Northwestern Provincial Education Officer Fredrick Munkinyi says over 200 thousand learners benefited from the on-going implementation of the school feeding programme last year.
In an interview with ZANIS, Mr Munkinyi said the learners are from 525 schools dotted in seven Districts that were selected based on their vulnerability.
And Mr Munkinyi has disclosed that the number of Districts to benefit from the school feeding programme is expected to rise to 10 in 2025 with three more districts having been added to the previous seven.
“As a Province, up to the end of 2024 we had seven Districts on the programme which were Ikelenge, Kasempa, Mwinilunga, Manyinga, Mushindamo, Mufumbwe and Zambezi. And we had 525 schools from these Districts giving us a total of 230,592 learners benefiting from the school feeding programme,” he said.
Mr Munkinyi named the new additional districts to include Chavuma, Kabompo and Kalumbila.
“The School feeding programme is quite beneficial, as you are aware we just talked about vulnerability. When people are vulnerable they may not have any food for their children as they send them to school and a hungry child normally is dormant in class because usually they do not have energy and they are weak and so on,” he said.
He said with the implementation of the school programme, learners are energised, given nutrients and help them to be active and healthy.
“This programme also helps in boosting concentration of learners in class resulting in improved learner performance and actually reduces absenteeism because learners are always looking forward to going to school not only for lessons but for a meal too,” he said.
In his address to parliament last week, on measures taken by government to ensure progress in the application of National values and principles, President Hakainde Hichilema said the number of vulnerable learners benefiting from the School Programme increased from 2.2 million to 4.7 million. And the beneficiary Districts have increased from 82 in 2023 to 106 in 2024.
