Last month, the Modi government launched a publicity blitzkrieg to mark the one year anniversary of the New Education Policy. While several suggestions of the NEP became contentious, leading to an all-out tug-of-war between the Union government and its political adversaries, there were at least a couple of suggestions that were well received and had universal acceptance—the extension of the Mid-Day Meal Scheme (MDMS) to pre-primary students and the decision to supplement the meal provided in government and aided schools with breakfast.
The NEP, which replaced the 34-year-old education policy passed in 1984, had noted, “Children are unable to learn optimally when they are undernourished or unwell. Hence, the nutrition and health (including mental health) of children will be addressed through healthy meals and the introduction of well-trained social workers, counsellors and community involvement into the schooling system.”
The policy, citing research, had further noted that providing a nutritious breakfast to students would prove productive in the study of cognitively more challenging subjects. The Union Cabinet had given its nod to the breakfast at school scheme in August 2020. But the proposal to add breakfast to the MDMS menu has been dropped for now.
Recently, during a discussion on the scheme, when the parliamentary standing committee had quizzed the Education Ministry about its status, the ministry had stated that while the decision to cover pre-primary classes by the MDMS was approved by the Ministry of Finance, the MoF did not agree to the breakfast at school proposal owing to the paucity of funds.
The finance ministry’s decision to veto the breakfast scheme, which would have cost the government a sum of Rs 4,000 crore, comes at a time when several surveys have thrown light on the adverse impacts of the pandemic on the nutrition levels and education of children hailing from marginalised backgrounds. According to the National Family Health Survey 2015-19, 18 states have reported a sharp spike in the number of stunted, underweight or wasted children below the age of five. Data by UNESCO says that the closure of about 1.5 million schools has impacted the education of over 247 million children across India.
Earlier this year, the budget of the school department was cut by 8% from Rs 59,845 crore in the 2020-21 budget estimate to Rs 54,873 crore in 2021-22.
While the prime minister has often spoken about India’s demographic dividend, the failure of his government to invest a paltry sum of `4,000 crore on the nation’s future and on the education and nutrition of children hailing from underprivileged communities at a time when it continues to spend thousands of crores on publicity and vanity projects like the Central Vista and custom-built VVIP aircraft for the PM and the President defies logic. The MDMS scheme has been a proven game-changer—ensuring higher enrolment rate in schools and reducing the dropout rate. As schools begin to reopen, there is a strong possibility of children from marginalised backgrounds not joining schools again. Adding breakfast to the MDMS can prove to be an added incentive for such students to come back.
While the Modi government’s U-turn on the breakfast at school scheme is reflective of its failure to prioritise the education and nutrition of India’s children, it also highlights the mismatch between the BJP’s words and actions. Not a long time ago, in the run-up to the Tamil Nadu Assembly polls, the BJP was actively trying to claim the legacies of Kamaraj and M G Ramachandran. In an attempt to gain some much-needed political capital in a state where the saffron party sorely lacks an icon of its own, leaders were making promises of bringing back Kamrajar Aatchi (Kamaraj’s rule) and the golden era of MGR.
Interestingly, both these leaders have been credited for the robust public education system of Tamil Nadu and the expansion of the mid-day meal scheme in the state. While Kamaraj launched the mid-day meal scheme in 1956 and gradually expanded it, MGR as the CM scaled it up 25 times to cover all poor children for 365 days a year. Both MGR and Kamaraj had to find ways to overcome the scarcity of funds and resources to keep the scheme up and running. During his chief ministership, Kamaraj had sought help from locals, community organisations and even international programmes like the American government’s CARE. When MGR decided to expand the scheme, the state had to deal with a deficit of `300 crore and the determined CM had to devise nifty ways to fund the ambitious project. A CM’s Nutritious Noon Meal Programme Fund was created and donations to the fund, which were exempt from income tax, were made mandatory for obtaining government clearances and even routine administrative orders. Funds were also raised by way of a day’s salary of government staff, one month’s salary from the party’s MLAs and MPs and even earnings from cinema shows.
Alternatively, cost-effective and more innovative ways can be employed to provide breakfast under the MDMS. Dr R Gopinath, senior scientist at the M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF) whose areas of specialisation include food security and the MDMS, says, “Lessons can be learned from the examples of states like Gujarat and Kerala that have been providing breakfasts along with mid-day meals. In Kerala, the higher participation of local bodies has facilitated the supplementing of mid-day meals with breakfast. In some areas, schools have taken over adjoining plots and brought them under cultivation. The yield is then utilised for providing breakfasts while resources from the state and Union government are used for the mid-day meals. The government can also identify high-risk malnutrition districts and selectively implement the scheme in such places as soon as the schools reopen.”
It remains to be seen if the BJP-led NDA government finally walks the talk, taking a leaf out of the books of Kamaraj or MGR—the very icons it attempted to appropriate not too long ago—to make the breakfast at school scheme a reality.
Omkar Poojari
Mumbai-based columnist who writes on politics, polls and occasionally on policy
(omkar.poojari999@gmail.com, Tweets @omkarismunlimit)