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EDITOR — What is the hullabaloo about the school feeding programme? Some school authorities are taking it as if its compulsory when it is voluntary. 

I would like to believe that each and every school gave parents forms to complete indicating whether their child or children would eat at school or not. That is the end of the story. 

The form is the evidence and must be respected. There are so many reasons why some parents are reluctant or have chosen not to agree to the feeding programme: Religion, principle, the standard of cooking, hygiene both of kitchen and the cooks and the quality of food itself.

Let us not forget one very important thing and that is the exercise of one’s freedom of choice. Zimbabwe is a democratic country and democracy is sacrosanct to all of us individually, severally or as a group, a community or a society. 

Some schools are misrepresenting the ministry’s policy with respect to the feeding programme. It’s common cause now that at some schools, teachers eat free food at the expense of parents hence the reason why they (the school authorities/teachers) enforce payment as if its compulsory. 

The story is told, interestingly, that in some rural schools the wise parents have rejected the practice of paying money to the school preferring instead to give children relish to take to school since Government provides maize free of charge. 

This ensures transparency. 

At a certain school (name supplied) the teachers and the School Development Committee (SDC) want money in cash and the impression given is that feeding at school is forced on children: the government says that every child must eat at school. 

This is not true. The ministry cannot and does not get into private homes to determine whether there is hunger and to what extent.

The parents know better, of course, the government is perfectly correct to say that “every child must eat” but this does not imply or mean that parents are forced to pay and children to eat hence the forms to be completed.

The head and the SDC at the school mentioned above have got it all wrong. In other words, they are holding the wrong end of the stick. 

Parents have got the right to exercise freedom of choice. School authorities must not read too much into the feeding programme and dramatise it out of context for personal reasons, covert or overt. 

Also, a government policy does not necessarily or automatically translate into a law to be obeyed willy nilly as Section 57 of the constitution succinctly puts it: “Every person has inherent dignity in their private and public life, and the right to have that dignity respected and protected.” 

Personally, I don’t see why the much ado and farce about the school feeding programme other than some teachers and SDCs are abusing the noble effort by the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education for the reasons already mentioned above.

“Every child must eat” must not be taken literally. One unschooled teacher at a certain school (name supplied) had the audacity to tell a fantastic lie by saying that the feeding programme was part of the curriculum. 

To tell all the readers, Mr Editor, here is the truth, the church schools are sitting on a tripod: the church as the legal owner (de jure), the parents as the de facto owner (in fact) and the State as the regulatory authority and employer of the teachers, civil servants, whose paymaster are the taxpayers.

The church as the so-called Responsible Authority contributes nothing. The church is as parasitic as a savanna stick and without parents, without the communities, there can be no church school. 

In fact, the parents and the local authorities can run all the schools in their areas of jurisdiction. The feeding programme is benefiting the teachers more than the pupils as they eat free food. 

It’s disgraceful to see teachers running around carrying platefuls of meal rice.

Martin Stobart, Lupan