The nutrition fallout of school closures

Context:

• The article analyzes the negative impact the school closures have had on the nutrition status of children.

Challenges posed by the lockdown:

• The MDMS has been virtually dysfunctional due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Serving hot meals, at the children’s homes or even at the centre, poses many challenges in the present scenario.
• Even states like Tamil Nadu, with a relatively good infrastructure for the MDMS, are unable to serve the mandated ‘hot cooked meal’ during the lockdown.
  • The National Education Policy, 2020 recommends extending the MDMS to cover other school-going children as well.
  • MDMS is the largest school-feeding programme in the world, which has played an extremely significant role in increasing nutrition and learning among school-going children.

Concerns:

1. Loss of school meals:

• The report of ‘The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020’, released by the Food and Agriculture Organization in partnership with other UN organisations estimates that in April 2020 at the peak of school closures, 369 million children globally were losing out on school meals, with an estimated 116 million of them from India.

2. Nutritional insecurity for children:

• The current situation has exacerbated the problem of child hunger and malnutrition.
• The recent Global Hunger Index (GHI) report for 2020 ranks India at 94 out of 107 countries and in the category ‘serious’.
• The Global Hunger Index is a combination of indicators of undernutrition in the population and wasting, stunting, and mortality in children below five years of age.

3. Goal of Zero hunger:

• India is already far from achieving the ‘Zero Hunger’ goal envisaged under the Sustainable Development Goals. The current circumstances will only further increase the gap.

4. Non-implementation of government orders:

• Despite the orders in March and April 2020 that the usual hot-cooked mid-day meal or an equivalent food security allowance/dry ration would be provided to all eligible school-going children even during vacation, to ensure that their immunity and nutrition is not compromised, states are still struggling to implement this decision.
• The dry ration distributions in lieu of school meals have been irregular.
• According to the Food Corporation of India’s (FCI) food grain bulletin, the off-take of grains under MDMS from FCI during April and May 2020 has been 22% lower than the corresponding off-take during April and May 2019. Most states have reported a decline in the grain offtake from FCI in April-May 2020.

5. Increase in child labour:

• There are also reports of children engaging in labour to supplement the fall in family incomes in vulnerable households.
• A recent report by the International Labour Organization and the UNICEF notes that unless school services and social security are universally strengthened, there is a risk that some children may not even return to schools when they reopen and may indulge in child labour.

Way forward:

• Given that the distribution of dry ration started only in late May, there needs to be the immediate distribution of the April quota with retrospective effect.
• Nutrition experts have suggested local smallholder farmers’ involvement in the school feeding programme. This could involve a livelihood model that links local smallholder farmers with the mid-day meal system for the supply of cereals, vegetables, and eggs.
  • Locally produced vegetables and fruits may be added to the MDMS, also providing an income to local farmers.
  • This would lead to decentralised models and local supply chains.
• This envisaged system apart from enabling nutritional security of children will also aid in diversifying production and farming systems, transform rural livelihoods and the local economy, and fulfill the ‘Atmanirbhar Poshan’ (nutritional self-sufficiency) agenda.
• Initiatives such as the School Nutrition (Kitchen) Garden under MDMS to provide fresh vegetables for mid-day meals should be further strengthened.