Education
Whether her department reached out to the 1 000 schools and the 485 000 beneficiaries of the school feeding scheme to distribute one takeaway a day; if not, why not; if so, what are the relevant details?
The school principals were invited to open their schools for an emergency feeding programme during the lockdown period.
Since 8 April 2020, 1 132 800 meals have been served to learners (data as at 8 May 2020). An average of approximately 65 000 learners in 284 sites is fed per day for 2 days in a week.
The feeding programme is funded by the Provincial Treasury, and not the National School Nutrition Programme conditional grant. Comprehensive safety guidelines were submitted to schools to implement the takeaway meals, including:
- Having sufficient adult supervision available to make sure learners are following all the safety protocols
- Ensuring an orderly queuing system, preferably in a staggered manner to reduce the number of learners arriving at the same time
- Learners must bring their own food containers from home, which are not touched by the staff/volunteers
- Ensuring that learners remain at least 1.5m apart from one another
- Providing soap and water for learners to wash their hands, or hand sanitizer
- Learners will not eat at school – they will go directly to school, collect their meals, and go directly home
SAPS was also made aware of the plans, and agreed to patrol the areas around the schools when meals are being served where possible.
The Western Cape is the only province to date to undertake a school feeding scheme during the lockdown period.
