Free State school wins National School Nutrition Programme awards
Meqheleng Primary School was the big winner at the National School Nutrition Programme (NSNP) Best School Awards held in Ficksburg on Thursday, 19 March 2015.
The school was named as the Best School in the NSNP for 2014 and won a fully equipped kitchen or dining hall as well as eating utensils such as plates, cups and spoons donated by the Tiger Brands Foundation. The school also received a three-year supply of breakfast meals.
The NSNP feeds more than nine million learners at 21 000 schools daily, ensuring that learners have a healthy and nutritious meal each day. The provision of meals contributes to improved learner attendance and performance.
The Department of Basic Education, in partnership with the Tiger Brands Foundation, conducts the NSNP Best School Awards to recognise excellence, innovation and dedication of districts and schools in successfully implementing the programme.
The awards have two categories; Best District and Best Schools. The Overberg district in the Western Cape was crowned as the best district and won R50 000 in office equipment. Mbatini Primary School in Mpumalanga was awarded second place in the Best Schools category, while Rekgonne Bapo Special School in the North West came third. Both schools received cooking equipment to further bolster the feeding schemes at their schools.
The school feeding programme was first introduced in 1994 targeting primary schools only, but it has since been extended to include both primary and high schools in quintiles 1 to 3. The programme is run by voluntary food handlers who ensure that learners receive at least one meal per day, which allows them to focus on their school work. The programme is but one of the DBE’s pro-poor measures aimed at increasing learner attendance at schools.
