The Hindu : Amartya Sen lauds mid-day meal scheme

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Saturday, Aug 02, 2003

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Amartya Sen lauds mid-day meal scheme

By Our Staff Correspondent

NEW DELHI AUG. 1. The Nobel laureate, Amartya Sen, has praised the mid-day meal scheme being implemented in the country's primary schools.

"I think it is a terrific way of enhancing nutrition among children," he said today after the release of a report on "The Future of Mid-Day Meals" prepared by the Centre for Development Economics at the Delhi School of Economics. "Schooling can be a major possibility of nourishment and the food reaches exactly where you want it to reach."

If the lack of incentives was a problem in attracting children to school, the mid-day meal could take care of it, Prof. Sen said, suggesting that the cost involved in the process had to be balanced with the benefits it offered. "In a country that has the bulk of the world's under-nourished children, the scheme is worth pursuing," he said. It could also eliminate possible discrimination at home against a girl child.

Apart from education and nutrition, the scheme taught children a way of living together without any discrimination of caste which otherwise could be a possibility. "It is a way of achieving the social target of removing casteism and not just a traditional exercise of achieving academic education."

Issuing a call to make the issue an emotive one, the Rajya Sabha member, Shabana Azmi, said providing food and quality education should happen simultaneously.

Summarising the report, Jean Dreze of the Centre for Development Economics said it was a form of providing food security to children.

The survey — conducted in Chhattisgarh, Karnataka and Rajasthan — has shown that the scheme has much to contribute to the children's well-being and future. As things stand, the scheme has many flaws but the way to go is forward and not backward, it says. "With adequate resources and quality safeguards, midday meals can play a major role in boosting school attendance, eliminating classroom hunger and fostering social equity."

Stressing the need for qualitative improvements urgently required if midday meals were to achieve their full potential, it suggests a number of priorities for action such as increasing the financial allocation, improvement in the infrastructure, monitoring system and enhancing the nutritional content of the mid-day meals.

According to the survey, there had been an increase of 15 per cent in the enrolment of students at the level of Class I with the percentage of girls being higher.

There were instances of bad quality of food being served in some schools as were some experiences of a separate infrastructure for Dalit students. Besides, some parents objected to their children being served food cooked by Dalit cooks and a few teachers pointed out that preparing meals affected teaching due to lack of infrastucture.

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