When schools whet the appetite of students, and feed them

Tamil Nadu govt. introduces free breakfast scheme for primary school students, providing immense relief to parents and improved attendance records. Scheme is first of its kind in India, with budget of ₹500-odd crore/yr. Benefits include improved nutrition, attendance, enrolment, and health. Technology used to monitor progress, and SHG members employed to ensure quality. Incidents of caste pride must be prevented to ensure success of scheme.

For K. Devi, a mother of three, immense relief came from unexpected quarters a couple of weeks ago. Her children go to the Government Primary School at Kondathe, a tiny, largely tribal, hamlet in the Jawadhu Hills of Tiruvannamalai district. The news that the school would give her children not only lunch but also breakfast came as a pleasant surprise to Ms. Devi. It took a whole load off her rushed mornings, when she and her husband, both farmworkers, leave home early. That the school would take care of her children and spare her the trouble of giving the children something to eat, no doubt, brought her much joy. “Earlier, we sent our children to school because at least they can have a good lunch there. Now, they get breakfast, too. We are happy,” she says.

P. Palani, headmaster of the school which her children attend, is also a relieved man. “Earlier the children, particularly the 13 children in the primary sections, would complain that they were hungry or cry out of hunger or just doze off during class. Now, no one complains! In fact, they are coming to school early so that they would be in time for the breakfast,” he says.

For both Ms. Devi and Mr. Palani, the satisfaction stems from the free breakfast scheme, which was introduced by the Tamil Nadu government in 2022 at select schools and which has been extended about a year later to all primary schools in the State. Tamil Nadu is the first State to launch a free breakfast scheme for students of government primary schools, a massive public venture. In the first phase, the government inaugurated the Chief Minister’s Breakfast Scheme at 1,545 primary schools run by the government, covering 1.14 lakh children of Classes I-V. On August 15 this year, the scheme was extended to all primary schools to benefit about 17 lakh students at 31,008 schools. The budgetary allocation is ₹500-odd crore every year.

The project reportedly benefits from the personal attention of Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, who follows in the footsteps of his predecessors. Tamil Nadu leaders have always laid stress on feeding students, ensuring they are able to study on a full stomach. Devised as a strategy to bring children to school, the programme also serves the twin goals of keeping children hunger-free, at a relatively low cost, and ensuring that they get adequate nutrition.

It was in 1920 that the first government scheme to provide free food, at the cost of one anna per student, was implemented. For two years, it was stopped after the British government disallowed the drawal from the Education Fund. But it revived subsequently. However, the two more prominent personalities with whom the concept of free school meal has irrevocably been linked are K. Kamaraj of the Congress, who introduced the scheme at schools in the 1950s, and M.G. Ramachandran of the AIADMK, who extended its reach in 1982. It was a flagship scheme for late Chief Ministers M. Karunanidhi and Jayalalithaa too, and innovations, additions and modifications to the menu were regular, even if not constant.

Successive governments have responded well to the scientific imperative, and the social duty of preventing hunger among children, with the noon-meal scheme. The breakfast scheme crosses a further milestone. Nutritionists consider breakfast to be the prime meal of the day, the most important one, because it allows the body to be replenished with glucose and nutrients in order to have an active day. The menu provided at schools includes rice, wheat and vermicelli upma, pongal, kitchadi, with vegetable sambhar, and sweet pongal and kesari.

The government started with a scientific baseline study, conducted among older children (9-12 years) though, working on the assumption that their younger brothers or sisters may be in the same situation. While 57% of the children said they ate breakfast at home daily, about 43% said they did not eat breakfast at all, or had it occasionally, with 17% saying they never ate breakfast, says K. Elambahavath, project co-ordinator for the scheme. The government intervention would definitely be a welcome measure and not in excess, the baseline study proved, he adds.