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18
August 2003, 8.30 am, Hubli (North Karnataka)
LH Bajantri, headmistress of the girls’ section of Government
Primary School in Moorsavira Math campus welcomed us (volunteers
of Hope Foundation, Bangalore). When we asked her to show us how
the akshara dasoha programme is managed, she agreed
immediately. She first showed us the kitchen and then explained
the innumerable administrative problems of running a large kitchen
to provide daily beesi oota to nearly 300 boys and girls of
her school. She escorted us then to the one-room kitchen stacked
with rice, salt and vegetables. Of the three lady cooks, one was
very angry as she showed us the big vessel which is heavy even if
five men were to lift it. She spoke of how it has to be heated
long enough for the rice to cook, thus consuming a lot of cooking
energy, how the gas cylinder is getting exhausted every week, etc.
As we listened to her, the cooking-gas in the cylinder actually
finished with the rice only half-cooked. Even after a week of
booking a gas-cylinder, it had not been delivered. There was a
flurry of activities. The rice was to be ready at 12 noon when the
children line up, and the women cooks started emptying the
half-boiled rice to a spare vessel borrowed from the neighbouring
house. They virtually pleaded with the house-lady to kindly allow
the rice to be cooked in their kitchen. There were arguments and
the house lady reluctantly allowed the cook of the school to boil
the rice.
We returned at 12 noon and the headmaster of the boys’ section,
Dhalayat (a state level winner of the ‘best teacher’ award)
began his sorry tale of the akshara dasoha. He was frank
enough to admit that these non-teaching duties of running a
kitchen is taking away a lot of the teachers’ time. There are
eight forms and registers prescribed to keep track of how much
rice, condiments, etc. were used, how many kids attended and
consumed it, disbursement of salary to the three cooks, etc. We
talked to the kids who appeared to enjoy what they were eating but
forgot all about it as soon as they had finished.
Adargunchi village in Hubli taluk is 20 kilometres from
Hubli city. At 1.30 in the afternoon, the headmaster of Model
Primary School, MV Javali, welcomed us and showed us the ready
cooked food, the kitchen and introduced us to the three lady
cooks, one of who is from the Dalit community. They complained
about how they are underpaid (Rs 650 for the head cook and Rs 450
and Rs 250 for the assistant cooks). This is not even the minimum
wage prescribed by the government of Karnataka! If we go to the
field, they argued, they can earn Rs 50 per day at least. The big
vessel is too heavy to lift and empty the cooked rice from, they
said. As we spoke, children formed a long queue, some with empty
tiffin boxes and plates given from home and others holding
newspaper sheets given by the teacher. The government has supplied
no plates or mugs. Javali tasted the food before feeding the kids
to comply with the government order that the teacher should
certify the food is fit for eating. He also gave us some cooked
rice. Children sat on the playground and ate their rice.
We moved on to Noolvi village just two kilometres away where akshara
dasoha is not implemented in any of the four schools we
visited. Siddangoudar, sarpanch of Noolvi panchayat,
says that even the poorest parents want better teaching in schools
than cooked food. Earlier, the parents were given two to three
kilograms of rice, which was consumed in the family kitchen,
including the children. This has been stopped with the arrival of akshara
dasoha. Noolvi has lost out, both akshara dasoha and
rice in kind. Siddangoudar says, ‘there is no akshara
(education) – it is all anna (food). Kids want akshara
and not anna, which they can have easily in
their house.
This small eyewitness account of akshara dasoha does not
represent the situation in the entire state. It has some lessons
for planners and managers of primary education in the state
though. Tamil Nadu was the first state to launch the school meal
programme (SMP) almost twenty years ago, thanks to late MG
Ramachandran, who was believed to have starved in childhood and
could not go to school. He launched SMP with the triple objective
of increasing attendance, retention and learning. Several
evaluations done in the state did not reveal any marked gains in
all the three areas despite SMP. But it did achieve social
recognition for Ramachandran and for subsequent governments, and
some degree of malnutrition among school going kids was reduced.
This was indeed a positive gain. This may as well happen in
Karnataka.
Children attend schools in most states not because of cooked food
but because of better teaching and joyful learning. Both
Rabindranath Tagore and Mahatma Gandhi, in their basic education
models, never thought of feeding in schools to promote learning.
Kids have diverse tastes and eating habits, and to make a dent in
their malnutrition levels menus have to keep changing. Our
teachers are trained neither for catering nor for nutritional
services. Our panchayats in Karnataka have remained
spectators in all village development programmes. If the village panchayats
are entrusted with the task of serving hot food to both anganwadi
centres and primary schools with the help of women self-help
groups, they can do a good job. What type of cooking vessels to be
used, how many cooks and whom to appoint as cooks, what kind of
rice and dal, etc. are all left to the wisdom of panchayat
members.
Unfortunately, education bureaucrats sitting in Bangalore, without
knowledge of village politics and economics, run akshara dasoha.
A number of issues have been raised in the context of school meals
all over the country and not just in Karnataka. There are several
dimensions to the debate. First and foremost is the issue of the
health of kids who are in school. What will improve their health?
Is bad health a primary reason for dropouts and bad learning?
Several studies have shown that SMP does help in promoting good
health, provided it is linked to the provision of deworming and
micronutrient supplementation like Vitamin A given as a package
and not piece-meal. Cooking the food with iodised salt would add
to the reduction of iodine deficiency among kids as well. The SMP
in Gujarat has shown some gains in this respect (See Tara Gopaldas,
Nutriview 2003/2 Oxford)
Secondly, is there a link between learning levels and SMP? There
are no micro-level studies to show that learning levels have gone
up because of SMP. There are many unfounded claims by state
education ministers on SMP directly contributing to better
learning. Even in Tamil Nadu, which has run its SMP for more than
two decades, there are no authentic studies to prove that
learning levels have gone up as a result of SMP. Learning
depends on several factors like the teachers’ ability to make
learning joyful, the efficient use of pedagogy, textbooks,
cognitive ability of kids and so on. It is argued that a hungry
child cannot learn. It is also true that once the child’s mind
goes in search of learning, the teachers’ skill becomes
critical. SMP cannot substitute a good teacher for promoting good
learning.
The third issue is that of catering. Cooking food daily, finding
its taste, its nutrient value and content, timeliness of cooking
operations, certification on its safety, cooks not reporting to
duty and the alternate arrangements to be made, etc. are all
management issues which cannot be burdened on teachers who are not
trained to manage these services. We have created a constitutional
body of the panchayat at the village level. Besides, there
are hundreds of self-help groups in all the states. But school
authorities in many state capitals still want to control the SMP
by deciding the size of the vessel where rice and dal is
cooked, the ingredients, the type of vegetables to be used and how
much salt and condiments to be added, etc.! Karnataka Panchayat
Raj Act 1993 Section 58 Schedule I provides a list of functions to
be entrusted to village panchayats. Sub-sections XIII, XX,
XXI proclaim that panchayats have to promote school health
and nutrition programmes, participate in the implementation of
women and child welfare programmes, ensure full enrolment and
attendance in primary schools and promote public awareness and
participation in primary and secondary education. In Karnataka’s
akshara dasoha programme, the panchayats have no role in managing
the SMP except that the panchayat secretary is made to sign
the appointment letter of cooks. The selection of cooks is made by
a committee presided over by the sub-divisional officer in which
the village falls. Karnataka has always claimed that it is very
progressive in the matter of providing funds, functionaries and
functions to the village panchayats. Karnataka has an
imaginative minister in charge of panchayats and has gone
on record to say that the government has delegated 29 functions as
enshrined in the 73rd Constitutional amendments. The above
situation continues to prevail in the context of SMP in the state.
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