nutrition green paper made its way around the island, calls were made for dieticians and nutritionists trained at two of the island’s universities to be made part of the monitoring framework once it is rolled out in schools.

It was argued then the vision for the policy would not materialise if monitoring was left up to the teachers, and professionals were excluded.

At that time the then acting permanent secretary in the education ministry, Maureen Dwyer, said the proposal, and others which were raised by students, would be communicated to the minister for consideration.

A 2016-2017 poll by the National Education Inspectorate — in which some 12,000 students at the primary and secondary level were questioned about nutrition in their schools — found that at the primary level, 64 per cent felt the canteen provided nutritious meals while at the secondary level only 48 per cent of students felt the meals were good.

Some students actually reported that they “got raw meat” and that “the oil that was used [to prepare meals] was stale”, while some said, “the food they got was just shoved at them”.

Among the concern raised at that 2022 consultation by pupils who hailed from primary schools, high schools and universities, was the cost of healthy meals which they contended are more expensive than unhealthy foods.

Concerns were also expressed about the affordability of balanced meals for students on the Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH). Students also expressed the need for a feedback mechanism so they can report schools which are delinquent in providing healthy meals.

Dwyer, commenting further at the end of that session, had said, “maybe we need to do a little more to make the policy a little more realistic, based on the feedback from our students.”

The National School Nutrition Policy is being developed by the Government to ensure that children are exposed to good nutrition and healthy lifestyles.

Since January 1, 2020, sweetened drinks with total sugar concentration exceeding a maximum of five grams/100 millilitres have been banned from schools.